Working for Safe Sidewalks on Avenue Road between Bloor St. & St. Clair Ave.
Raquel won’t ride her bike north on Avenue Rd., from Bloor St., because she says the section of road is too dangerous to navigate.
A May 13 report from City Hall said that stretch of roadway will have its six-lanes reduced to four and see the implementation of bike lanes to help prevent future cyclist fatalities, of which there have been three since 2015.
Police have now charged the 52-year-old truck driver in the April 30 death of Ali Sezgin Armagan, a recent immigrant from Turkey, who was killed while riding his bike for work outside an Avenue Road construction site. The driver is facing a charge of careless driving causing bodily harm or death. Armagan was killed when the driver of the flatbed truck made a left turn into a loading dock near Elgin Ave.
Separated bike lanes, increased pedestrian space and reduced car lanes may be coming to a deadly section of Avenue Road, in a move that some worry could cause more congestion.
A report approved by the city’s infrastructure and environment committee Tuesday recommended the changes on the stretch between Bloor Street West and Davenport Road where three cyclists have been killed in the last nine years. The changes will go to council for final approval on June 26.
The Avenue Road Safety Coalition (ARSC) has worked for seven years to address dangerous conditions along Avenue Road between Bloor St. and St. Clair Avenue West. We are pleased that work has finally begun to address some of our safety concerns on Avenue Road with the construction of bike lanes from Bloor St. to Davenport Road. We fully support the bike lanes. They represent an important step towards meeting our goals. However, we were disheartened and alarmed to find that the IE 14.4 – Avenue Road Report does not include meaningful pedestrian sidewalk safety improvements north of Davenport Rd in Ward 11 and further extended to St. Clair Avenue West in Ward 12.
We are writing to request meaningful changes addressing the dangerously narrow Avenue Road sidewalks north of Davenport Road.
The Avenue Road Safety Coalition (ARSC) has worked for seven years to address dangerous conditions along Avenue Road between Bloor St. and St. Clair Avenue West. We are pleased that work has finally begun to address some of our safety concerns on Avenue Road with the construction of bike lanes from Bloor St. to Davenport Road. We fully support the bike lanes. They represent an important step towards meeting our goals. However, we were disheartened and alarmed to find that the IE 14.4 – Avenue Road Report does not include meaningful pedestrian sidewalk safety improvements north of Davenport Rd in Ward 11 and further extended to St. Clair Avenue West in Ward 12.
Another tragedy on Avenue Road
We don’t yet know all the facts of this case, but we do know that this 6-lane 2.1 km section of Avenue Road is dangerous for people on foot and on bikes, and even in cars – a matter that the Avenue Road Safety Coalition has continuously raised with local councillors and the city for seven long years. Today’s death is all the more tragic for its predictability. It is past time for solutions.
Featured in the Toronto Star
There was a time when city hall routinely rejected community demands for changes to arterial roads — even when motivated by safety concerns — by pointing to a road’s designated function to move lots of cars, fast.
Fortunately, the times, and city priorities, have changed. High-speed, six-lane Avenue Road, between Bloor Street West and St. Clair Avenue West, is the latest road on the verge of a makeover with interim measures to convert it to a calmer, safer four lanes, in advance of full reconstruction at a later date. With public consultations now complete, and a committee vote on the final staff recommendations scheduled for March, city hall may now be ready to deliver.
Road safety advocates are calling on the city to speed up proposed changes to Avenue Road after an e-bike rider was struck and killed by a truck driver Tuesday.
The 39-year-old male e-bike rider, who has not been publicly identified, was the fourth cyclist killed in Toronto this year, putting the city on course for one of its deadliest years for cyclists in recent memory. The crash occurred on a particularly dangerous stretch of Avenue Road, between Davenport Road and Bloor Street, where three cyclists have been killed in the past nine years.
Multiple developments will increase density in Etobicoke and elsewhere in Toronto. There simply isn’t enough space for everyone to rely on their cars all the time, Dr. Christopher Yarnell writes. …
Roger Morier and Jonathan Schmidt argue that road safety cannot be treated like a candidate in a popularity contest.
The death of an 89-year-old pedestrian in 2017 was the last straw for the mayor of Hoboken, N.J. “I felt it wasn’t acceptable.”
Street parking was already scarce in Hoboken, New Jersey, when the death of an elderly pedestrian spurred city leaders to remove even more spaces in a bid to end traffic fatalities.
Curbed asked a team of volunteer architects and consultants led by WXY to imagine a thoroughly reengineered Third Avenue as a model for the rest of the city. The stretch they came up with seemed like a fantasy then and doesn’t exist now, but a different section of the avenue is getting a makeover, and many of the elements we featured are appearing elsewhere, adding up to creeping yet visible change. It can’t come soon enough: Drivers still slam into pedestrians, bikes, and cars with appalling regularity and horrific consequences. Last year, car crashes killed 267 people, including 132 people who were just walking along.