Corp Comm Connects

Toronto mayor vows pedestrian safety plan will save lives. Advocates say it’s too timid

Thestar.com
June 21, 2019
David Rider

Toronto’s second attempt at a “Vision Zero” plan to stop the alarming number of pedestrian and cyclist deaths on city streets is getting a lukewarm reception from safety advocates.

Mayor John Tory called city staff proposals for “Vision Zero 2.0” -- replacing a three-year-old plan that failed to reduce deaths -- “a significant step forward,” at a Thursday news conference in Scarborough, where a disproportionate number of “vulnerable road users” died last year.

The new data-driven plan, with a main thrust of reducing speed limits on roads across the city, will be “a significant change that is going to make a big difference in saving lives,” of pedestrians and cyclists, Tory told reporters.

Jess Spieker, a cyclist who suffered a broken spine and brain injury when a driver struck her in 2015, called the proposed changes a step in the right direction, but too timid to reach the goal of the Vision Zero concept pioneered in Sweden -- fully eliminating pedestrian and cyclist deaths.

“We think the speed limit should be 40 km/h or lower on streets across the city,” including main thoroughfares, said Spieker, a member of Friends and Families for Safe Streets, an advocacy group founded by relatives of Torontonians killed by drivers.

“They are clearly volunteering other people’s family members to be struck at speeds in excess of 50 km/h -- there are areas where the limit remains 60 or even 70 km/h, and presumably councillors wouldn’t volunteer their own family members to be struck,” Spieker said.

“As long as vehicles are driving at fatal speeds, drivers will keep killing people.”

The city staff report notes researchers have found that slowing traffic can result in dramatically fewer deaths, with a 5-per-cent speed reduction yielding as much as 20 per cent reduction in deaths.

Almost everyone hit by a vehicle driven at 70 km/h dies. When the speed drops to 50 km/h, 85 per cent of people survive. Reducing it further to 40 km/h means more than two-thirds of victims survive. Slowing vehicles to 30 km/h gives pedestrians a 90 per cent chance of surviving being hit.

Fifteen pedestrians have died on Toronto streets so far this year, according to the Star’s tally which, unlike police counts, includes fatalities on private property and 400-series highways.

Tory said he wants speed limits reduced quickly, with stickers over existing signs if need be.

Last year an apparent record 42 pedestrians and five cyclists died on Toronto streets, by the Star’s count, including father and grandfather Jack Miehm, a 61-year-old semi-retired contractor.

Miehm died after being knocked 50 metres from a crosswalk at St. Clair Ave. E. and Jeanette St. in the Scarborough Junction neighbourhood by a driver whom police said failed to stop.

“I gave him a kiss goodbye and said I’ll see you later, and that was it,” his partner Maria Dorsey told the Star last December, adding Miehm died a two-minute walk from their home.

The latest victim, a woman, was killed Thursday afternoon near Regent Park Blvd. and Dundas St. E. Police said the driver, who also struck a fire hydrant and a pole, fled on foot but was arrested and charged with impaired driving.

Toronto’s new Vision Zero plan would drop speed limits by 10 km/h on two stretches of Black Creek Dr. now 70 km/h, more than three dozen stretches of roads across the city now 60 km/h; and parts of five roads now 50 km/h.

The changes would see 249 kilometres of Toronto roads now posted at 60 km/h drop to 50 km/h.

City staff are recommending all local residential roads now 40 km/h drop to 30 km/h, but only if local councillors on that area’s community council agree. Councillors in the old city of Toronto and East York have already made that change.

Critics have noted speed limits don’t have much impact if police don’t enforce them. The report says police traffic services unit’s capacity has been “reduced significantly over the years” due to “budget pressures and changes in priorities,” in the police service.

Staff propose funding, from the city transportation budget, traffic officers deployed to high-risk locations, based on collision data, in a two-year pilot project.

Other measures in the new plan include adding new “zebra” crosswalks at intersections including those in designated school safety zones, pedestrian safety corridors and senior citizen safety zones.

Most streets without sidewalks, or with them only on one side of the street, would get them, either during routine reconstruction or as a one-off project. For residential streets it would be subject to the discretion of the senior transportation department manager, with councillor input.

In New York City, where that city’s Vision Zero plan is credited with cutting overall traffic deaths to the lowest levels in a century, much of the focus has been on changes to streets designed to slow traffic, including the addition of protected bike lanes.

Toronto’s new plan calls for development of a program to implement short-term design changes, using paint, bollards and other features, rather than waiting for crumbling streets to be routinely rebuilt with the city’s “complete streets” system that includes pedestrian safety concerns.

Jared Kolb, executive director of the Cycle Toronto advocacy group, lauded city staff and Tory for proposing “a transformation in terms of starting to change what are effectively highways into city streets. That’s going to save lives.

“This is a good start, it’s going to help, but will it get us toward Vision Zero, of zero deaths? I don’t think so. We would need bolder action for that.”

Toronto officials are waiting on regulation changes by the Premier Doug Ford government for a major change -- tickets issued via photo radar to motorists who speed in school safety zones.

City staff say discussions with provincial officials are proceeding, with a goal to have it operating by the end of this year. The city tried out the technology without actually issuing tickets last year.

There is no identified funding source for the projected $4.4-million net operating cost of the Vision Zero measures which, if approved by city council, will become part of 2020 budget deliberations.

Other measures proposed in the plan