Avenue Road Pedestrian Safety Improvement Pilot Project
On October 15, 2020, Toronto and East York Community Council approved a motion by Councillors Matlow and Layton to study the feasibility of a pedestrian safety improvement pilot project. The …
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Avenue Road Safety Press Conference
On September 29, 2020, local residents gathered for a (socially distanced) press conference in Jay Macpherson Green to bring to light concerns about the safety of Avenue Road for pedestrians …
Toronto’s measures to prevent pedestrian deaths have fallen short
Last month, 17-year-old Nadia Mozumder was crossing the street outside her Scarborough school during her lunch break when she was hit and killed by a driver in a minivan making a left turn.
Seven years ago, at another Scarborough intersection, 42-year-old Erica Stark was standing on the sidewalk with her dog, waiting for the light to turn green, when a minivan jumped the curb, hit and killed her./
Two women were killed on two separate clear fall days by two different drivers of a Dodge Caravan, in the same neighbourhood of the same city – a city that has vowed to eliminate pedestrian fatalities entirely.
The Liberation of Paris from Cars is Working
Over the past six years, Paris has done more than almost any city in the world to take space back from cars. Mayor Anne Hidalgo has opened linear parks in …
New linear park for Avenue road
A group of concerned citizens and an architecture firm are proposing to create a new linear park along Avenue Road to improve walkability and safety.
The proposal calls for the stretch of Avenue between Bloor Avenue West and St. Clair Avenue West to be reduced from six lanes of traffic down to four, which would allow for sidewalks to be widened 240 per cent from their current width and accommodate 500 new trees.
Avenue Road needs wider sidewalks and lower speeds
Avenue Road, a six-lane, high-speed motorway running through the heart of Toronto, no longer fits with contemporary ideas about road safety or with the schools, parks, residential towers and seniors’ residences in its path.
Avenue Road, a six-lane, high-speed motorway running through the heart of Toronto, no longer fits with contemporary ideas about road safety or with the schools, parks, residential towers and seniors’ residences in its path.
The 2.1-kilometre stretch between Bloor Street West and St. Clair Avenue West was widened in 1959 by the old Metro government by chopping down trees and pilfering space from sidewalks.
Metro’s priority, to move as many cars as quickly as possible, was clear. “I would cut five or six feet off many sidewalks, shove the poles back and create two new lanes for traffic,” Metro chair Fred Gardiner told the Toronto Star in 1953.