What two days with a radar gun say about Toronto’s speeding drivers

Deadly Toronto traffic collisions bring a familiar pattern of outrage, enforcement and, sometimes, new signs. Months later, does anything really change?

thestar.com
Gilbert Ngabo
Feb. 23, 2022

Local residents had warned about speeding on Parkside Drive for years before two people were hit and killed there last October.

The deaths of a 71-year-old man and his 69-year-old wife -- hit by the speeding driver of a luxury BMW sedan while stopped at the Spring Road traffic light, police said -- soon brought heavy police enforcement to the area. City officials put up speed warning signs. In November, local Coun. Gord Perks successfully tabled a motion to reduce the speed limit on Parkside from 50 to 40 km/h.

Five months later, has anything really changed?

To find out, the Star recently purchased a point-shoot Bushnell radar gun and sent me out to check drivers’ behaviour at Parkside and the sites of two other recent fatal crashes.

All three locations have a long history of traffic collisions linked to speed -- and speed, police say, is one of the “big four” major causes of traffic death and serious injuries, along with aggression, distraction and impaired driving.

Toronto continues to see high numbers of traffic deaths on these and other city streets. Police have already reported four traffic deaths so far this year. In 2021 we lost 63 people to traffic, 46 in 2020.

Critics say the city’s Vision Zero program doesn’t go far enough.

“The big issue is that we have tended to treat each crash like an isolated incident rather than the systemic pattern of a lack of safety on our streets,” said Matti Siemiatycki, director of the Infrastructure Institute at the University of Toronto’s School of Cities.

“Spot” enforcement, like after the Parkside crash, makes a difference for a few days, but does nothing in the long run, he added.

Toronto police Sgt. Murray Campbell, with the Traffic Services unit, said targeted campaigns are one part of the police’s efforts to slow drivers down and make roads safer. Such campaigns come and go but it doesn’t mean enforcement is over, he said.

“This comprehensive approach to keeping road users safe is not always visible at all times, but does continue all the time and every day,” he said.

Here’s what I found in two days with a radar gun in Toronto streets:

A fatal crash on Parkside Drive has led neighbours to push for major design changes.

Parkside Drive, beside High Park

The road: A four-lane residential street on the eastern edge of High Park, connecting Bloor Street West to the busy Gardiner Expressway via Lake Shore Boulevard West.

Nearby resident Berrin Avsar spotted me with the radar gun near the crash site on Parkside Drive and Spring Road.

Coming over, she pointed to the line of “slow down” signs recently planted alongside the road, just north of the turn off from Lake Shore.

“That’s all we got from Vision Zero,” she lamented. “How does that slow anyone down?”

As I spoke to Avsar and other residents on the sidewalk that afternoon, everyone suddenly gasped loudly -- a pedestrian crossing at Spring Road was nearly knocked down by a speeding driver who’d blown through a red light.

The pedestrian was rattled, but he told everyone he was going to be fine. The driver didn’t even stop.

“That happens all the time,” Susan Beamish said. “Drivers here are insane. Every time I try to cross I feel like I’m putting my life at risk.”

I spent 30 minutes assessing drivers on both sides of Parkside -- those travelling toward Lake Shore and those going northbound after exiting.

The speed limit here is 40 km/h, but I clocked seven drivers going over 60 km/h. One hit 73 km/h.

A few blocks north at Howard Park -- where the 506 Carlton streetcar crosses into the High Park loop at the end of its line -- I observed more drivers way above the posted limit. For 30 minutes in both directions, the radar gun registered drivers reaching into the high 50s, including one police cruiser that clocked 56 km/h. Two drivers recorded 61 km/h. Three drivers reached 63 km/h, and I got one driver here going 76 km/h.

For years, Faraz Gholizadeh has been documenting collisions and near-misses that happen on this stretch, showing pictures and videos to local politicians and pushing for change.

Shortly after the deadly collision last October, he went a step further and purchased his own radar gun. He recently caught a driver going 112 km/h.

“People died here,” he said. “I’m sure no one wants to have that tragic experience again, but it just seems like no one cares.”

Gholizadeh and other residents say Parkside Drive should be completely revamped: more traffic lights, reducing lanes from two to one in each direction, the addition of bike lanes and improved sidewalks.

A Toronto Police officer attached to the Vision Zero task force sets up speed enforcement in a maximum 50 km/h zone along Bayview Avenue near Finch.

Bayview Avenue at Finch Avenue East

The road: The broad intersection of two busy North York arterial roads, with schools, churches and a shopping centre nearby.

It doesn’t take a radar gun to quickly realize how many drivers going through this intersection are speeding. The eye test tells you very few drivers are going the posted speed limit -- 50 km/h -- on either Bayview Avenue or Finch Avenue East.

The two broad North York arteries cross here in a spacious intersection, two lanes in each direction, plus turning lanes, bordered by green space.

Kurt Wright, a retired resident who lives nearby and was walking by, told me speed is something he watches for all the time.

The roads are “inviting” for speeders, he said, describing how he sees some drivers accelerate to beat the red lights, while others take advantage of long greens to “drive like it’s the DVP or something.”

“It’s scary for us,” he adds.

In 30 minutes, measuring speed from different angles, my radar gun recorded nine drivers going more than 20 km/h over the posted speed limit. One driver, in a black Lexus SUV, blew through at 85 km/h.

In April 2017, a woman died just to the north at Cummer Avenue in a single-vehicle crash police said was caused by speeding. It’s a particularly busy area with multiple high schools, an elementary school, several churches, residential highrises and a strip mall. A crossing guard told me she’s been posted here since November.

Traffic is always heavy, and crossing pedestrians and cyclists have to be “extra careful” because “there is a lot of drivers going too fast,” she said.

Wright would like the city to install more traffic lights to help reduce speeding. Lights would break up the long stretches of road between crossings, he said. He said he also likes some of the changes he has seen elsewhere in Scarborough, including where lanes have been made exclusive for public transit buses.

Many of Toronto's highest-collision streets are broad arterial roads in the suburbs, like The Queensway in South Etobicoke.

The West Mall and The Queensway:

The road: A busy junction next to a massive mall in south Etobicoke, not far from interchanges for Highway 427, the Gardiner Expressway and the QEW.

Despite being next to Sherway Gardens Mall, the intersection of The Queensway and The West Mall still feels like it’s the middle of nowhere.

There’s Etobicoke Creek to the northwest, a grassy area to the southwest, an Acura car dealership on the northeast and the massive shopping mall on the southeast side. In May 2016, two vehicles were involved in a head-on collision here that left a person dead and two others seriously injured. Police said then that speeding was a contributing factor in the crash.

Drivers going east and west on The Queensway enjoy the luxury of three lanes in each direction, with a 60 km/h limit. For the 15 minutes I spent pointing my radar gun here, I caught 10 drivers speeding into the 80s. The fastest hit 88 km/h.

The north-south traffic on The West Mall included many heavy trucks coming and going from nearby industries, as well as several TTC buses ferrying shopping passengers. But many of the few drivers passing through clocked way past the allowed 50 km/h, even though traffic lanes are reduced to just two in each direction. In 15 minutes, I caught six drivers going more than 20 km/h over the limit. One southbound driver hit 89 km/h.

Speaking in general about road safety, Siemiatycki said it’s been challenging to shift the overall policy from focusing on cars to focusing on the protection of actual people.

Like in many other cities, Toronto’s suburbs were built around cars and many streets in North York, Scarborough and Etobicoke need to be redesigned with a focus on protecting vulnerable road users, such as people with mobility impairments, seniors, children, pedestrians and cyclists, he said.

Vision Zero hasn’t yet managed to help rethink how our streets are designed in a systemic way, he added -- measures like a city proposal for an additional 25 speed cameras, are “a small start but that’s not going to make the systemic difference.”