You can’t sleep on our streets, but you can race on them
Every night, the sky across the GTA is ripped open by the sound of racing cars and motorcycles. It’s like a natural phenomenon, and there’s nothing that can be done about it.
At least that’s the way it seems, as our streets and highways are open drag strips where some drivers feel like they can do this with impunity — a problem before the pandemic but one that has exploded since.
Here on Toronto’s west side, I can hear them tearing up streets like Dufferin and Parkside and onto the Gardiner. The reckless speed is deadly, as the motorcycle crash on the DVP that killed a woman last week attests to.
The noise is another kind of assault. Although it’s admirable when people still know how to drive a manual transmission car, some of these guys have trouble getting out of second or even first gear as they cruise at the highest crotch-vibrating RPM possible down city streets. Add to that the inexplicably legal aftermarket products — and some factory standard ones — that cause normal vehicles to gurgle and backfire like imaginary race cars.
This week, Toronto city council adopted a motion calling for Toronto police to take “more action against stunt driving and speeding on the Don Valley Parkway.” It’s absurd that only after a terrible, high-profile crash, city council asks the police, with its $1.076-billion budget, to simply do its job.
Recall this is the same police force that told Torontonians it was enforcing traffic laws, but actually wasn’t, an absolutely scandalous breach of trust. The racing also doesn’t just happen on the DVP. Despite years of calls for increased road safety, through road design or enforcement, it’s remarkable how slow city councils in the GTA respond.
In Toronto, the speed camera rollout has been a slow joke, with a handful of rotating sites across this massive city with provisions that give plenty of warning to drivers that they’re coming. Once set up, the radars have proven their usefulness.
Permanent cameras on every block and other technological solutions could do a lot to slow down deadly traffic, racer or otherwise, although we should be very cautious that the technology doesn’t expand to broader surveillance uses, just as calling on more enforcement risks repeating proven patterns of police targeting people of colour.
The long history of doing as little as possible around road safety is particularly curious if you’ve been following the encampment issue in the city of Toronto. In May, the city moved to evict a group of tents in Liberty Village at Lamport Stadium, going so far as to deploy mounted police. It was a telling moment.
Encampments are as illegal as speeding and red light running, but during the pandemic there’s been a level of tolerance for their existence. And in neighbourhoods around the downtown parks that have the bulk of them, plenty of antieviction yard signs reading, “We support our neighbours in tents” can be found. Certainly, few would argue the situation is ideal and would prefer permanent housing solutions be found.
Many encampment residents have said they do not feel safe in the shelter system and that’s why they opt for living in parks. The city justified evictions with statements that said there was enough housing, while encampment and homeless advocates said there isn’t enough, and what is on offer is not permanent and merely more shelter.
Put all of that aside for a moment and focus on the one constant message from city officials throughout the pandemic: the encampments are not safe. The mayor has mentioned this, as have city councillors and city staff. And it’s true, there have been numerous fires, injuries and even deaths.
A recent joint statement from a coalition of housing advocates titled, “Protecting People Experiencing Homelessness and Ensuring the Safety of the Shelter System” mentioned, among other recommendations, encampments should have safe camping equipment.
Even Toronto Fire Chief Matthew Pegg has said on many occasions that the encampments are dangerous and an “imminent, immediate threat to life,” as his crews have responded to fires. Let’s accept that and ask: If safety is such a concern in encampments, why isn’t the same level of imminent, immediate urgency there for road safety?
The fire chief is, unlike the police chief, usually not prone to political statements, but choosing to go hard on public safety in one area and not in another is a political choice. The chief ’s crews also respond to vehicular crashes every day and many, many more people are injured by drivers in Toronto every day than incidents in encampments. Fire crews know the carnage all too well, and Torontonians could use his constant advocacy here, too.
The safety of people experiencing homelessness and people who are vulnerable to vehicles, which is everyone, should be equally urgent concerns, no?
The disparity suggests we’re OK with a high amount of death and injury on our roads, but just don’t like the sight of encampments in our parks. What else could explain it?