Toronto could pass largest road safety budget in Vision Zero history

Toronto could increase spending on its road safety program by about 25 percent later this month, as the city continues to deal with dozens of deaths and hundreds of injuries on its streets each year.

City staff are asking councilors to approve the largest budget in the history of the Vision Zero strategy, created in 2016 to eliminate all traffic fatalities. Staff want spending to increase to $99 million, up from nearly $80 million this year, as they ramp up work to improve intersections, install more traffic-calming measures and double the number of automatic radars.

Although the number of deaths and injuries has declined since the program’s inception, this latest annual Vision Zero report comes after 46 people, including pedestrians, cyclists and motorists, died on Toronto’s roads this year.

“It’s really difficult to talk about the number of deaths or serious injuries as a statistic,” said Deputy Mayor Jennifer McKelvie, chair of the city’s infrastructure committee. “These are people. And these are people who haven’t returned home to their families, or people who, following a horrible incident, will never be the same.”

The committee gave the green light to the additional spending this week, but it will still require final approval from the City Council later this month.

Radars will increase to 150 according to plan

Under the plan, the city would more than double its fleet of speed cameras in Toronto by early 2025, from 75 to 150. Most of the city’s current camera fleet is moved to different locations twice a year. Barbara Gray, general manager of the city’s transportation services, said 25 of the new cameras will be permanently installed in locations with high collision rates.

These cameras bring tens of millions of dollars to the city in ticket revenue each year. But Gray defended their use as a security tool, not a way to bring money to Toronto.

“Our goal would be for the cameras to not generate any revenue because people wouldn’t be going over the speed limit,” she said. “Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case to date, but we’re hopeful that as we continue to expand the program, we’ll really start to see that impact.”

The plan would also see staff continue a multi-year effort to lower the speed limit on local roads in the city to 30 mph. So far, this has been done in 15 of the city’s 25 neighborhoods, and two more neighborhoods are expected to change every year until 2028. The transition takes four to six months in each neighborhood as staff must install between 500 and 1 000 new panels.

The city will also roll out hundreds of additional traffic calming measures, including about 735 speed bumps next year and 810 in 2026.

“We know speed is a major issue,” Gray said. “Speed ​​management is a lot of what our tools support… So we know that the toolkit we use on Vision Zero is the right toolkit. »

Injuries have increased in recent years

The number of deaths and injuries on Toronto’s roads has decreased since the program began eight years ago. In 2016, 78 people died and 337 were injured. In 2023, the latest year for which complete data is available, 45 people died and 294 were injured.

Despite the overall decrease, Coun. Dianne Saxe says she is troubled by the number of injuries sustained on city roads in recent years. These numbers jumped between 2021 and 2023, from 241 to 294.

“We absolutely got what we paid for. I have no doubt about it,” she said of Vision Zero’s spending, adding that an increase in the program’s budget was justified.

“We have people who think that because traffic jams are bad, they have the right to take shortcuts, to break the rules, to run red lights, to drive on sidewalks, to run whenever they see a place, and they don’t take into account who will pay.” the price,” she added.

But Count. Anthony Perruzza said that while the work – and spending – to reduce dangerous driving habits is important, so is public education to ensure pedestrians and cyclists use caution on city streets. city.

“It’s really, really hard to fix stupid things,” Perruzza said of distracted pedestrians, often on their cell phones. “You have a 2,000-pound vehicle and you meet it on foot or by bike or some other way — you’re going to lose.”