SIDEWALKS & STREETS

Speed cameras The city is adding 25 new permanent cameras and another 50 mobile cameras that will rotate through locations within the wards where they’re installed, bringing the total number of speed cameras in the city from 75 to 150. The city’s website shows a map of planned camera locations: Camera Locations.

Red Light Camera Program A Red Light Camera (RLC) is an automated system that detects and captures images of vehicles entering an intersection in spite of the traffic signal indicating red (during the red phase). It is designed to work in tandem with other Vision Zero methods and strategies, including road design changes, public education campaigns and traditional police enforcement.

Speed Limit Changes Speed limits on all local residential roads to be reduced to 30 km/h Additional considerations of speed limit reductions were made for all minor arterial roads with current speed limits over 50 km/h and all collector roads with current speed limits over 40 km/h. Lookup any street for its designation here: map

Bike Lanes The City is working to make travel by bike safer and more inviting, which helps ease congestion, creates a cleaner environment, and promotes physical activity.  One way to achieve this goal is by building bikeways, like physically separated cycle tracks, bike lanes, neighbourhood routes, and paved multi-use trails. Together, all these bikeways make Toronto’s Cycling Network. See details here:Major Cycling Routes

Complete Streets “Complete streets” are streets that are designed to be safe for all users: people who walk, bicycle, take transit or drive, and people of varying ages and levels of ability. They also consider other uses like sidewalk cafés, street furniture, street trees, utilities, and stormwater management. Further information can be found here:  Complete Streets

Congestion in Toronto is a major frustration to motorists and a seemingly never ending problem.  Many recommendations by many experts in the field have been put forward for some time, with little tangible results so far.

The City of Toronto has released its recent strategy on dealing with congestion. Lane closures due to construction were identified as the number one cause of traffic congestion. This report identifies root causes of congestion and strategies being implemented to reduce the problem, one of which is to increase the fees for lane closures due to construction. This is expected to reduce the time of traffic disruption.  See:   Congestion Management

Although countless hours have been spent on attempting to keep our streets flowing, it is important to understand that the goal is moving people in the most efficient way possible.  Given that driving a private vehicle is the most inefficient mode of travel, the City is trying to change behaviour habits away from driving to using transit, cycling and walking (for shorter trips). The number of new drivers in Toronto has increased substantially, however the number of our streets hasn’t changed in decades. Congestion won’t be solved unless we fundamentally change the way we move around in the city. 

Other measures that can relieve pressure on our streets are as follows:

• • Congestion Pricing has proved successful in other major cities around the world, like New York, Paris and Stockholm, however, Provincial jurisdiction has prevented the City from contemplating it for Toronto. 
  • Create Car Free Zones in heavily pedestrian trafficked areas such as proposed by the YongeTOday project in the city’s core.
  • Transform TO goal of 75 per cent of school/work trips under 5 km are walked, biked or by transit
  • See: TransformTO

• RapidTO Through this program, the City of Toronto and Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) are enhancing bus and streetcar transit across Toronto by studying and implementing transit priority solutions that improve service reliability.

• Expansion of TTC Service both in frequency and geographically
• Expanding Bike Lanes to provide a connected and safe alternative to driving

Easing congestion in a major city like Toronto which has the largest number of active construction cranes in North America is no easy task, however a collective approach that reduces the amount of cars on the road will benefit everyone with enhanced community activity, cleaner air and healthier people.

The eglintonTOday project team has been working closely with the local Councillors, Business Improvement Associations (BIAs) and community groups in refining Phase 1 of the eglintonTOday Complete Street plan from Bicknell Avenue (west of Keele Street) to Mount Pleasant Road.

• Resurfacing of the sections of roadway that have not been recently resurfaced by Metrolinx
• Ongoing sidewalk repairs
• Connecting the existing Metrolinx-built Complete Street segment with elements including protected bikeways
• Development of public realm improvement projects in collaboration with the five BIAs along the corridor, such as added seating and artistic curb extensions

Stakeholder Advisory Group

Staff continue to actively engage local business, community and resident groups through the eglintonToday Stakeholder Advisory Group. Transportation Services has received key feedback on congestion at Eglinton Avenue and Allen Road since the new signal and road configuration was activated by Metrolinx as part of the Eglinton Crosstown LRT delivery. While not initially within the scope of the City’s eglintonTOday project, Transportation Services accelerated the handover of the intersection to the City in order to implement operational improvements at these signals. This has helped to address congestion at the Eglinton Avenue and Allen Road intersection while coordinating implementation dates with Metrolinx and Crosslinx.