Toronto aims to have traffic wardens overseeing its busiest intersections by end of 2019

Thestar.com
July 29, 2019
David Rider

Years after Mayor John Tory first floated the idea of non-police “wardens” keeping traffic moving safely through Toronto’s busiest intersections, the city and police services board are poised to sign an agreement to finally make it happen.

There could still be a roadblock, however, to replacing $95-per-hour paid-duty police officers with trained special constables -- now dubbed “traffic agents” -- earning less than half that wage.

Agents can’t hit the streets without a green light from Ontario Solicitor-General Sylvia Jones, and that’s not assured.

“We have not received an official request from the City of Toronto and therefore cannot pre-empt the outcome,” Marion Ringuette, Jones’s press secretary, told the Star in an email Friday.

In September 2017, after a successful pilot project using police officers, Tory vowed non-police city staff would replace them at busy intersections in early 2018, keeping cars and pedestrians apart and out of the way of oncoming traffic as part of his anti-congestion campaign.

“I’m hopeful that they’re wearing a bright orange coat, or a bright green coat or something so people will clearly see who they are and what they are and what they’re there to do,” Tory said then.

But the Liberal provincial government then in power did not pass amendments to the Highway Traffic Act allowing non-police to manage pedestrian and vehicle traffic. Police officers have continued appearing periodically at nine downtown intersections, keeping order during rush hours.

Toronto’s police services board, on which Tory sits, will on Wednesday get a city request to approve terms and conditions for the program including creation of a “special constable liaison office” to administer it and liaise between the police service and the city.

Making traffic wardens trained special constables -- akin to TTC constables and court security officers, with arrest powers but no firearms -- means the province should not need to amend legislation, says the report to the board.

The solicitor-general, however, still has final say over both the agreement and actual implementation of special constables.

Eric Holmes, a city spokesperson, says the goal is to have traffic agents working by the end of 2019.

City staff are hopeful another Tory-promoted traffic measure, photo radar in school zones, will also be operating by the end of 2019 -- but that also requires approval from Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government.

Given legal requirements for who can direct traffic “we are working closely with (the police service) to ensure the traffic agents can achieve the required designation and training to be able to direct traffic at signalized intersections,” Holmes said.

The city is hiring staff now to run the program, he added. Traffic agents are expected to earn between $40.15 and $43.99 per hour.

Mike McCormack, president of the Toronto Police Association, says he continues talking to police Chief Mark Saunders, the police services board, and the city about the new positions.

The police association isn’t opposed to them, he said, adding that officers seen directing traffic at downtown intersections are often on duty, and not paid-duty after-hours work.

But traffic agents should, like court security officers and parking enforcement officers, be part of the Toronto Police Service and therefore members of the Toronto Police Association, McCormack said.

That way in between rush hours they can do “multi-tasking” on services such as parking enforcement, he said, adding an administrative structure for them already exists with the police service.

“We’re getting to a position on these (agents) it’s taken years to get to, and my position will be to the board that it’s a natural fit,” to have them as police service, not city, employees. he said.

Don Peat, Tory’s executive director of communications, said in an email: “Deploying traffic agents on Toronto’s streets makes common sense and fiscal sense. Mayor Tory is determined to push forward with this concept which is already used in other cities to keep traffic moving.”