Council pushes for road safety

Transit department told to develop ways to speed up its ‘Vision Zero’ plan

City council has asked the transportation department to find ways to speed up the implementation of its road safety plan, in the midst of a spate of collisions that left seven pedestrians dead in a little more than a week.

At the tail end of their three-day meeting Wednesday evening, council voted unanimously to have staff report to the public works committee next month on options to accelerate the plan, which was adopted last year and dubbed “Vision Zero” after the international movement to eliminate traffic fatalities.

The measure fell short of a motion put on the agenda by Councillor Kristyn Wong-Tam, which would have given immediate authorization to the manager of transportation services to implement the plan in two years, instead of five.

Wong-Tam said while “it would be great” if council had approved her motion outright, she believed their decision was an acceptable compromise. She said the city needs to take urgent action because of a rash of pedestrian deaths in recent years.

“I just feel like we could do a lot more,” she said. “Keeping people safe should be our No. 1priority, and if we can do more at council then we certainly should.”

Public works chair Councillor Jaye Robinson, who is heading the road safety plan and moved the motion for the report, said that the city is already moving quickly to implement the plan.

Last summer, in the middle of what turned out to be the worst year for pedestrian deaths in more than a decade, council approved a five-year, $80.3-million road safety plan.

The strategy focuses on protecting five categories of vulnerable road users: pedestrians, cyclists, schoolchil- dren, motorcyclists and older adults.

It consists of 45 measures to be deployed at high-risk areas including “watch your speed” radar signs, better street lighting, longer pedestrian crossing times, lower speed limits, physical modifications to intersections and the creation of “pedestrian safety corridors” and “seniors safety zones.”

Last year, 43 pedestrians were killed on Toronto’s streets, the highest number since at least 2005.

So far this year, at least 32 pedestrians have died, as well as two bicyclists, according to numbers compiled by the Star using police and media reports. Four pedestrians were killed in Scarborough in a single day last week, including a 33-yearold woman and her 5-year-old child.

In the hours after Wednesday’s council meeting adjourned, three more pedestrians were hit, including a 63-year-old woman who died in a hit-and-run collision, and a 21-yearold woman struck and killed while hailing a cab.