It’s time for a new attitude

Show us someone who likes to wait, and that will be the person who can truly be reasonable about how Toronto’s roads should be shared.

As it is, drivers just want to get where they’re going as fast as possible. Cyclists and pedestrians both want their own convenient, safe space separated from vehicles and from each other.

Transit riders want to be able to get on streetcars and buses that arrive on time and have space to squeeze in the door. And, on a good day, possibly even a seat.

In today’s Toronto, no road user can have everything they want. All must compromise.

But for too long that compromise hasn’t been a fair or sensible one. It’s been one version or another of the-car-isking and scraps for everyone else.

The tragic results that come from that kind of thinking have been thrust into the spotlight — yet again — with a spate of pedestrian and cyclist deaths this week.

So far this year 22 pedestrians and cyclists have died on Toronto streets. At this rate 2018 may well be worse than last year, when 45 people lost their lives.

You know we’ve hit a bad place when cities expert Richard Florida compares Toronto’s attitude to road deaths to America’s acceptance of gun deaths.

Gun death after gun death and it’s still controversial there to suggest tougher gun laws or banning more weapons. Here, it’s pedestrian death after cyclist death, and it remains controversial to do what must be done: reduce speeds and turn more space taken up by cars over to other road users.

Every death-by-car is a needless tragedy. And the city knows that, in principle anyway.

Two years ago Toronto adopted a “Vision Zero” initiative to eliminate all road fatalities by 2021.

It’s in implementing the measures that give priority to vulnerable road uses — pedestrians and cyclists — where the city struggles.

That’s why Mayor John Tory is simultaneously having “sleepless nights” over the people dying on our streets, and yet saw fit to shelve a plan that would have reduced vehicle lanes on north Yonge St. to make room for protected bike lanes and pedestrian improvements.

It takes time to transform a city designed for cars into one that better meets the needs of everyone.

The city must be far more aggressive in implementing new road safety measures if it is to reduce traffic fatalities, let alone achieve anything approaching zero deaths in three years’ time. And more politicians need to find the courage to make choices that will be unpopular with drivers.

Still, Torontonians don’t need to wait to have an impact themselves. A little patience and courtesy behind the wheel can go a long way toward making roads safer.

Slow down. Don’t try to blow through the intersection before pedestrians step off the curb. Change lanes to pass a cyclist safely instead of squeezing by with mere inches, hoping they don’t wobble.

Drivers aren’t responsible for everything that’s wrong on our streets. There’s plenty of blame to go around. But vehicles are the most dangerous element so drivers have a greater responsibility to take care.

When is the last time an impatient pedestrian killed someone driving a car? Or a cyclist won out against a truck?

And the drivers who decry lower speed limits or losing road space today are the same people who will benefit from safer streets when they’re too old to drive. And their kids even sooner than that.

We all benefit when people can walk and cycle safely. Tragically, as we’ve seen this week, we still have a long way to go.

Richard Florida compares Toronto’s attitude to road deaths to America’s acceptance of gun deaths