New data highlights deadliest roadways
Police reports show postwar suburbs are collision hot spots
Toronto’s most dangerous roads all look the same: they’re big, they’re broad, and they’re not downtown.
AStar analysis of a huge new database of Toronto traffic collisions is shining a bright spotlight on a distinctly suburban problem. The new data set, much larger and more complete than any previously available records, offers a comprehensive account of nearly 500,000 collisions reported to Toronto police between 2014 and 2021, most mapped to the nearest intersection.
The results are stark: nearly all of the worst locations for reported fatal or injury- causing traffic collisions are suburban arterial intersections. The worst 100 spots, excluding municipal highways, are nearly exclusively found on arterial roads in North York, Etobicoke and especially Scarborough. These are long, wide avenues like Finch ( 20 locations in the worst 100), Sheppard ( 14), Steeles ( 12), Eglinton ( 11), Lawrence ( 10) and Ellesmere Road ( 10).
When mapped, those 100 spots fall almost entirely within the broad arc of the city’s suburban neighbourhoods built after the Second World War, outside the limits of the old cities of Toronto, York and East York. Just two spots in the worst 100 — Lake Shore Boulevard East at Carlaw Avenue, tied for 89th on the list, and Davenport Road at Bathurst Street, 94th — are in old Toronto.
In the eight years of police data, those 100 locations alone account for nearly 9,000 reported injury collisions, with 43 deaths.
Standing on the northwest corner of Markham and Ellesmere roads, watching the people of Scarborough navigate afternoon rush hour at one of the city’s worst hot spots, with 148 collisions causing injury, Keenan Mosdell says the problem is obvious.
The decades- old design of this major intersection, like many others in suburban Toronto, puts road users at risk, Mosdell says.
The big, wide arterial intersection lets drivers make fast, “dangerous” turns; cyclists throw themselves into traffic lanes to cross; a loud motorcycle driver guns it to beat a red light; and scores of pedestrians rush to barely make it across to catch their bus, the 102 northbound — all typical sights in Toronto’s post- Second World War suburbs, where collisions and injuries are commonplace.
“How can anyone feel safe here?” asks Mosdell, an avid cyclist and project co- ordinator for the Centre for Active Transportation.
What’s causing the collisions on Toronto’s suburban arterial roads?
Asked about the new police data, traffic services Supt. Scott Baptist pointed especially to speed. While downtown may have busy roads with higher concentrations of pedestrians and cyclists, a combination of lower speed limits, speed bumps and one- way streets makes it more difficult for drivers to speed. In the suburbs, the roads are wider and feel more open, often have higher speed limits and are usually less congested.
“Higher speeds often mean that collisions result in more damage to cars and humans,” he added, noting that speed is one of four main causes of traffic collisions, along with aggression, distraction and impairment.
The reason the suburbs are this way is by design, said urban designer and city building expert Ken Greenberg.
After the Second World War, the big ideas that shaped city building all over the world were based on the premise that the automobile would be the primary mode of transportation, he said. From home to work, to school, to shopping, to recreational facilities and to public parks, cities grew on the assumption their residents would drive almost exclusively.
“We were really meant to be going from one parking lot to another,” Greenberg said.
From the inner suburbs of Toronto to the rest of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, city planners built big arterial roads of four to six lanes, often with added turning lanes, and intersections kilometres apart. Subdivisions and the streets serving them were largely designed for lower density than has actually developed, and even highrise residential buildings came with enough underground or aboveground parking spaces for everyone. No one was expected to walk, he said.
“It was a design for a different way of life that, ultimately, I just think was a failure in a bunch of ways,” Greenberg said.
The fix is to redesign these arterial roads, he said, noting that these busy suburban intersections may now be home to more people than spots in the older city, leading to more need for infrastructure that keeps pedestrians and cyclists safe. The good news, Greenberg said, is that there’s enough space to undertake those redesign changes in the suburbs, unlike downtown, where it may be difficult to squeeze in something as simple as a new bike lane.
In the suburbs, you can take away lanes of traffic for dedicated bus routes, rapid transit or light rail. You can change the design of the intersections and the timing of the traffic signals. Examples of such redesigns are the Yonge Street North project in Willowdale, the Eglinton Connects project and, in Mississauga and Brampton, the Hurontario LRT.
Still, the scale of what needs to change requires real political will, Greenberg said, noting he’s seen this take place in Scandinavian cities like Helsinki, which also saw rapid suburbanization after the Second World War.
“Until we do that, people are going to be in jeopardy. They’re going to be in unsafe conditions. It’s all very well to say the drivers should slow down and pay more attention, but the designs don’t lend themselves to that.”
Added Mosdell: “These roads are doing what they were intended to do, which is to move cars fast … But we need to adjust and change, because Scarborough and other areas are now home to a lot of people with low income who can’t afford to drive. They need to be safe on the road, too.”
Through its Vision Zero plan, the city says it continues to make the elimination of traffic fatalities and injuries a priority, especially on high- speed suburban arterials, said spokesperson Hakeem Muhammad. Several data- driven interventions are underway across the city to protect vulnerable road users and increase safe mobility for all, he said.
Those changes include more than 750 pedestrian head- start signals at signalized intersections, letting people begin crossing before cars are allowed through; lower speed limits on 500 kilometres of suburban arterial roads; and speed reduction programs on local routes. Various other initiatives are underway to explore the installation of protected left- turn signal features, as well as protected midblock crossings on suburban arterial roads with high traffic volumes.
About the data
The new data set includes a record of every collision reported to Toronto police between 2014 and 2021 — 499,355 in total — mapped to the nearest intersection, where that information is available.
The Star’s analysis looks only at the subset of nearly 70,000 traffic collisions that caused injuries or death.
Co- ordinates are given to the nearest street intersection, as the crow flies. Because of this, collisions on municipal highways that do not have intersections may instead appear at another off- highway location nearby. ( An example is Four Oak Gate and Airley Crescent, a crossing of two East York side streets that appears as a major hot spot because it’s the intersection nearest to a busy stretch of the Don Valley Parkway.)
For this reason, the Star’s analysis of Toronto’s worst 100 intersections excludes locations adjacent to the DVP and Gardiner Expressway. Toronto police records also exclude collisions on 400- series highways and the Queen Elizabeth Way, which are under OPP jurisdiction.