Sean Marshall

Tag: road-safety

  • One more sign should do it…

    A gigantic school zone speed limit sign on McCowan Road in Scarborough

    Months after Doug Ford’s provincial government banned the use of municipal speed enforcement cameras, calling it a “cash grab,” new supersized school speed zone signs are going up across the province. The first ones I encountered are on McCowan Road in Scarborough, near my spouse’s family home.

    The signs, placed near St. Ignatius of Loyola Catholic School south of Finch Avenue, are gigantic: nearly 2.5 metres tall, mounted over three metres above the ground, affixed to an extra large wooden pole as the new signs were too big for the standard metal poles used for that purpose. The province delivered 80 signs to the City of Toronto, but with four signs per school zone (two mounted in each direction including advance warning signs), that meant only 20 schools would get these new totems.

    The new supersized school zone sign next to an older “community safety zone” sign, affixed to a standard metal sign pole

    Before the pro-driver legislation was enacted on November 14, 2025, there was a speed camera placed on McCowan Road adjacent to the elementary school, one of 150 located in the City of Toronto. Under provincial law, municipal speed cameras were only allowed to be installed in specific designated safety zones, namely roadways adjacent to schools, parks, or seniors’ residences, and had to be accompanied with advisory signage.

    Between April 2024, when the camera was activated, and July 2025, when the camera was destroyed (one of many vandalized that year), over 19,000 speeding motorists were captured by the photo camera travelling at least 11 km/h over the posted speed limit. This was despite the existing maximum speed, school zone, community safety zone, and municipal speed camera signs on this stretch of road.

    Sign warning of a municipal speed camera in Brampton in October 2025

    Despite the high number of infractions, the cameras were doing their job; a job that the Toronto Police isn’t motivated — or able — to do. As seasoned municipal watcher Matt Elliot points out, for period between January 1, 2025 through November 14, 2025 (when camera enforcement was forced to end), 628,165 speeding tickets were issued through the automated speed enforcement program. Toronto Police’s “Vision Zero” traffic unit issued just 14,500 tickets.

    New city report notes the Toronto Police Vision Zero Enforcement Team handed out about 14,500 speeding tickets in 2025. Might sound like a lot, but well, compare and contrast.

    — Matt Elliott (@graphicmatt.com) 2026-06-03T14:46:06.746Z
    Post by City Hall Watcher Matt Elliot

    Despite all those tickets issued, the cameras were especially effective at reducing speeding in school zones. A 2025 Toronto Metropolitan University/SickKids Hospital study found that speed enforcement cameras reduced speeding by 45 per cent and reduced speeds by most drivers by more than 10 km/h.

    Once the cameras were taken down, speeds went back up. On Parkside Drive adjacent to High Park, were one camera was vandalized multiple times (with no arrests made), the number of motorists speeding 20 km/h or more than the 40 km/h speed limit went up 235%. In Ottawa, city data found that speeding went up considerably in school zones once the consequences were taken away.

    Active police enforcement remains a valuable tool because officers can lay charges that automatic speed cameras can not catch, including distracted, impaired, and dangerous driving. But policing has a dark history of racial profiling and has a pro-motorist “windshield bias,” while speed enforcement and red light cameras do not discriminate.

    Furthermore, North American roads are designed for excessive speed and not for the safety of vulnerable road users. We rely on signs to advise motorists of how we expect them to drive, rather than road design that requires attentive and slower driving. Speed cameras were a useful stopgap that worked a lot better than signage.

    So, the new supersized signs going up are not a solution to unsafe driving: they are just another mere indication that children, seniors, and all pedestrians and cyclists don’t really matter, especially to politicians like Doug Ford.

  • Safer streets need more than just speed cameras

    Safer streets need more than just speed cameras

    Dearbourne Boulevard, a four-lane collector street designated a community safety zone

    Last week, while visiting Brampton, I came across one of the hundreds municipal speed enforcement cameras that Premier Doug Ford’s government wants to rip out across the province. The camera, on a four-lane collector street in Bramalea, is in a residential area, adjacent to several parks, including a pathway to a local public school, in an area designated a community safety zone. This is precisely the type of place that the government intended speed enforcement cameras would go when they were permitted under provincial legislation in 2019.

    In a September 2025 government press release touting the move as “protecting taxpayers,” Ford, whose government was in power when these cameras were permitted, claimed that the program became “a cash grab;” supporting quotes included those from former Liberal leader and current Vaughan mayor Steven Del Duca, a representative of the province’s municipal police unions, and a spokesperson from the right-wing Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

    If only there was a simple, effective way for taxpayers to avoid the so-called “cash grab.”

    It was interesting who was not quoted in that press release, including doctors, educators, safety advocates, and even police brass. Ontario police chiefs support automated speed enforcement. It is also worth noting most municipalities support the cameras; Vaughan is one of only a few municipalities that recently rejected the road safety program; Del Duca was joined by just two other conservative-leaning mayors.

    Of course, the arguments against the cameras, which in Toronto, were repeatedly vandalized or stolen, never held water. There were no tickets mailed out to drivers going just a few kilometres over the limit. Furthermore, speed enforcement was never a “cash grab” as the fines collected went to pay for the administration of the program, to “Vision Zero” works, such as the installation of speed cushions and improved pedestrian crossings, and to the province, which the collects the victim surcharges added to every Highway Traffic Act fine. The City of Brampton found that not only were the cameras effective in reducing speeds, they had the support of a majority of its residents.

    Municipal speed camera

    That said, while visiting Dearbourne Boulevard, I realized that speed enforcement cameras on their own are not effective in creating safer streets.

    Dearbourne Boulevard serves one of the oldest parts of Bramalea, established in the early 1960s as a self-contained satellite town, where residents were expected to drive to most destinations. After amalgamation into the City of Brampton, traffic increased and more transit became available. Nearby, several newer high-rise apartment buildings were built, walking distance to Bramalea GO Station. A bus route, 16 Dearbourne, runs along the street, connecting the neighbourhood with several shopping plazas, the GO Station, and the transit hub adjacent to Bramalea City Centre.

    Despite having low traffic and serving a residential area (an industrial area is just to the south, but it is inaccessible from Dearbourne), it is still a wide four lane street. The only traffic signal is at Bramalea Road; there are two all-way stops at Delamere Drive and Dorchester Road. At the east end of Dearbourne, the T-intersection with Balmoral Drive is controlled only be a stop sign, with two long and gentle right turn slip lanes. The speed limit is 50 km/h, and there are no speed cushions, curb extensions, or even painted buffers to indicated that drivers should go slower. In October 2022, a pedestrian was struck and seriously injured at one of the two all-way stop intersections; the driver fled the scene.

    Though to its credit, the City of Brampton has been improving many suburban streets and roads to reduce speeds and promote walking and cycling. Charolais Drive, Vodden Street, Central Park Boulevard, and Vodden Road saw traffic lanes replaced by new cycling lanes, with little pushback from residents. Dearbourne Boulevard was also slated for improvements in 2021-2022, but that work was not yet started.

    Central Park Boulevard, Howden Boulevard, and Vodden Street were among several four-lane collector roads tamed with new cycling infrastructure in the last five years, creating a new through east-west cycle route

    Now, it might be too late. Not only will the speed camera be prohibited under a bill being rushed through the provincial legislature (going around the consultation process where concerned citizens, advocates, or safety experts could depute to MPPs), but another omnibus bill was just introduced, which if passed, would prohibit all Ontario municipalities from removing general traffic lanes to install cycling infrastructure, or even transit lanes and on-street patios.

    Given the provincial government’s increasing hostility to anything that inconveniences drivers, be it road tolls, vehicle license renewal fees, automated speed enforcement, or bike lanes, it leaves municipalities fewer options to protect their most vulnerable road users and promote sustainable and healthy transport options. Though Doug Ford claims that alternatives like flashing lights and more signs would do the trick, they do not do much to deter aggressive and dangerous drivers, unlikely to get caught.

    For streets like Dearbourne Boulevard, there are a few options. Lowering the speed limit to 40 km/h should be a first step. The redundant outer two lanes could be converted to parking-only spaces, with curb extensions and bollards at intersections. The slip lanes at Balmoral Drive should be ripped out.

    Roads designed in the 1960s and 1970s for traffic that never really materialized need to be rethought, with or without Queen’s Park’s support.

  • Crossride of death: how an Ajax girl was killed riding her bike

    Crossride of death: how an Ajax girl was killed riding her bike

    Memorial for 13-year-old Kirsty, who was struck and killed while riding a bicycle in Ajax on November 7
    Memorial for 13-year-old Kirsty, who was struck and killed while riding a bicycle in Ajax on November 7

    January 13, 2025 update: A 44-year-old woman was charged by Durham Regional Police with careless driving causing death, over two months after this tragic collision.

    On Thursday, November 7, at approximately 7:35 AM, a 13-year-old girl was struck and killed by the driver of a Hyundai Santa Fe (a midsized crossover SUV) at Rossland Road and Stevensgate Drive. The girl was riding a bicycle in a marked crossride, a crossing designated for both pedestrians and cyclists along a multiuse path, when she was struck and pinned beneath the vehicle.

    Multiuse paths (MUPs) are typically found in parks, particularly along waterbodies such as lakes, rivers, and creeks such as Lake Ontario or the Don River. They are shared by all sorts of people, including walkers, runners, cyclists, dog-walkers, rollerbladers, and wheelchair users, often coming into conflict on busy, narrow sections such as the Martin Goodman Trail or the Lower Don Trail.

    In the suburbs surrounding Toronto (and in a few locations within the city, such as on Lake Shore Boulevard East and Eglinton Avenue West), MUPs are a popular form of cycling infrastructure along busier roads with higher speed limits. Older boulevard MUPs required cyclists to stop and dismount at road crossings (though these instructions were usually ignored). Newer and upgraded MUPs allow cyclists to ride across intersecting roadways, at marked crossrides. Signage advises motorists to watch for cyclists and advises cyclists to slow and watch for motorists and to yield to pedestrians. At signalized intersections, most new MUPs include dedicated bicycle signals.

    It was at one of these new crossrides that Kirsty was struck and killed. Though no official police press release or any follow-up news articles provided the girl’s name, that name was clearly visible at the makeshift memorial next to where she was killed.

    Crossride at Stevensgate Drive, where a driver pulled out ahead into the crossride without stopping at the stop sign/stop line first.
    Crossride at Stevensgate Drive, where a driver pulled out ahead into the crossride without stopping at the stop sign/stop line first.

    Rossland Road was recently widened from two to four through lanes; a new multiuse path was built on the north side of the roadway, complete with crossrides and cyclist signals. Rossland Road is very much a road. There are no houses fronting onto the roadway, while the few driveways on Rossland provide access only to church and commercial plaza parking lots.

    Rossland Road in Ajax has two lanes in each direction, with a concrete median in between. The speed limit on Rossland is 60 km/h.

    Stevensgate Drive, which leads north from Rossland Road, is a quiet residential street with about two dozen homes and an evangelical church. A stop sign controls traffic at Rossland Road. Though Stevensgate connects to a large subdivision to the north, there are several other streets with signalized intersections that also provide access to the community.

    Motorists take wide turns pulling into Stevensgate Drive. The memorial is below.
    Motorists take wide turns pulling into Stevensgate Drive

    When Kirsty was struck, it was by the southbound Santa Fe driver who would have passed a stop sign and a clearly painted stop line before entering the crossride. A CP24 news report clearly showed the vehicle being towed onto Rossland Road from the southbound direction. At 7:35 AM, it was daylight.

    Screenshot from CP24 report
    Screenshot from CP24 report

    Drivers rolling through stop signs are a common occurrence, even though the law clearly states that a full and complete stop at the stop sign and painted stop line is required before proceeding. Had the driver done so, this tragedy most likely would have been prevented.

    Looking west along the multiuse path from Stevensgate Drive, towards Ravenscroft Road
    Looking west along the multiuse path, towards Ravenscroft Road

    Two days later, on Saturday, November 9, I visited the scene. I noted the roadside memorial next to the stop sign facing Stevensgate Drive. While I was there, several people stopped to visit the memorial; at least two people left flowers and cards of sympathy.

    While there, I mounted a small digital camera on the trunk of a car parked on the west side of Stevensgate, about 75 metres north of the intersection, in a legal parking spot. The camera, mounted on a mini-tripod, was mostly inconspicuous. Within 25 minutes, five motorists improperly stopped after the stop line and into the crossride; two properly stopped before creeping up to make their turn. Two drivers also made fast, wide right turns into Stevensgate during that time. The edited video below shows motorists’ actions during that 25 minutes

    Video taken on Saturday, November 9 showing motorists driving south on
    Stevensgate Drive towards Rossland Road (3 minutes, 7 seconds)

    While taking photographs and recording the videos, a resident, who lived a few houses north of the intersection, came to talk to me, and asked if I knew the girl. I explained why I was there, and we had a short, but good chat, about the collision and road safety. He noted that it is hard to see traffic from the stop line, and that he has to pull forward before turning. But he agreed that the stop line was there for a reason, and that drivers often rush to get onto Rossland.

    Police enforcement is not necessarily the answer. There are too many intersections to watch, and the careless driving behaviours exhibited are normalized. In Toronto, it is cyclists on quiet streets and in public parks who are typically targeted at stop signs, not motorists, even though cyclists are the more vulnerable road users.

    In Washington DC, there are stop sign cameras mounted at specific locations, though there are only about a dozen of those throughout the city at any given time. These could provide a useful tool for targeted automated enforcement on Ontario’s roads to reinforce proper driving behaviour.

    A pole-mounted camera faces an all-way stop in Washington DC
    A pole-mounted camera faces an all-way stop in Washington DC

    Intersections should also be redesigned to improve the visibility of pedestrians and cyclists at crosswalks and crossrides and act to slow down motorists; raised sidewalks and path crossings would act as a speed hump as well as enhance visibility. A concrete island or short median at the stop sign would force motorists to approach the stop at a slower speed and prevent wide turns on to and off the intersecting street. A quick and inexpensive (though less-effective) solution could be to place wide knock-down bollards with supplemental crossing and stop sign messages in the middle of the roadway at each stop bar and crosswalk/crossride. Though this is best as a short-term measure.

    A wide knock-down bollard designed to provide additional visibility to a crosswalk
    (Milton, Ontario, via Google Streetview)

    As the provincial government vindictively overrides municipalities’ ability to provide safer on-road cycling infrastructure, off-street infrastructure, such as MUPs, will remain an important tool for promoting active transportation, especially in suburban areas and high-traffic neighbourhoods. Though boulevard MUPs provide separation from traffic in most cases, they are particularly hazardous at intersections, especially when motorists are distracted, aggressive, or just merely careless. There is much more that can and should be done to make them safer for all road users.

  • Bloor Street blues

    Bloor Street blues

    Bloor Street, entering Mississauga from Toronto

    On Friday, May 10, Mississauga City Councillor and mayoral candidate Dipika Damerla posted a message and video on Twitter/X, stating that “it will be up to the residents to decide on who best represents the vision of the Mississauga they want.” She followed that by saying that she “will not be silenced in my opposition to remove two lanes from Bloor Street and create more gridlock in Mississauga.”

    In the video, she is standing on Bloor Street West at Yonge Street in the heart of Toronto’s Bloor-Yorkville business district, 16 kilometres east of the Mississauga border at Etobicoke Creek. Needless to say, this is a very different built environment than anywhere in Mississauga.

    Toronto’s Bloor-Danforth bike route, which stretches from Danforth Avenue and Dawes Road on the east to Bloor Street West at Aberfoyle Crescent (near Islington Avenue) is very well used by cyclists, including commuters, couriers, and casual riders. There is also a subway paralleling the entire corridor. Behind Councillor Damerla, there is heavy traffic, but it is unfair to blame the bike lanes for this congestion. The vehicles are stopped at a red light at Yonge Street, one of the busiest intersections for pedestrians and cyclists in the city. There’s a dedicated scramble crossing at the intersection, which does reduce the green light time for traffic on Bloor, though it makes it safer for pedestrians, who outnumber all other road users there.

    There is also considerable construction in and around the intersection. Work continues on the troubled “The One” condominium tower, blocking off some of the southwest Yonge-Bloor corner. Just east of Yonge, pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists are squeezed as the TTC works to expand the Bloor-Yonge Subway Station below.

    Furthermore, before the bike lanes were installed, the curb lanes were used by stopped cars and delivery trucks; Bloor Street was never a traffic clearway, and it is a ridiculous argument that the bike lanes have caused congestion.

    Construction on Bloor Street is the cause of some of the congestion in the area

    In Mississauga, Bloor Street is a minor arterial road that extends as far west as Central Parkway. Between Etobicoke Creek and Royal Orchard Drive (just west of Dixie Road), Bloor is lined with rental and condominium apartment buildings and townhouse complexes. From Royal Orchard to Cawthra, the street is lined with low-density dwellings, a shopping plaza, and a high school. The western-most section is lined with fences as the houses back onto Bloor, more typical of major suburban arterial roads.

    Bloor Street in Mississauga
    Looking west towards Central Parkway and the Mississauga City Centre skyline

    The City of Mississauga was already planning to resurface Bloor Street, but took advantage of the timing to completely study the corridor with the goal of promoting active transportation and improving road safety while maintaining traffic flow.

    After extensive community consultation, Mississauga city staff recommended Alternative 6 for Bloor Street which widens the sidewalks, adds new separated cycle tracks, and a boulevard for trees and street lighting between the roadway and cycle tracks and the sidewalks and property lines. A continuous two-way left turn lane would allow motor vehicles to turn in and out of side streets and private driveways without conflicting with through traffic. This was approved by City Council in June 2023. Construction is scheduled to begin in October 2024.

    Council-approved redesign for Bloor Street in Mississauga

    This plan balances the needs of all road users, particularly students and seniors. It is great to see suburbs like Mississauga and Brampton rethink their streets to better serve all of their residents.

    Bloor Street, looking east from Havenwood Drive. Note the “school route” sign and the cyclist using the sidewalk in the distance.
    Yellow lawn signs with the slogan “Save Bloor Street.” Note the SUV parked in a way that partially blocks the narrow sidewalk.

    Bloor Street, whether it be a residential roadway in Mississauga, or a commercial street in Downtown Toronto, is not a place where drivers should expect nor be given ultimate priority over pedestrians, cyclists, or public transit riders.

    Luckily, many Mississauga politicians already get it. Reporting for the Mississauga News, Steve Cornwell noted that fellow councillor and mayoral candidate Alvin Tedjo “stands by the approved Bloor project”, while Carolyn Parrish, another city councillor running for mayor declared that a reversal of last year’s council vote would not pass, saying that the “issue’s dead” at one mayoral debate. Ward 3 Councillor Chris Fonseca — whose ward covers most of Bloor Street — championed the changes.

    Though Parrish has led several polls (with Damerla and Tedjo in second and third place), it is unfortunate to see a top-three candidate and sitting councillor using the Bloor Street redesign as a wedge issue. Mississauga is growing up. Some of its politicians should too.