Street safety danger to us all
It’s amazing how dangerous life can be in a city obsessed with safety. Nowhere more so than on the streets of Toronto where so far this year, 14 pedestrians have been killed. That’s an average of more than one death every week.
Even Mayor John Tory calls this a “crisis.”
He’s right, but crisis though it may be, it is not, as we pretend, accidental. More often than not, these (preventable) fatalities have causes we’d rather ignore. On closer inspection, it’s obvious that many Toronto streets are designed less to protect pedestrians than keep them out of the way, especially in the postwar city where roads are too wide and too fast to be safe for those on foot. It doesn’t help either that opportunities to cross these streets are few and far between.
In fact, street safety in Toronto is little more than a cover for an embedded civic culture that favours cars over all other forms of mobility. This extends well beyond the physical layout of our roads and encompasses, most egregiously, a justice system that makes no effort to hide its vehicular bias.
Superior Court Justice Shaun Nakatsuru gave the city a rude reminder last week dismissing charges against a driver accused of killing a teenage cyclist, Immanuel Sinnadurai, in 2014. Despite evidence the defendant was involved in an illegal street race, the judge said his hands were tied by “lack of evidence.” But as Ryerson University’s transit expert Murtaza Haider tweeted, “Driving at 90 km/hr on a 60 km/h street constitutes an implicit intent to harm.”
Not that speed limits make much difference. When introduced, lower limits are greeted with howls of outrage and then ignored. When Toronto reduced the speed on residential streets, it had little effect on driving habits. Motorists take their cues from street design not signs. The cyclist was killed on Sheppard Ave. E., a largely unencumbered multilane highway that encourages high-speed driving. No surprise that one-third of pedestrian deaths occur on the freeways of Scarborough.
None of this means we’re serious about safety. At the very moment, Tory is bemoaning the “carnage” on Toronto streets, he’s also fighting a proposal to narrow Yonge St. between Sheppard and Finch Aves. from six lanes to four. That would slow traffic.
He’s certainly not the first politician to want it both ways, but his policies — to cut the carnage and congestion — reveal our ambivalence about safety.
That ambivalence was on full display in 2016, when the city introduced its Vision Zero plan to reduce pedestrian deaths by a shockingly unambitious 20 per cent by 2026. Overwhelmed by public anger, Tory and public works chair Councillor Jaye Robinson were forced to revisit the scheme. But faced with this year’s figures, Robinson blamed the weather and lamely insisted things are going in the right direction.
For Toronto police, things are simpler. They never hesitate to blame pedestrians, even those who are dead and buried. Their clothing wasn’t bright enough, they weren’t wearing reflective vests, it was raining, it was snowing, it was dark, it was bright, it was cold, it was hot ... The force’s impatience with pedestrians dates back years. One of its finest moments came in 2010, when it launched a “safety blitz” at Union Station. It consisted mainly of handing out jaywalking tickets to lawless pedestrians. Who cared that the hordes coming and going by subway, train and bus had to struggle with some of the city’s most hostile conditions, including one of the most dangerous intersection in Toronto, the southeast corner of Bay and Front Sts.? That sidewalk is as narrow as Bay is wide. The road has five lanes, one for drivers turning left on Front.
These street deaths, however awkward for politicians, are the price we are willing to pay to keep traffic moving — the faster the better. It hurts when the victims are children or, more often, seniors, but these “accidents” rarely get as much attention as the cellphone that caught fire on an Air Canada plane last week, a nonstory that made headlines across the country.
Safety regulations are a useful tool, but not because they serve their intended purpose. They are a form of control, created as a means of denying access, keeping people away, shutting them out, maintaining privilege, empowering one group over another.
Recently, there are signs this has started to change, but not at the top.
Until that happens, safety will remain a danger to us all. Christopher Hume’s column appears weekly. He can be reached at jcwhume4@gmail.com
These street deaths, however awkward for politicians, are the price for keeping traffic moving as fast as possible