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Man crossing busy street at marked pedestrian crossing with his daughter

‘Assume every driver is stupid’: How to teach kids to cross busy streets in Toronto

While it might be sufficient in other cities, it’s a well-known fact that looking both ways before crossing the street in Toronto simply isn’t enough to guarantee one’s safety.

Pedestrians encounter traffic-packed roadways, narrow sidewalks and unpredictable motorists — and for kids, navigating the streets on foot can be especially intense.

For parents, the statistics for pedestrian collisions involving youth in the city can be alarming.

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Holiday lights on trees

2024 – a year of progress and achievements

Thanks to the efforts of the Avenue Road Safety Coalition (ARSC) supporters, Councillor Saxe, and the Transportation Services staff, we achieved significant milestones in 2024 to enhance safety on Avenue Road between St. Clair Avenue and Bloor Street. We recognize that this year has been challenging for many due to changes in provincial government policies. Nevertheless, you stepped up to write letters, attend meetings, and present your opinions to City Committees, which were crucial in advocating for a safer Avenue Road.

We sincerely appreciate your commitment to safe, climate-friendly, and multi-modal road safety initiatives. Your continued support is crucial as we look forward to achieving our goal in 2025. We wish all our ARSC supporters and your families and friends a safe and happy holiday season and all the best for the new year!

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workman installing cones on roadway

Toronto traffic is a nightmare

As Toronto furiously debates bike lanes and their role in the city’s notorious gridlock, mostly missing from the discussion is a culprit that at its peak occupied almost one-fifth of the city’s road network.

Construction — for provincially managed transit projects, condo and office buildings, and utility work to support Toronto’s booming growth — closes more kilometres of roadway than bike lanes, special events or anything else. City officials say construction closures are the biggest cause of the kind of traffic backups that are angering residents and the Ford government.

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Avenue Road south of Davenport aerial view of road and cars

Giant Avenue Road barriers explained

The Avenue Road Safety Coalition (ARSC) is applauding recent efforts by the City of Toronto to improve road safety along Avenue Road, following a series of tragic accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists, including two major incidents — the April 30 cyclist fatality near the Avenue Road construction site and the Oct. 2 pedestrian injury at the intersection of Avenue Road and Davenport Road.

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Stay alert and look both ways!

A new report from the City of Toronto shows that by far the most vulnerable road users are pedestrians.

The report says that 29 pedestrians were killed and 134 seriously injured after being struck by vehicles on Toronto’s streets in 2023. Data collected by the City also indicates the riskiest locations for pedestrians – including mid-block (uncontrolled) crossings, and intersections, particularly when drivers are turning left.

The ARSC has been and will continue to be particularly focused on pedestrian safety on Avenue Road, as we work toward implementation of further phases of the Avenue Road safety improvement plan.

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World Day of Remembrance poster + people with signs demonstrating

Friends & Families for Safe Streets World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims

Join Friends and Families for Safe Streets at Queen’s Park at 4:30 p.m. for a 5 p.m. start time. This event features speakers personally devastated by road violence, a memorial name-reading ceremony, and a candle-lit march around Queen’s Park.

Join FFSS in demanding that the provincial government not pass Bill 212 and not rip out our safest and most-used complete streets, along with preventing safe streets from being built anywhere else in the province. If our safe streets are ripped out and other municipalities are not allowed to build them, more people will be killed in crashes that would otherwise have been prevented.

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Accident Avenue Rd. & Davenport - Oct. 2, 2024

Pedestrian seriously injured at Avenue Road and Davenport

Another pedestrian was seriously injured this afternoon on Avenue Road near Davenport. The collision involved a pedestrian, and three cars. One car jumped the curb onto the sidewalk. The pedestrian was transferred to the hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Road safety improvements on Avenue Road are scheduled to start soon, which unfortunately was not soon enough to prevent another injury.

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bike lanes on Wellesley St. Toronto

Forget the bike lanes. If Ford wants to move traffic, he should invest in tactics that work

Aside from their negligible impact on car travel times, bike lanes get more people onto bikes by providing them a faster, safer option. That makes the lives of those cyclists better, and also means there are fewer cars on the road.

If Ford is actually concerned with moving cars better, he could accomplish that goal much more effectively by leaving bike lanes alone and joining Toronto’s fight to prevent blocking intersections through automatic camera enforcement power, and sharing more dollars for traffic wardens.

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ARSC Plan TE14.38

Avenue Road improvements – follow-up

Thank you for meeting with the Avenue Road Safety Coalition representatives on July 23 to discuss the City’s installed and planned improvements for Avenue Road between Davenport and Dupont.

The Avenue Road Safety Coalition is pleased with the progress made since May 9 and the news that work is proceeding quickly to complete some of the construction this season. The reduction to 4 lanes, a key ARSC goal to encourage slower speeds, is approved for the first kilometre. Since Council approved the revisions, we have seen tangible progress with the bike lanes, the design for pedestrian improvements between Davenport and Dupont are underway and that the much-needed signalized mid-block pedestrian crosswalk will be completed in sync with the sidewalk improvements over the next few months.

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Toronto traffic jam

Toronto’s ineffectual enforcement contributes to ongoing gridlock

After years of writing about traffic enforcement and pedestrian and cyclist safety, I became convinced that Toronto police either just don’t like or don’t respect policing the roads, and the leadership doesn’t see good reason to change that.

A former police officer told Habibinia much the same. There is a long-standing culture inside the police service where traffic enforcement is not considered “real police work” compared to “sexy” crime-fighting. Yet city hall, which sets the police budget, believes gridlock is a major problem, for people and for the economy.

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Ghost Bike ride July 31, 2024

Too many pedestrians and cyclists are killed by cars. There are solutions

For too long, society accepted that death was a fact of life on the roads. It was the cost of convenience to move from A to B as fast as possible in a car. We call crashes “accidents,” even when the causes, from driver speed to road design, are deliberate choices. It’s a cultural problem that such incidents are viewed as ordinary.

Cities must redouble their efforts to make change happen.

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