Van attack prompts debate about increasing safety without sacrificing livability
How can Toronto protect its pedestrians without sacrificing its identity as a welcoming city? Advocates say there are less intrusive measures than the concrete barriers put up outside Union Station.

TheStar.com
April 26, 2018
Samantha Beattie

Monday’s van rampage on Yonge St. has brought into sharp focus an ongoing conversation in Toronto about vehicles, pedestrians and the public areas where they cross paths.

Within hours of the incident, in which 10 people were killed and another 14 injured, the city placed concrete barriers in front of Union Station. As much as that was a practical measure, it was also symbolic, acknowledging the vulnerability of anyone on foot in a city where cars and people so often share the same physical spaces.

That presumably temporary measure has led to a debate about the future of Toronto's streets. Those who advocate for a more livable city say we should be thinking beyond physical barriers, and considering practical and creative ways to keep pedestrians safe with measures that don’t compromise Toronto’s identity as an open-hearted and welcoming city.

“We’ve lost loved ones and our sense of security, but I think it would be a mistake to think we can protect ourselves from danger by putting up barricades everywhere,” said lawyer Albert Koehl, a Toronto road safety advocate.

“We lose again if our reaction to this tragedy is turning our city into a place we don’t want to live.”

For years, people like Michael Black have been recommending the city adopt less intrusive measures — like reducing speed limits, adding bike lanes and flower planters, placing bollards strategically, installing benches and planting trees along sidewalks — to make Toronto both safer and more walkable in areas including stretch of Yonge St. between Sheppard and Finch Aves. where Monday’s attack took place.

“I don’t want (the city) to say this was a one-off, there was nothing we could do. Oh, I would object to that,” said Black, co-founder of Walk Toronto.

The city has yet to implement a plan that says “safety trumps convenience” and is “very behind the times in terms of street design,” Black said, adding the same measures that would protect cyclists and pedestrians from accidental crashes would also provide them shelter from intentional acts of violence.

The city’s Vision Zero Road Safety Plan has identified this section of Yonge St. as a priority for improvements and the Transform Yonge plan — which was deferred by council in March — would have added protected bike lanes and widened sidewalks.

“The city’s dragging its feet on Vision Zero implementation and its speed-reduction efforts are not broad enough and not being enforced,” said Koehl.

Every day, some 55,000 vehicles travel along six lanes of Yonge St. between Sheppard and Finch Aves., according to the city, a volume that has councillors referring to it as a mini-highway.

But lowering speed limits or narrowing lanes would only help so much in cases where someone has the intention to harm, said Councillor Mike Layton.

“Can we anticipate that someone could so boldly and without regard for anyone take whatever steps necessary to inflect that kind of harm? I’m not sure we can anticipate every horrific act, or regular measures would deter such a thing,” Layton said.

That said, Layton does believe the van attack will inform council’s decisions on road improvements in the future.

“I think this horrific act will be a reality check of what can happen when people use vehicles as weapons and how damaging they can become,” Layton said.

Other councillors declined to speak this week about opportunities the city has missed to improve pedestrian safety, citing concerns about politicizing the issue so soon after such a tragic event.

Meanwhile, the barriers at Union Station along Front St. are temporary, said city spokesperson Wynna Brown, but planning is well underway to permanently increase security in the area.

In late March, police limited vehicle access to the Rogers Centre and Air Canada Centre. At the time, Mayor John Tory said the move was not in response to an increased security threat.

This week, Tory’s director of communications said Toronto will not let Monday’s “heinous act threaten or change our free and open society.”

“Toronto and cities around the world have always had to grapple with the threat of attacks like Monday’s and the need to strike a balance between ... public safety and accessible cities,” said Don Peat.

When a driver plowed a pickup truck down a crowded Manhattan bike path last October, killing eight and injuring 11, New York City wrestled with how to physically respond. The Department of Transportation and NYPD temporarily installed “numerous” concrete blocks and jersey barriers at several “sensitive locations” and are in the process of constructing bollards, said city spokesperson Seth Stein.

More importantly, the attack sparked a conversation about New York City’s streets and parks and accelerated existing road safety projects, said Paul Steely White, executive director of Transportation Alternatives, a local advocacy group. Last week, for example, New York’s mayor announced Central Park will soon be closed to cars and trucks.

“There’s a more widespread realization it’s inherently problematic to have vehicles operate in such close proximity to high volumes of pedestrians and cyclists. Even when someone is not trying to cause intentional harm, the mere physics involved really requires there to be sensible restrictions in place,” Steely White said.

In the face of violence, that city has attempted to bolster its public spaces.

“We must remember they’re the bedrock of democracy,” Steely White said. “The lesson is we have to do more to celebrate public space as we move to protect it.”

One person who shares that sentiment is Willowdale resident Lily Cheng, who is organizing an event this weekend to reclaim Yonge St. and its public spaces.

Cheng, her husband and two children live minutes away from where Monday’s attack occurred. She had lunch at a nearby sushi restaurant with her husband, soaking up the spring sun, shortly before the van struck.

“We have been deeply shaken by events. Our sense of safety, our sense of ‘this is my neighbourhood’ has really been taken away,” Cheng said.

Walking along a nearly empty Yonge St. the next day — which was mostly closed to cars between Sheppard and Finch Aves. — she felt solemn and heavy-hearted, but determined. Now, she’s planning a walk to “take back our street” before Sunday evening’s interfaith vigil at Mel Lastman Square.

“We will come together, arm in arm, to symbolize we are a community, this is our street,” Cheng said.

“We won’t let fear steal away our neighbourhood.”