The drive toward a Toronto without traffic fatalities

Dozens lose their lives on city streets every year, but group believes that number could be zero

It can happen in an instant — a moment of distraction, a surge of speed — and a life is lost and others are affected forever.

Thirty-four people have been killed in traffic collisions in the city of Toronto alone so far this year. One initiative wants to make that number zero.

Described as the “Swedish approach to road-safety thinking,” agreeing to Vision Zero means a city commits to work toward zero motor vehicle fatalities within 10 years.

“People have a right to safe mobility, and for too long that hasn’t been the case,” said Leah Shahum, the founder and director or the Vision Zero Network, which is based in San Francisco.

“People have a right to safe mobility, and for too long that hasn’t been the case.” LEAH SHAHUM VISION ZERO NETWORK

Shahum visited Toronto this year, during the Complete Streets Forum, with the hope of encouraging city leaders to commit to lowering the number of unnecessary fatalities.

Between Jan. 1 and Oct. 31 this year, 1,513 pedestrians were hit in Toronto according to the Toronto Police Service (TPS), and four pedestrians have been killed in the past four weeks alone. Despite those recent deaths, the TPS was unable to immediately report how many pedestrian collisions resulted in crashes this year.

The Vision Zero approach considers infrastructure, vehicle technology, services and education, as well as control and surveillance, with the goal of keeping people moving while also keeping them safe.

It has resulted in an almost 50-percent drop in Swedish pedestrian fatalities over the past five years and has been adopted by numerous cities in the United States, but so far none in Canada.

“Even if we cut (fatalities) by 80 per cent in10 years, that’s huge,” Shahum said. “But we’d always be resetting that goal of zero. That’s the only ethical goal we can set.”

Toronto’s traffic history is bloody at best. 2013 was the worst year in recent memory, with 63 collision-related fatalities.

Charles Marohn is a traffic expert, a profession he calls “maddening.” Everywhere he goes, he sees ways roads can be improved.

He said traffic engineers build roads for motorists, not pedestrians. The tendency is to install traffic signals that ensure things are “orderly but dumb.”

Instead, the professional engineer believes slower cars and fewer lights are the answer.

“People travelling slower are a lot smarter about what they have to do and what’s going on around them than a stupid traffic signal that treats everyone like idiots,” he said.

For Marohn, the problem comes when trying to convince city governments that tend to “stick to their own lanes” to adopt new ideas.

Asked about the problem of bureaucracy, Stephen Buckley, manager of Toronto’s Transportation Services, acknowledged that cities often seem slow to change.

“There’s nothing we can do where you snap your fingers and it’s fixed city-wide,” he said.

“We always need to do better,” he said. “But in comparison to other cities, Toronto is still a very safe city from a road user standpoint.” Environmental lawyer Albert Koehl has long advocated for safer streets, and believes lower speeds, increased penalties and a law to protect vulnerable road users could save lives.

“Every year is a bad year when you have even one death,” he said. “That’s why this Vision Zero makes sense.”

For Shahum, doing better means doing away with unnecessary deaths.

“These are not freak accidents; there are things we can do to stop them from happening,” she said.