The letter to the IEC reads: To Councillors Fletcher, Colle, Chernos Lin, Morley, Pasternak, Perruzza and Saxe, I am writing on behalf of Friends and Families for Safe Streets (FFSS) to express our flabbergasted dismay that city staff want to renege on an already-approved plan to make the short stretch of Jones Ave between Queen St E and Dundas St E safer for everyone, for the sake of 30 parking spaces. We are also gravely disappointed at the lack of advancement of the Cycling Network Plan, with no brand new infrastructure planned. As you may know, FFSS is a group of people whose loved ones were senselessly killed in crashes that could have been prevented, and survivors who were devastated by severe, life-altering injuries. We are the ones who have paid the worst possible price for Toronto’s deadly streets, the price for the ongoing lack of political will and resulting glacially slow pace of making all of our streets safe, for example by building Complete Streets and adding barriers between motor vehicles and people. Clearly, Toronto’s commitment to Vision Zero and what it means has been completely forgotten here. Let us remind you of Toronto’s Vision Zero 2.0 program, the most essential part of which reads: “As Vision Zero solutions are planned and implemented, there are circumstances when decisions to improve road safety may result in outcomes at odds with other objectives like reducing motor vehicle delay. Vision Zero 2.0 reiterates that human life should be prioritized over all other objectives within all aspects of the transportation system.”
RE: Jones Avenue This section of Jones Ave is not safe enough to leave it as it is. According to the Toronto Police’s All-Collision Database, 145 car crashes have been recorded on this 400m section since Jan 1 2014. That’s 13 per year, or more than 1 per month. There is been one fatality at Dundas St E and Jones Ave, when a father named Douglas Crosbie was violently killed by a van driver who right-hooked him on May 16 2018, in broad daylight. After his death, the city could have chosen to install a protected intersection that would prevent that kind of right hook death in the future, but refused to do so because it might have caused “motor vehicle delay.” 37 people have been injured in preventable crashes on this portion of Jones Ave, or 3 people per year. The road user type bearing the highest rate of injury is motorists themselves, 16 of whom have been injured in crashes. 19 people riding bikes have been struck by motorists, of whom 13 were injured. 8 people walking have been struck by motorists, all whom were injured. There are also an unknown number of unreported crashes and injures, where people rightfully afraid of the police won’t officially report being struck and hurt and risk a police encounter that could turn violent. Though this 400m section of Jones Ave represents 20% of its total length, it is disproportionately dangerous, representing 26% of recorded crashes and its only fatality. This is too much danger and human carnage to merely install some bus stop platforms and call it a day. Valuing 30 parking spaces above valuing the safety of everyone who travels on this section of Jones Ave to go to work, school, play, visit friends, access transit, go to the library, etc, is to value slight convenience for motorists ahead of human life and safety, yet preserving 30 parking spaces instead of preserving human life has been described as “balancing the needs of our local neighbourhood.” It is absurd and perverse to treat finding a convenient parking space a…
to motorists who don’t wish to park in a different place. To choose to prioritize these 30 parking spaces over an extremely effective safety improvement is to actively sabotage Toronto’s Vision Zero program, TransformTO climate mitigation goals, connection to public transportation, the recent interest in encouraging seniors to cycle, and to actively undermine equity, public health, and children’s independent mobility. To the transportation staff who support reneging on building physical protection, and to any elected councillors who vote to renege on this already-approved Vision Zero upgrade, if someone is killed or hurt again on Jones Ave if the bike lanes remain a painted line because of you, because you have worked to deny the wider public the safety benefits of speed calming and physical protection, the blood will be on your hands. Every Canadian and Torontonian has the Charter right to security of the person, and the right to move around the city safely without being harmed or killed in a preventable car crash. All kids have the right to travel to school safely and to reap the developmental benefits of independent mobility, instead of being driven everywhere by parents who are too frightened of unfettered reckless motorists to allow their kids to walk or bike where a mere line of paint does nothing to calm speeds or prevent a motorist from striking someone in the bike lane or on the sidewalk or in the crosswalk while they cross the street. We demand that the city stick with its original plan to build a protected cycle track on Jones Ave between Queen St and Dundas St. It’s the right thing to do. You already know it’s the right thing to do. RE: Lack of New Infrastructure in the Cycling Network Plan We understand that the City is grappling with Bill 212, the provincial effort to destroy existing lifesaving Complete Streets and prevent new ones from being built and saving even more lives. However, it is still shocking to see the extent this has been allowed t…
Read our letter to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee, demanding the City keep its plan to build #CycleTracks on Jones Ave and calling out the chill that #Bill212 is having on #VisionZero.
#TODeadlyStreets #WalkTO #BikeTO #KillBill212 #DeadlyByDesign #SafeStreetsSaveLives #TOpoli #ONpoli
