'Thank God, that was a miss': Georgina residents want to put the brakes on speeding

'Constant' screeching tires, honking horns at Woodbine Avenue and Metro Road

Yorkregion.com
Nov. 11, 2020
Amanda Persico

Imagine hearing the screech of tires and honking of horns every day.

That’s what it’s like living near Woodbine Avenue and Metro Road.

And residents are urging the region to do something about the intersection that has many drivers baffled.

“It’s constant,” said Lynn Pearce, who lives a couple of houses from the plagued intersection. “Anytime -- weekend, during the week, daytime, winter, summer.”

Pearce moved to the area more than three years ago and remembers being warned about the noise and number of accidents by a neighbour.

But since she started working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the barrage of horns, speeders and near-misses compelled her to raise the issue with the region.

“It’s more than stupid drivers,” Pearce said. “It’s people assuming things, assuming it’s a four-way stop.”

The two regional roads meet at an oversized stop sign and a flashing red beacon. Drivers travelling north-south along Woodbine Avenue, where the speed is marked at 80 km/h, are forced to stop at Metro Road and wait for the coast to be clear to continue.

While Woodbine Avenue is a fairly straight stretch of road, Metro Road is ridden with a sharp bend to the west and a curve to the east.

“I’m surprised there hasn’t been a fatality. But one day, there will be one,” Pearce said of the number of accidents she hears and sees from her front porch.

“You hear the honking and think, ‘Thank God, that was a miss.’ You hear the bang and you make sure everyone is OK.”

Pearce, along with many other residents in the area, are calling on the region to look at making Woodbine Avenue and Metro Road a four-way stop. Adding a traffic light is an unwarranted expense, Pearce added.

But based on a traffic study conducted by the region in September, that particular junction does not meet the provincial requirements for an all-way stop, let alone a traffic light, said Nelson Costa, the roads safety and traffic operations manager for the region.

There are a number of technical requirements to justify the need for traffic signals and stop signs, including traffic volume, delays in traffic, number of pedestrians and collision history.

Over the past five years, there have been about two major collisions at the intersection per year, Costa said.

And that’s comparable to other intersections in the area, he added.

At the very least, the region could add a "two-way" sign to the existing stop signs, Pearce said.

Based on the region’s 2019 collision report, roads in Georgina didn’t crack the top ten list of worst intersections for collisions. Half of those dangerous intersections are in Vaughan, and there are none listed north of Green Lane in East Gwillimbury.

The most dangerous intersection in York Region is located at Highway 7 and Weston Road in Vaughan, with 120 collisions between 2016 and 2018.

The number 10 spot on the dangerous intersection list is Yonge Street and Major MacKenzie Drive in Richmond Hill, with 79 reported collisions between 2016 and 2018.

Georgina’s most dangerous intersection, according to the region’s 2019 collision report, is Woodbine Avenue and Ravenshoe Road, with 70 reported collisions between 2016 and 2018, followed by Woodbine Avenue and Morton Avenue/Pollock Road, with 20 collisions within the same time span.

Woodbine Avenue dominates the top ten collision locations in town, with hot spots at Ravenshoe Road, Morton Avenue/Pollock Road, Glenwoods Avenue, Arlington Drive, Riverglen Drive and between Ravenshoe Road and Glenwoods Avenue.

2019 Collision Report map of Georgina

These are Georgina's most dangerous intersections based on collision data collected between 2016 and 2018. (Courtesy of Regional Municipality of York)
That’s up from three intersections along Woodbine Avenue from the region’s 2017 collision report -- at Ravenshoe Road, at Morton Avenue/Pollock Road and at Baseline Road.

Part of the problem along Woodbine Avenue, especially north of the Keswick core, is that it’s a straight, wide stretch of pavement -- perfect for speedsters, said Tracie Mullins, who lives on Woodbine Avenue near Deer Park Road.

“Drivers are going so fast, I could not tell you what colour it was,” she said. “A lot of the time, you don’t know how fast these cars are going.”

Mullins works in the Willow Beach area and travels north along Woodbine Avenue and east along Metro Road daily.

Along with slowing drivers down at the Woodbine Avenue and Metro Road intersection, Mullins also wants to see speed decreased along Woodbine Avenue itself.

If not, then more police presence, more speed traps and more speed enforcement, she added.

“There would be a lot of money coming from speeders,” she said. “It would pay for itself in fines in no time.”

The region's automated speed enforcement pilot project was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and is set to resume in November. The two-year pilot project will see automated speed enforcement machines coming to Georgina in January 2021 and June 2022; they will be situated on Old Homestead Road.