Stuck in the middle
The Star saw vehicles stuck in the Richmond-Bay intersection after virtually every red light.
It happens at almost every Toronto intersection: drivers trying but failing to get through before the light turns red. It’s called ‘blocking the box’ and in one hour at the corner of Richmond and Bay we saw drivers do it at virtually every red light
It’s a ubiquitous sight in the downtown core: a driver enters a crowded intersection on a green light but fails to exit before it turns red. Stranded in the middle, the driver blocks cars in the other direction, and forces cyclists and pedestrians closer to moving vehicles.
The Star recently filmed a single downtown intersection at rush hour to look at cyclist and driver behaviour as the city implements Vision Zero, a plan to reduce traffic deaths to zero by 2021.
Something else stood out in the footage: how often we saw drivers “block the box.”
In two hours last Thursday, we saw 92 red-light cycles at the intersection of Bay and Richmond Sts. Of those, 71 ended with a northbound vehicle either in the intersection or stopped on the pedestrian crosswalk.
In the busier first hour of the Star’s video, from 4 to 5 p.m., 45 of 47 cycles ended with a blocked intersection.
Vehicles the Star saw blocking the box in that hour included cars, transport trucks, several taxis and four TTC buses.
When presented with the Star’s findings, experts and pedestrian and cycling advocates said the city is falling behind other jurisdictions that more aggressively target drivers who block intersections, impeding traffic flow and making streets harder to navigate for everyone.
“It’s the easiest thing to enforce because the car is literally stuck there,” said Dylan Reid, co-founder of Walk Toronto and former co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee.
Reid said it puzzles him why drivers force their cars into an intersection when they don’t already have space to clear it, adding the infraction can make it dangerous for people with strollers or in wheelchairs to cross.
In the Star’s video, waves of pedestrians are forced to walk into the centre of the intersection.
“I’ve never seen it being enforced,” Reid said.
In Toronto, the fine under city bylaws for blocking an intersection is $90, police traffic services spokesperson Clint Stibbe said.
That bylaw prohibits drivers from entering an intersection unless traffic ahead is moving in a manner that would reasonably allow them to clear the intersection before the light changes to red. According to a 2015 CBC report, police handed out 103 tickets for blocking the box in 2015.
That number was zero in 2013, CBC reported.
The Star asked Stibbe to provide statistics on tickets issued for this offence this year.
He said the Star should file a Freedom of Information request. When presented with the Star’s findings, a spokesperson for Mayor John Tory said he is personally invested in the issue.
“Occasionally the mayor himself has knocked on car windows when he’s come across vehicles blocking an intersection,” spokesperson Don Peat wrote in an email to the Star.
“The knock is usually followed by a request from the mayor that they stop blocking lanes and contributing to gridlock. That’s how seriously he takes this bad driving behaviour.”
The mayor has led efforts to hire traffic wardens for congested intersections, Peat said.
In the meantime, paid duty officers have been deployed at eight downtown intersections, he said. New York City, famously known for gridlock, recently introduced measures targeting drivers who block the box as part of a plan to reduce congestion and improve road safety.
Blocking the box is one area where police enforcement “can and will make a big difference to keep traffic moving around hot spots,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio in a March statement. The NYPD hired 50 uniformed officers to help enforce block-the-box violations at 50 key intersections. The city also installed signs that say “Don’t Block the Box” and painted intersections to show drivers where they are not supposed to stop. In New York, a driver blocking the box faces a $115 (U.S.) fine and possible demerit points, which could cost them their driver’s licence.
“Pedestrians are endangered when they have to navigate between vehicles that are blocking crosswalks,” said NYPD Chief of Transportation Thomas Chan in March, adding that enforcement efforts “reduce congestion and improve pedestrian safety.”
In Chicago, the fine for blocking the box is $75. It’s $90 in San Francisco, $128 in Minneapolis and $150 in Boston.
In Austin, Texas, police issued more than 800 tickets in one two-week period in 2016, KXAN reported.
In London, England, key intersections are painted in yellow to highlight where driv- ers are prohibited from stopping.
In 2016, a single intersection there raised more than £2 million in fines, the BBC reported.
Ken Greenberg, Toronto’s former director of urban design and architecture, said there is a growing sense of frustration among road users over a lack of proper infrastructure and “serious” enforcement.
“We are experiencing a kind of system breakdown,” he said.
People are “taking matters in their own hands,” squeezing in for the last second, going through the red lights, taking chances, leading to aggressive and dangerous behaviours on the road, he said.
“I’ve never heard as much honking and angry gestures as I’m seeing now.”
One solution, Greenberg said, would be to install red-light cameras to make violations easier to enforce.
“We’re dealing with this far too slowly,” he said.
Peat said the mayor is open to any solutions that can get Toronto moving and make roads safer but did not specifically address red-light cameras.
Liz Sutherland, director of advocacy at Cycle Toronto, said she is often forced to walk or bike around vehicles stopped in the middle of intersections.
“There is always a risk that a driver will realize their mistake and consider backing up, or consider moving forward to clear the intersection,” she said.
Jess Spieker, a spokesperson for the group Friends and Families for Safe Streets, also pointed to red-light cameras as a solution.
“It is very dangerous and extremely selfish,” she said. “This is just people being in a rush and disregarding the safety of everyone around them.”
“I’ve never heard as much honking and angry gestures as I’m seeing now.” KEN GREENBERG FORMER URBAN DIRECTOR
With files from Tamar Harris