Lowering speed limits could prevent pedestrian deaths on GTA roads

Yorkregion.com
Dec. 11, 2016
By Ben Spurr and William Davis

Just before a minivan struck and killed Erica Stark, the vehicle had jumped the curb, run over a TTC bus stop pole, careered off a hydro box and slammed into a light standard.

But even after the van hit those objects, it was still travelling with sufficient velocity when it struck Stark that police would later tell her husband she was thrown at a speed of between 34 km/h and 43 km/h.

She was standing on the sidewalk when the van left the road, and when it collided with her, Stark’s head smashed into the windshield. When she was thrown in the air, she hit her head again on the pavement. The 42-year-old mother of three died at the scene from a combination of blunt force trauma and internal bleeding. Her death, on Nov. 6, 2014, ripped a hole in her family.

“Not a day goes by when we don’t think of Erica and how our lives have been permanently changed by what happened,” David Stark, her husband of 17 years, told the Star.

The driver of the minivan, Elizabeth Taylor, was convicted of careless driving last Monday, and given a $1,000 fine, six months probation and a one-month driving ban.

Two witnesses testified that Taylor was driving fast on Midland Ave., a wide four-lane road, before she struck Erica Stark at the intersection of Gilder Dr., but the presiding justice of the peace determined there was no evidence that Taylor was going above the posted speed limit of 50 km/h.

David Stark, for his part, finds it hard to believe that speed wasn’t a significant factor.

And although how fast Taylor was travelling may never be determined, there is no question there is a strong connection between high speeds and traffic deaths.

Despite convincing evidence that slowing down saves lives, Toronto has refused to endorse what advocates say could be the most effective way to prevent more deaths: lowering the city’s default speed limit to 40 km/h from 50 km/h.

“I would go so far as to say that if the Toronto road safety plan doesn’t incorporate extensive speed limit reductions then we’re not going to see a big decrease in pedestrian fatalities,” said Michael Black, co-founder of the advocacy group Walk Toronto.

He argued that lowering the default limit by 10 km/h would “likely reduce fatalities and injuries on Toronto’s roads more effectively than any other measure.”

Toronto is in the midst of a record year for traffic deaths. So far, more than 40 pedestrians have died in 2016, more than any other year in at least a decade.Seniors are bearing the brunt of the crisis — they make up 14 per cent of the population, but represent more than 60 per cent of pedestrian fatalities.

Despite the urgency of the problem, city council has taken a piecemeal approach to lowering speed limits.

Councillors routinely support lowering limits in their own wards when residents request it. And in what was likely the city’s boldest move on the issue, the Toronto and East York Community Council last year voted to reduce the speed limit on all local roads within its jurisdiction to 30 km/h.

But Albert Koehl, an environmental lawyer and road safety advocate, said the city’s unsystematic approach means that a community is only made safer if its residents are organized and their councillor is responsive.

“It becomes an obvious equity issue,” he said. “Being safe shouldn’t be a question of what part of the city you live in.”

The new $80-million road safety plan that council approved in July takes what city officials describe as a “targeted” approach to speed reductions, lowering limits only on certain streets deemed “high risk” based on collision data from the past decade. The plan will lower limits to 40 km/h from 50 km/h on about two dozen streets.

But a Star analysis shows that of the 42 pedestrian deaths between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1 this year, just six took place on streets where the speed limits will be reduced as part of the plan. An additional six deaths occurred in areas slated for “safety audits,” which could result in reduced speeds.

Public works chair Councillor Jaye Robinson, who spearheaded the plan, has said she’s “open-minded” about more widespread speed reductions, but defended the current “evidenced-based approach.”

“This is through a detailed analysis of the city’s collision data, and staff have identified these corridors as problem locations,” she said. According to Robinson, speeds have already been lowered on 14 “pedestrian safety corridors” identified in the plan, and the city is making other alterations such as better pedestrian markings and physical overhauls at these locations.

The public health case for lowering speed limits is well established. Landmark British research conducted in the 1970s determined that pedestrians have an 85-per-cent chance of dying when hit by a vehicle travelling at about 65 km/h, a 45-per-cent chance at about 50 km/h, and only a 5-per-cent chance at about 30 km/h.

The correlation holds true on Toronto’s streets. According to a 2015 Toronto Public Health report on pedestrian and cyclist safety, 57 per cent of fatal pedestrian collisions in the city occurred on roads with a posted speed limit of 60 km/h, while only 9 per cent took place on roads with limits of 40 km/h.

Monica Campbell, director of healthy public policy at Toronto Public Health, explained that lower speeds don’t just reduce the force of impact in collisions, they make it easier for drivers to avoid crashes in the first place.

“If you’re travelling quickly, you have a very narrow range of vision,” she said. Travelling at slower speeds allows drivers to have a better view of what’s happening. That enables them to stop sooner and to spot hazards such as someone darting out from behind a parked car.

“What we know is there will be fewer collisions, there will be fewer injuries. And when there are injuries they will be less severe,” Campbell said.

The idea of lowering Toronto’s default limit has been proposed before. In 2012, Toronto’s medical officer of health recommended lowering speed limits to 30 km/h on residential streets and 40 km/h on all other roads unless otherwise posted.

The recommendation wasn’t well-received. Then-mayor Rob Ford slammed the report and lashed out at the officer of health, calling his six-figure salary “an embarrassment.”

But with growing concern about pedestrian deaths, there are signs the political climate is changing.

Stephen Holyday, an Etobicoke councillor seen by many as staunchly pro-car, doesn’t dismiss the idea of lower default speeds out of hand.

“I think having a discussion about 40 km/h is a productive discussion,” he said. But he voiced concerns, shared by many road safety advocates and city transportation staff, that lower limits don’t work unless accompanied by design changes and stringent enforcement. Those measures can be expensive.

“If you change the tin sign that’s hanging up, it doesn’t mean the driver is necessarily going to suddenly slow down,” Holyday said.

In July, council asked staff to look into the implications of requesting the province to lower default limits. That discussion could soon be given additional impetus by proposed legislative changes the province is floating.

City politicians don’t currently have the ability to lower default speed limits on their own because the default of 50 km/h for municipalities is set out in the provincial Highway Traffic Act.

But in early November, Premier Kathleen Wynne proposed new legislation that would give cities the power to set their own default speeds within “community safety zones.”

The potential implications of the law weren’t widely recognized at the time, but a spokesperson for the minister of transportation told the Star that because the law doesn’t define the size of the safety zone, if it were passed it would effectively grant municipalities the power to lower the default limit anywhere within their borders.

“If a council wants it to be the entire municipality, it can do that,” wrote Stephen Heckbert in an email.

A spokesperson for Mayor John Tory said he would need more information before he would consider a blanket reduction. Keerthana Kamalavasan noted that city staff are expected to report back to council in early 2017 on the road safety plan.

“The mayor is committed to making sure all those who use our roads — pedestrians, cyclists and drivers — can get where they need to go as efficiently and safely as possible,” Kamalavasan said.

David Stark will never know if lower speed limits might have prevented his wife’s death. Since she died, Stark has become an advocate for safer roads and co-founded the Friends and Families for Safe Streets group. He supports lowering the default speed limit to 40 km/h, along with better street design, tougher distracted driving laws and stricter penalties for drivers who injure or kill.

He knows that slowing down cars might not be popular, but he has a message for any skeptics.

“There’s still a mindset out there among certain drivers that the car is king and roads should be designed to make it as efficient as possible for drivers to get to where they need to go,” he said. But “when you’re talking about the lives of people and their families... the message should be just slow down, take your time and let’s all arrive at our destinations safely.”