Author: Walk Toronto

Walk Toronto has joined Cycle Toronto, Friends and Families for Safe Streets, and The Centre for Active Transportation to create a campaign to bring safe and active streets to the heart of the discussion in the 2022 Toronto municipal election.

The Safe and Active Streets for All initiative identifies 10 priority actions and asks election candidates whether they support these actions to make Toronto’s streets safer and more accessible.

1. Building Complete Streets across every ward in Toronto
2. Establishing and Implementing a Vision Zero Safety Checklist
3. Streamlining the traffic calming process equitably across the city
4. Reducing traffic speed on our streets to 30 km/h and 40 km/h on all arterial roads city-wide
5. Improving the safety and accessibility for people walking and using mobility devices
6. Accelerating the Cycling Network Plan to provide safe and connected bike lanes in every ward
7. Funding & supporting Active School Travel programs to ensure young people can safely walk and bike to school
8. Investing in equitable methods to manage traffic enforcement by reallocating resources away from on-the-ground police enforcement
9. Reallocating road space to provide regular and recurring car-free spaces for active transportation
10. Supporting the multi-modal future of Toronto’s transportation system

Walk Toronto has joined 15 other organizations dedicated to road safety to urge the Chief Coroner of Ontario to commence death reviews for road fatalities involving pickups and large SUVs based on the growing body of research that these vehicles pose a greater risk of death to pedestrians and cyclists than conventional cars (e.g., sedans) on our roads. We believe, based on the research, that pickups and large SUVs have been involved in deaths on our roads that would not have occurred with regular cars.

We believe an investigative review for pickups and large SUVs, typically designated as “light trucks,” is needed to save the lives of people on foot, bikes, and who rely on mobility devices, including wheelchairs and scooters, or who have visual impairments.

The letter includes an extensive analysis of the evidence relating to the danger posed by oversized pickups and light trucks to pedestrians and cyclists.

• Read the full letter: Request for investigation of road deaths in Ontario involving pick-up trucks, large SUVs, and heavy trucks (PDF)
• See the CBC News story (quoting Walk Toronto’s Daniella Levy-Pinto)
• Watch the CBC News video clip (featuring Walk Toronto’s Daniella Levy-Pinto)
• Watch the CityNews video clip (featuring Walk Toronto’s Daniella Levy-Pinto)

Walk Toronto has written to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee to support plans to improve the midtown Beltline Trail. In particular, Walk Toronto supports the extension of the York Beltline Trail to the Allen Road along a currently unused City of Toronto right-of-way, with the intention of improving the connection to the Kay Gardiner Beltline Trail to the east, and setting up a possible future bridge to connect the two directly.

Walk Toronto’s submission also provides detailed assessments of improvements that would make walking the Beltline Trail safer and easier to use.

• Read Walk Toronto’s communication (PDF)
• See the agenda item

The potential extension is circled in red below. Some local residents on Fairleigh Crescent who have used this space as an extension of their back yards are objecting to the plans, but this space is owned by the City of Toronto and should be available to all residents.

As Michael Black writes in Walk Toronto’s communication, “Clearly, this is an improvement that will benefit Torontonians who live in various parts of the city. It is not appropriate to view this initiative as having only local significance. This should not be seen as a parkette, but rather as a major linkage in a linear park that is 9 kilometres long.”

The bike lane pilot project on Yonge Street from Bloor to Davisville has made Yonge a better street for walking as well as cycling. Walk Toronto has written to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee to support the continuation of this bike lane pilot project.

Among other things, Walk Toronto’s letter notes that “By providing a buffer between car traffic and the sidewalk, the bike lanes have made walking along Yonge Street much more appealing. The sidewalks are relatively narrow for the amount of foot traffic Yonge Street receives, and having a buffer from traffic makes using those sidewalks far more pleasant.”

A survey (PDF) confirmed that 77% of respondents who were on foot felt that the walking environment had improved.

• Read Walk Toronto’s letter (PDF)
• See the City Council agenda item

Walk Toronto has written to Ontario Premier Doug Ford in support of Bill 54, Protecting Vulnerable Roads Users Act. The objective of
this bill is to protect all forms of road users by amending the Highway Traffic Act (HTA) to include added meaningful penalties where a vulnerable road user has been seriously injured or killed.

The letter was written by Walk Toronto steering committee member Daniella Levy-Pinto. ” I am totally blind,” she writes, “and there is a limit to what I can do to stay safe while crossing the street – my safety, and the safety of others, greatly depends on drivers following the rules and paying attention to vulnerable road users, including children, seniors, and people with disabilities.”

• Read Walk Toronto’s letter in support of Bill 54 (PDF)
• Find out more about Bill 54: Protecting Vulnerable Road Users

Walk Toronto has long been part of a coalition working to implement a Vulnerable Road Users Law in Ontario.

Bill 54: Protecting Vulnerable Road Users will apply mandatory penalties to drivers who break the law and cause injuries or death to pedestrians and other vulnerable road users. Recently, it passed second reading in the provincial legislature. In the next few weeks, your MPP will vote on whether Bill 54 becomes law.

Currently, people who drive vehicles and injure or kill someone on our roads face minimal sentencing. Most deaths and injuries do not result in charges. For those who are charged, the charge is applied under the Highway Traffic Act and most convictions result in a fine only. The passing of Bill 54 would change this situation and create real consequences for drivers who cause injuries or deaths because they have broken the law.

We encourage our supporters to write to their MPP to ask them to support Bill 54: Protecting Vulnerable Road Users

• Contact your MPP to support Bill 54
• Find out more about Bill 54: Protecting Vulnerable Road Users
• See Walk Toronto’s email to our supporters urging them to write in support of Bill 54

The City of Toronto is reviewing how it uses its city-owned golf courses. Three of those golf courses interrupt multi-use trails through parks and ravines. Walk Toronto has written to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee to support converting parts of those courses to parkland to remove these interruptions to the trail network, while maintaining some municipal golf facilities in the remaining areas.

In particular, the staff report recommends converting some of the Dentonia Park golf course to parkland, which would enable connecting the Taylor-Massey Creek and Warden Woods trails. However, the local city councillors came out against this plan. As a result, Walk Toronto’s Dylan Reid gave a deputation at the committee meeting in support of the Dentonia Park plan.

• Read Walk Toronto’s communication to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee (PDF)
• See the agenda item
• Read Dylan Reid’s deputation, below.

Deputation to IEC on item IE27.6, January 11, 2022

My name is Dylan Reid, and I am here representing Walk Toronto. Walk Toronto is a volunteer advocacy group dedicated to making Toronto a great city for walking.

Walk Toronto strongly supports the proposal to turn part of the Dentonia Park golf course into a public park, while maintaining a smaller golf course. The Dentonia Park golf course currently interrupts the city’s ravine trail network, separating the Taylor-Massey Creek trail from the Warden Woods trail.

Bringing part of the golf course into the public park network will enable the city to extend the Taylor-Massey Creek trail and link it up with the Warden Woods trail, creating a continuous trail from inside Scarborough all the way to the downtown waterfront that provides a free space for recreation for the nearby communities and for all Torontonians.

We certainly support the value of golf, which encourages walking, but the proposal would maintain an affordable golf course suited to learners and casual players, and suited to an urban environment.

The pandemic has shown the value of free, accessible park land, and spaces for walking in nature, for Torontonians, especially those who live in multi-unit residences and do not have access to private yards. The proposal to convert part of Dentonia Park golf course into parkland would create more space that can be accessed for free, for a variety of recreational purposes. It would create a safe, off-road route for such recreation that links Scarborough and East York. It is particularly appropriate because the immediate community around it is identified as high on the Equity-Deserving Index and in need of additional free public facilities.

The proposal would also support the City’s new ravine strategy. The City is investing considerable time and money to establish ravine trail connections where they are missing, such as the new East Don trail. It would be a tragedy to overlook this unique opportunity to continue the work of connecting up Toronto’s ravine trails, with a much simpler project.

The proposal for turning part of Dentonia Park into public parkland is a compromise that maintains access to a City golf course while providing new free public parkland and connecting up a gap in Toronto’s ravine trail network. We urge the committee to support it.

Thank you.

Walk Toronto has written to City Council to support a motion by Councillor Anthony Perruzza looking for better maintenance of public walkways.

Councillor Peruzza writes that “Residents have come to find that our public walkways are deteriorating; overgrown with vegetation, and with cracks that present serious safety and accessibility concerns.”

In Walk Toronto’s communication, Michael Black notes that “The suburban street network inside of the arterial road grid tends to be discontinuous and maze-like” and that “In order to provide people on foot with direct routes to destinations such as local schools and parks, public walkways were strategically installed.” As a result, “maintenance of public walkways is essential for active transportation to work properly. Bringing walkway levels of service to higher standards may not be glamorous — but it is a task that is much, much cheaper than maintaining expressways or subway lines.”

• Read Walk Toronto’s communication (PDF)
• See the Infrastructure and Environment Committee agenda item
• Read Councillor Perruzza’s letter (PDF)