Don’t stop funding road safety initiatives
When baseball player Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record by knocking in 61 dingers in 1961, it famously went into the record books with an asterisk beside the achievement. It was a signifier that while, yes, he had beaten the record, Ruth’s mark was set at a time when there were fewer games in the season. An important bit of historical context.
Toronto city hall’s road safety numbers over the past few years should have an asterisk too. A big one, shaped like the COVID-19 virus.
Because sure, it’s true that the number of fatalities and serious injuries to pedestrians and cyclists in Toronto over the past four years has been low relative to numbers posted in 2019. That year, according to the city’s website, Toronto saw a total of 225 pedestrian and cyclist KSIs — an abbreviation short for “killed or seriously injured.” In the four years since, the average is about 152.
But let’s pump the brakes a bit and slap a Maris-style asterisk on all that. It’s not clear to me how much of that decline can be credited to any action taken by the politicians or bureaucrats at city hall. Especially when the pandemic we muddled through in the same period offers a simpler explanation: with fewer people on the street, there were fewer people walking and cycling who could get hit by cars — and fewer drivers to hit them. I tend to think that’s the bigger factor.
You could call that healthy skepticism. You could call it pessimistic cynicism.
Either way, I fear you might have to eventually call it pretty savvy. Because last month’s road safety data for Toronto offers a reason to be really concerned that as traffic continues to bounce back to something approaching pre-pandemic levels, the number of people getting bounced around by traffic could be bouncing back too.
Based on collisions tracked on the city’s interactive map, with a total of 12 collisions resulting in serious injury or death, February 2024 was the most dangerous February for pedestrians and cyclists since 2020. Last year, there were nine serious collisions, with none resulting in death. This year, the 12 collisions resulted in four tragic deaths — one cyclist and three pedestrians.
The list of victims includes a 70year-old pedestrian hit near Jane Street and Sheppard Avenue, a 78year-old pedestrian hit at Finch Avenue East and Willowdale Road, a 66-year-old pedestrian hit at Milner Avenue and Morningside Avenue, and a 47-year-old cyclist hit near St. Clair Avenue and Birchmount Road.
And even as February came to an end, the carnage has continued. On Monday morning, police reported that a pedestrian was killed by a driver near Lawrence Avenue West and Varna Drive.
A few weeks of data isn’t enough data to start making sweeping conclusions, but it should be enough to cause Mayor Olivia Chow and Toronto city councillors to start paying close attention.
Especially as all the fatalities have something in common: they all occurred away from the downtown core in the inner suburbs, where streets are wide, where traffic is fast and where city hall has not spent nearly enough time or money on road safety.
It’s overdue. City hall’s Vision Zero road safety plan — which ostensibly seeks to reduce the number of serious injuries or deaths on Toronto’s streets to zero — was last substantially updated in 2019, when former mayor John Tory and city council passed what they called a “Vision Zero 2.0.”
It has led to some meaningful changes to streets, especially in and around the downtown core, supporting improvements like traffic lights that give pedestrians a head start to cross before cars, more crossing guards, more sidewalks and some road redesigns that slow the speed of traffic.
But the pace of change was slowed by a general reluctance under Tory to spend money. And the money that has been earmarked is running out. Following this year’s planned spend of about $29 million on projects designed to make streets safer, the figure is set to drop to $22 million next year, and then continue to decline most years until it reaches a low of just $5 million a year after 2028.
As a literal life or death issue, February’s data should be enough reason for Chow to ask the transportation department to draw up a new strategy — and a new budget — with a special focus on delivering real safety for pedestrians and cyclists in Scarborough, Etobicoke and North York.
She shouldn’t have to do it alone. City councillors in these areas should be demanding it too, even if it means hanging tough on decisions that might have some drivers fuming about slower speeds, automated enforcement or giving over road space to cyclists or pedestrians.
It’s time for a new drive to deliver real road safety, with results that won’t need an asterisk.