The tragic mid-July death of six-year-old Georgia Walsh at the corner of Millwood Road and McRae Drive and a recent report by the City of Toronto’s chief medical officer on vehicle speed rates and fatalities have inspired a series of new potential policy changes by Toronto City Council.
Coun. John Parker and Coun. Josh Matlow brought forth a list of potential new safety measures for neighbourhood streets to the last North York and Toronto and East York community council meetings, respectively, in mid-August, and have directed city staff to investigate the potential of reducing speed limits from 40 kilometres an hour to 30 on residential streets throughout both of their respective wards. North York Community Council also approved prohibiting right-hand turns on red lights at that McRae intersection as well as the surrounding intersections of each elementary school in Leaside.
“We don’t want to have a knee-jerk reaction because of something tragic, but we do need to come up with meaningful ways to forward the cause of safety on our streets,” Parker said. “Even I had an initial impulse to see speed limits reduced, but I now think there are more dimensions to this that we need to study first before coming to that conclusion [to reduce speed limits].”
The report by the medical officer says pedestrians have a 20 per cent chance of fatal injuries with speeds of 40 km/h, while at speeds of 30 km/h, fatality rates drop to as low as five per cent. Parker said that although speed reduction is an option, he’s cautious as it could cause more frustration than it solves. Coun. Matlow said the speed reduction “could literally be the meaning between life and death” in pedestrian-vehicle collisions but agreed street-specific reviews and study need to take place before making sweeping changes.
“There needs to be an opportunity for consultation; we need the public to be involved in this discussion,” he said.
Parker also brought forth the idea of extending the dead-end Redway Road all the way through to the Bayview Avenue extension as an alternate thoroughfare for commuters to travel through Leaside. Other measures the councillors have asked staff to report on include the potential of new controlled pedestrian crossings along Bayview, increased police patrolling in areas of concern and right-turn restrictions to make using residential streets less appealing for non-local traffic, particularly in Leaside.