Image of the
Latest Issues

Walk Toronto gets action! City to modify misleading “No Exit” signs

In February 2021, Walk Toronto launched a campaign and map to demonstrate the need to change misleading “No Exit” signs where there was in fact a pedestrian (and often cycling) exit.

On April 8, 2021, City Council passed a motion directing Transportation Services staff “to implement changes to clarify No-Exit signage where pedestrian access is still permitted and to begin installation of the new signs in 2021.”

We’re very pleased to see that our campaign resulted in such quick action, and we look forward to seeing the installation of accurate signage that helps to make the city more accessible for walkers.

We thank Councillor Paula Fletcher for her hard work developing and moving the motion, Twitter user @The_Terroirist for inspiring our campaign, and all of the people who sent in locations for the map. Thank you as well to Walk Toronto steering committee member Sean Marshall for the many hours of work he put in creating the map.

No Exit sign
Latest Issues

Walk Toronto writes to support City Council motion on “No Exit” signs

Walk Toronto has written to Toronto City Council to support a member motion from councillor Paula Fletcher, seconded by Brad Bradford, “on implementing changes to clarify No-Exit signage where pedestrian or cyclist access is still permitted.”

The motion is in response to Walk Toronto’s map of locations where “No Exit” signs fail to reflect exits for pedestrians and, in some cases, cyclists. The map was created by Sean Marshall and has identified over 450 locations in every ward in Toronto. The map was the basis of Walk Toronto’s campaign to get these signs changed to reflect routes available to people on foot.

The communication notes:

The pandemic has led many more people to walk in their neighbourhoods, and as they get to know their community, they have become more acutely aware of this kind of misleading signage. At the same time, the City of Toronto has realized the value of walking for health, mobility, and the environment. That commitment requires that the City’s signs consider the needs of walkers as equal to the needs of drivers.

Latest Issues

Eloquent argument for sidewalks, in newsletter of North York councillor

Earlier this year, when schools were still closed, the newsletter of John Filion, city councillor for Ward 18 (Willowdale) in North York, included a message from Filion’s chief of staff, Markus O’Brien Fehr, making an eloquent argument for installing sidewalks on suburban streets that currently lack them and seeking to accelerate such installations in Ward 18.

Installing missing sidewalks on suburban streets, necessary for safety and accessibility for many walkers, has often been a difficult struggle and faced opposition from local residents and politicians. Walk Toronto was heartened to read such support from a suburban politician and his chief of staff, and received permission from Mr. Fehr to republish his message. Here is the full text:

In a week without access to school yards, the importance of outdoor infrastructure for physical activity has become even more evident. As with so many families struggling to adapt to online learning for young kids, we’ve been forced to encourage more self-reliance so that we, as parents, can keep up with work. While this has had predictably mixed results with classroom activities (perhaps a topic for a future column), an independent walk to a local park is something we have to be very cautious of without sidewalks in our neighborhood.

Even with a push on road safety via the Vision Zero program, Toronto has not increased its annual budget for sidewalk installation since Council established a fund in 2002. At the current rate, each city ward would have enough for about 225 m of new sidewalk each year. With just under 300,000 m (or 300 km) of local roads in North York without sidewalks, this pace just isn’t acceptable.

Because of the small budget, the City tends to only adds sidewalks when roads are being reconstructed. Even when an important gap in our sidewalk network is identified, it can take decades for projects to get moving. John has successfully moved motions through Council, most recently in 2019, calling for an increase in this budget. But despite that political success, it hasn’t yet changed the staff’s approach. The entire program needs an overhaul.

Our office has been working to identify stretches of local roads that are most in need of sidewalk additions in Willowdale. This has included input from the community through a road safety survey, and online neighbourhood conversations run last fall. We hope to prioritize any local road longer than 200m, open to traffic on both ends, in close proximity to a public school or large park. Is there a road in your community without a sidewalk that fits this description? If so, please e-mail me so we can make sure it’s on our list for an upcoming meeting with City Transportation staff.

Whether it’s next week, or in the near future, our kids will eventually get back into classrooms and school yards. Safe access to parks will still be important, just as encouraging walking to and from school will return to being an important campaign to keep kids physically active and reduce traffic congestion. Sidewalks are simply a necessity under all conditions.

Markus O’Brien Fehr

Latest Issues

Walk Toronto delivers report on e-scooters

Walk Toronto has prepared a ten-page report about the question of whether the City of Toronto should proceed with a pilot project to allow a shared electric kick-scooter (e-scooter) service to operate in Toronto. The report was delivered to the Toronto Accessibility Advisory Committee, who will be discussing the issue on Feb. 25, 2021.

The report opens by stating:

Electric kick-scooter (“e-scooter”) sharing companies are looking to expand into Toronto. While Walk Toronto welcomes the advent of new, non-polluting forms of transportation, we continue to have serious concerns about the impact of e-scooters on pedestrians using the already-busy sidewalks. In this submission, we highlight accessibility and safety concerns, as well as other unintended impacts of adopting this technology and delivery model in our city.

Walk Toronto believes that our concerns, and those of the accessibility community, have yet to be adequately addressed. Walk Toronto does not believe it is currently advisable to proceed with an e-scooter pilot in Toronto, and recommends that the City of Toronto not proceed with a pilot.

The new YYZ9 Fulfillment Centre in Northeast Scarborough, looking across Steeles Avenue
Latest Issues

Why pedestrian safety is a matter of justice for essential workers

By Sean Marshall

In August 2020, in the midst of an ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon opened its sixth fulfillment centre in the Greater Toronto Area near Steeles and Tapscott Road in northeast Scarborough. Upon opening, the new warehouse, where consumer orders are packed for delivery, employed 700 workers, 100 more than Amazon initially planned due to high order volumes.

The starting wage for an Amazon fulfillment centre employee is $17.00 an hour, despite notoriously tough working conditions. With most professional and office workers at home, and with ongoing pandemic restrictions, Amazon has enjoyed significant sales increases. But those workers picking and packing orders are not able to work from home – and workplace spread has been a significant factor in COVID-19 transmission in Ontario.

Brampton, home to two of the GTA’s fulfilment centres, and close to Amazon’s Mississauga, Milton and Bolton warehouses, has been a COVID-19 hotspot. Like Toronto, Peel Region has been under lockdown and stay-at-home orders since November.

Like most new logistics facilities, the new Scarborough warehouse, like the other five GTA Amazon fulfillment centres, is in an industrial area on the city’s outskirts, where land is plentiful, but transit and pedestrian access is lacking. East of Tapscott Road, Steeles Avenue narrows from four lanes to two, and there are no designated pedestrian crossings at the intersection with Eastvale Drive. The eastbound TTC stop at Eastvale Avenue was removed in 2018 after a passenger was struck and killed trying to cross the street after disembarking from a 53 Steeles East bus. The next nearest stop, at Tapscott Road, is 300 metres west.

Steeles Avenue, looking west towards Eastvale Drive and the signalized intersection beyond, at Tapscott Road
Steeles Avenue, looking west towards Eastvale Drive and the signalized intersection beyond, at Tapscott Road

The sidewalk on the south side of Steeles Avenue ends at Tapscott, a few hundred metres west of the Amazon fulfilment centre. On the north side, the sidewalk ends at Ferncliffe Crescent in Markham. Despite a new residential area in Morningside Heights, to the east, there is no sidewalk along Steeles to connect to it. Pedestrians heading to Amazon or towards Staines Road must choose whether to walk in the mud, or on the busy roadway. Though the posted speed limit is 50 km/h, motorists regularly travel at 60 km/h or faster.

Looking east on Steeles from Tapscott Road – despite the sign advising motorists of pedestrian activity, there are no sidewalks leading east towards the new Amazon fulfillment centre (Sonali Praharaj)
Looking east on Steeles from Tapscott Road – despite the sign advising motorists of pedestrian activity, there are no sidewalks leading east towards the new Amazon fulfillment centre (Sonali Praharaj)

A stairway and ramp were built on the north end of the Amazon property, likely with the expectation that a sidewalk on the south side of Streeles Avenue would soon be installed. This would provide improved pedestrian access to the fulfillment centre. But without a safe and logical way to get to it from the street, it remains largely unused.

Passmore Avenue, on the south side of the fulfillment centre, was rebuilt with a sidewalk in the late fall of 2020, months after Amazon opened. However, it requires a lengthy walk north to Steeles Avenue up Tapscott, and there are no sidewalks on Tapscott from Passmore south, towards McNicoll Avenue. The intersection of Passmore and Tapscott itself – controlled by an all-way stop – still does not feature proper crosswalks.

Looking east on Steeles from Tapscott Road – despite the sign advising motorists of pedestrian activity, there are no sidewalks leading east towards the new Amazon fulfillment centre (Sonali Praharaj)
Looking east on Steeles from Tapscott Road – despite the sign advising motorists of pedestrian activity, there are no sidewalks leading east towards the new Amazon fulfillment centre (Sonali Praharaj)

Though there are two TTC bus routes that operate to the corner of Tapscott Road and Passmore Avenue – 53B/953B Steeles East and 102B/C Markham Road – for months, workers had to walk on the roadway, through a construction site to access those buses. Anyone looking to go east, towards Morningside Heights, or southeast, towards Malvern, still face a long, dangerous walk or a lengthy bus commute.

The corner of Tapscott Road and Passmore Avenue
The corner of Tapscott Road and Passmore Avenue

The TTC, starting January 11, 2021, began diverting the 53B Steeles East bus to directly serve the Amazon fulfillment centre, finally serving a major industrial trip generator and reducing essential workers’ travel times. Even still, the new sidewalk on Passmore ends at the warehouse entrance – anyone waiting for a bus must still walk and wait in the snow or mud.

Eventually, Steeles Avenue will be widened, with new sidewalks and bike lanes, and Morningside Avenue will be extended north to Steeles Avenue. However, these improvements have been planned for years and completion is still several years away. Though new warehouses have opened here, civic infrastructure has not caught up.

New TTC bus stop serving the Amazon Fulfillment Centre on Passmore Road (Sonali Praharaj)
New TTC bus stop serving the Amazon Fulfillment Centre on Passmore Road (Sonali Praharaj)

The TTC’s service change, adding a new bus stop on Passmore Avenue, was a welcome – yet overdue – acknowledgement that essential workers, especially racialized and lower-paid workers, deserve better. It is inexcusable that new employment uses are planned, approved, and constructed before the appropriate pedestrian infrastructure and transit services are in place. It is also inexcusable that after a TTC customer was killed that a nearby bus stop was removed, rather than safety improvements added instead. This is not just a matter of ensuring a basic level of safety for pedestrians – this is a matter of justice for those we consider essential workers.

Prepared with assistance from Sonali Praharaj, Aria Popal, and Vallari Patel.

See also Aria Popal’s related article, “The duality of Amazon in Scarborough – from delivering jobs to packaging community relations,” which includes discussions with workers at the Amazon fulfillment centre about their travel to the site. 

Cross-posted on Marshall’s Musings.

No Exit sign
Latest Issues

Mapping where “No Exit” doesn’t apply to pedestrians

Many pedestrians have noticed over the years that “No Exit” signs on streets often don’t apply to walkers, because there is in fact an exit for people travelling on foot. It’s frustrating to see a sign that is meant only for drivers and be left uncertain as to whether you, on foot, can get through.

The prevalence of these signs is a symptom of how car-centric transportation planning has been in Toronto. So Walk Toronto is starting a campaign to get the City to change this situation and establish more inclusive and accurate signage that provides information to all travellers, not just drivers.

Our first step is developing a map, created by steering committee member Sean Marshall, of locations in Toronto where there is a “No Exit” sign but, in fact, there is actually an exit for pedestrians. See the map here (Google maps) or below. On the map, blue walker icons indicate where pedestrians can exit, green walker icons indicate where both pedestrians and cyclists can exit, and stairs are indicated separately, since they pose additional accessibility challenges.

The map is being crowd-sourced, so if you know a location that is not listed yet, post a tweet to @sean_yyz or send an email to info@walktoronto.ca with “No Exit” included in the subject line.

Solutions could be as simple as a pendant sign that says “Pedestrians Excepted” or, if relevant, “Pedestrians and Cyclists Excepted”, similar to the “Bicycles excepted” signs that have been added to “No Entry” signs where new cycling contra-flow lanes have been introduced on one-way streets. As well, the city could develop a more precise “No Exit for Motor Vehicles” sign.

Thank you to Twitter user @The_Terroirist whose series of tweets about this problem inspired our campaign.

Latest Issues

Walk Toronto supports the YongeTOmorrow plans for downtown Yonge Street

Walk Toronto’s Sean Marshall has written to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee to express Walk Toronto’s strong support for the YongeTOmorrow plan to widen sidewalks and create pedestrian priority zones on Yonge Street between Queen Street and College Street.

Marshall writes, “Yonge Street is Toronto’s signature main street, steeped in over 225 years of history, legend, and lore. It is the place where Torontonians congregate to celebrate sports victories, rally for political and social change, shop, dine, and enjoy performing art and cinema. … The YongeTOmorrow plan represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet the existing and future needs of downtown residents, workers, students, and tourists, and give it the iconic treatment the street – and Toronto – deserves.”

The plan will be voted on by the committee on Monday Jan. 11, 2021.

Latest Issues

Walk Toronto supports the Transform Yonge proposal for North York

Walk Toronto has written to support the “Transform Yonge” proposal being recommended to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee on Dec. 1, 2020. The proposal would transform Yonge Street in North York into a true main street with wider sidewalks, bike lanes, and more trees. The proposal is the result of the REimagine Yonge (Sheppard to Finch) Municipal Class Environmental Assessment Study, which was launched due to the need for a full reconstruction of this part of Yonge Street.

Walk Toronto’s Daniella Levy-Pinto, who prepared the communication, writes “To ensure that the transportation network within the REimagining Yonge Study area is modified in a way that is responsive to broad changes and growth over the next several decades, Walk Toronto strongly supports the recommended options: a cross-section reduction from six to four lanes, wider sidewalks and boulevards, new and enhanced pedestrian crossings, traffic signals and turn restrictions at some intersections, and a central landscaped median, which will emphasize pedestrian and active transportation use in this critical stretch in North York Centre.”

Walk Toronto’s Dylan Reid gave an oral deputation at the committee meeting, based on Daniella Levy-Pinto’s text.

Latest Issues

Misconceptions about sidewalk snow clearing should not be allowed to weaken Toronto’s response to the pandemic

By Michael Black

This communication was submitted to City Council for the Nov. 25, 2020 meeting, regarding agenda item IE17.7, “Clearing the Path Towards a Safe and Accessible Winter”

Too often, the broad goals of harmonizing sidewalk snow clearing policies and implementing them uniformly across the City of Toronto have been stymied by misconceptions and inaccurate arguments. The need to have every sidewalk properly cleared of snow has become all the more urgent with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s time to clear up these misconceptions and counter the most prevalent arguments.

PHYSICAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL HEALTH — Most gyms, community centre and school fitness facilities are now closed because of the lockdown. As a result, outdoor walking has become one of the best forms of exercise still available at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is entering a high-risk winter period. Just as we have embraced the ActiveTO and CurbTO programs to ensure that the pedestrian environment was safe during the warmer months, so the City of Toronto should now be taking steps to clear snow from all of our city’s sidewalks and major park paths using a harmonized, comprehensive and seamless strategy. Admittedly, this change ought to be accomplished at short notice, but many of the City of Toronto’s other responses to the pandemic have also been successfully achieved on the fly.

We should not allow a ‘no-plow zone’ to exist in the centre of the city where responsibility for clearing sidewalks is offloaded onto local property owners. Many are derelict in their duty. The consequence of preserving the status quo will be that some of Toronto’s older and more vulnerable residents will become shut-ins during the winter. They will not get enough exercise, fresh air or exposure to sunlight, and their health outcomes will worsen.

DISTANCING — Hand-shovelling of sidewalks by property owners tends to result in a narrow walking strip that forces pedestrians closer together compared to the wider, continuous swath of cleared sidewalk that mechanical plowing produces. Adequate physical distancing is especially important in winter conditions. Although research is not conclusive, transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is facilitated by cold temperatures and reduced ultraviolet radiation. If we are serious about reducing the spread of COVID-19, especially amongst lower income essential workers who do not own cars, we will commit to plowing. People with disabilities and users of strollers and bundle-buggies will enjoy another benefit from improved maintenance standards: a patchwork of inconsistently shovelled sidewalks can be difficult for them to negotiate, and they may be stopped cold if a section of sidewalk has not been cleared.

OTHER CITIES — Sceptics often treat harmonized sidewalk plowing as though it is a ridiculously impractical and outlandish idea. In reality, comprehensive sidewalk winter maintenance is a common practice in Ontario, which has a much stronger tradition of providing public services compared to jurisdictions such as Alberta or the U.S.A. The following is a non-exhaustive list of municipalities in Ontario that clear snow from all of their sidewalks: Aurora, Barrie, Belleville, Burlington, Chatham, Cornwall, Guelph, Kingston, London, Markham, Oakville, Ottawa, Peterborough, Richmond Hill, Stratford, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, and Vaughan. Additionally, staff in Hamilton are recommending winter maintenance harmonization, although the initiative still has to pass budget hurdles.

PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS — Spread throughout our province though these cities may be, they do share a common trait: all have some older sections with tightly designed streets; and their winter operations crews have found ways to clear their sidewalks despite the adverse conditions. The challenges are no different here in Toronto. Our transportation staff often give the excuse that their decision not to mechanically clear older streets in the no-plow zone is due to physical constraints — when the real reason lies in grandfathering based on the legacy of former political boundaries. It is deeply concerning that Toronto devotes the least resources to maintaining sidewalks precisely in those areas of the city with the highest levels of pedestrian activity.

SNOW REMOVAL — Besides plowing all of its sidewalks, Montreal ups the ante and literally removes about 300,000 truckloads of snow from its streets every winter (an expensive practice). The need for transporting snow in Toronto is much smaller because its average annual snowfall is 121.5 cm. compared to Montreal’s 209.5 cm. Moreover, Toronto’s warmer climate produces thaw periods that naturally melt much of the snow that does accumulate. We should not be allowing the exaggerated estimates of snow removal costs (“Winter Maintenance Program Report”, HDR, Sept. 2019) to become a deal killer.

ENFORCEMENT — Those who believe that better by-law enforcement will fix Toronto’s winter sidewalk problems should reconsider. A Transportation Services staff report (Oct. 27, 2015)  looked into the implications of increased levels of enforcement. If the current complaints-based system were replaced by proactive patrolling of the 95,500 properties subject to owner sidewalk clearing requirements, it would be necessary to hire up to 20 additional Transportation Standards Officers, who would be spending an average of 7 to 10 hours per enforcement action, each of which can take weeks to resolve. The result would be the creation of huge amounts of red tape without achieving the timely remedying of snow-clogged sidewalks. Another objection: fining some residents for not undertaking a task that is provided by the City to others for free is fundamentally inequitable.

As for the Infrastructure & Environment Committee’s amendment (Nov. 5, 2020) to improve maintenance of sidewalks in front of large buildings and stores, there is the same concern that this would require spending money on hiring more enforcement officers — when a fairer and more efficient use of the City’s resources would be to cease frittering away funds on expensive enforcement campaigns and redirect our efforts to getting the job done right with plows, in a timely manner.

SPECIAL PROGRAM — We should not pretend that all accessibility problems are solved by having City crews clear the sidewalks in front of the homes of seniors and people with disabilities who have enrolled in the special program offered by the City. This assistance simply relieves them of a civic duty but does little to make their neighbourhood accessible if nearby sidewalks are still a mess and impassable for mobility device users, as well as people with vision, cognitive and balance impairments. This concern is magnified because of the number of snowbirds that the pandemic has ‘grounded’. Even the pilot project to plow an entire block doesn’t help people with limited mobility who want to walk or roll beyond the block in question. Targetted snow clearing is not cost effective compared to a comprehensive, city-wide service, the implementation of which will render the special assistance program redundant.

PROPERTY DAMAGE — Some residents oppose mechanical sidewalk plowing because it occasionally causes damage to their lawns and fences. Property owners can be compensated, and prudent cities see this as just a cost of doing business. The Toronto staff plan to develop an inventory of sidewalk conditions and encroachments is a step in the right direction. The alternative is to get residents to shovel and then cope with heart attack deaths going up 34% after each snowfall. Clearly, the costs of laying sod are cheaper than those of open heart surgery.

COST COMPARISONS — Better maintained sidewalks would reduce winter slip and fall claims, decreasing settlement payouts by the City of Toronto, which historically have averaged about $6.7 million a year. In addition, injuries cost the provincial health care system nearly $4 million annually. These are burdens on the taxpayer, and both should looked at within the perspective of the HDR report’s cost estimates for providing winter maintenance on the 1,400 km of sidewalks that the City does not currently clear. Numbers range from $7,642,836 for employing contract labour to $10,878,050 for in-house labour. The latter figure should be seen as the upper limit of manual snow clearing costs. To the extent that mechanical methods can be employed, costs logically will go down. In either case, the costs are but a small fraction of expenditures on public transit. It does not make sense for governments to be spending billions of dollars on transit capital projects if these investments are not supported by adequate operational budgets that include good winter maintenance for the street network, where ‘first and last mile’ walking feeds our buses, streetcars and trains.

The net costs of harmonized sidewalk snow clearing are relatively small because its implementation will eliminate or reduce existing expenditures associated with the seniors assistance program, slip and fall claims, etc. The City of Toronto is urged to dispense with bandaid solutions. We are in the middle of a pandemic, and it is time for everyone at city hall to pull together. This means we should stop prevaricating and tap reserve funds in order to meet head on the challenge of extending superior suburban winter maintenance standards to the no-plow zone, so that vulnerable Torontonians will have safe access to the outdoors throughout the winter.

 

For a more detailed treatment of issues, please refer to Walk Toronto’s previous written submissions:

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2020/ie/comm/communicationfile-123023.pdf

https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2019/ie/comm/communicationfile-97921.pdf

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2Dhk-NkQO3QUnZWN1N2eUlGRzQ/view?usp=drivesdk

Latest Issues

Walk Toronto supports motion to expand sidewalk and park trail snow clearing

Councillors Josh Matlow and Mike Layton proposed a motion to expand the clearing of snow to all sidewalks in Toronto, park trails, and cycle paths at the Nov. 5, 2020 meeting of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee.

Walk Toronto’s Michael Black sent a communication from Walk Toronto to the committee in support of this motion. Black pointed out that the proposed measures “have the potential to play a substantial role in improving the physical and psychological health and safety of Toronto’s residents, at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic is entering a stressful winter period.”