It took less than five minutes to grab this photo of somebody driving 32 kilometers over the speed limit on Kingston Rd.
By Hedy Korbee
Two Toronto police officers dedicated to traffic enforcement will be assigned to Scarborough’s 41 division sometime around April, according to Constable Thomas Cook, one of Birch Cliff’s neighbourhood police officers who said he’s doing his best to stop speeders but could use more help.
Const. Cook made the remark at a traffic safety meeting on Tuesday hosted by Ward 20 Councillor Gary Crawford and attended by several police officers, City of Toronto transportation officials and school board representatives.
The meeting was organized to deal with growing concerns about traffic safety around Birch Cliff Public School but the agenda was expanded to include the entire neighbourhood after widespread interest on social media.
Const. Cook, second from left with other Toronto Police officers at community safety meeting.
Cook, who has a well-known physical and online presence in Birch Cliff, said his number one priority right now is Kingston Rd., where he and his partner have increased enforcement since the speed limit dropped from 50 kph to 40 last summer.
“I can stand there for 30 seconds and get someone doing 30, 40, 50 over [the speed limit], no problem,” said Cook.
Surprisingly, Cook also said that most of the people he stops for speeding live in the neighbourhood even though Kingston Rd. is a major thoroughfare for motorists heading to and from downtown Toronto.
“Everyone that speeds is in that neighbourhood,” Cook said. “They should know better. These are your neighbours, these are your friends, these are the people that are complaining because I see them on Facebook…”
Cook urged the 25 residents who attended the meeting to contact Toronto Police, repeatedly if necessary, to ask for increased enforcement.
“If you have a complaint call 41 Division ask for Darryl. [darryl.gajewski@torontopolice.on.ca] Darryl is the guy that puts the traffic complaints out. He will put them to the officers that are responsible as well as the downtown traffic division that often come out,” Cook said. Councillor Crawford reminded the attendees that they can also call his office or 3-1-1.
Birch Cliff PS is a designated Community Safety Zone, where the traffic fines are doubled.
“Chaotic” at Birch Cliff PS
The meeting lasted two hours and a great deal of attention was also paid to the “chaotic” situation around Birch Cliff Public School during the morning and afternoon pickup.
“During the kids getting dropped off, I don’t think anybody’s paying attention to anybody but themselves,” said Jon Wood who lives across the street from the school. “Nobody looks any direction except forward. There are constant U-turns, double-parking, there’s parking in no parking zones. It’s chaotic. I wouldn’t want to drive to drop a kid off of school in that situation.”
“Freeman is a death zone,” said Jason Leaver, who wrote a widely-read Facebook post in November saying he feared for his life and the life of his daughter every morning he took her to school. Leaver told the meeting that the traffic rules already in place need to be enforced.
Birch Cliff principal Ted Vine said the school is trying to address the problem by issuing regular reminders to parents that speeding, U-turns, illegal stops and blocked driveways are dangerous.
“I think it’s…a societal thing as people are getting busier and busier and everybody is in a rush to drop the kids off to get to what they have to do. People are unfortunately not taking the time to be completely safe on a regular basis,” Vine said.
Principal Ted Vine and TDSB Trustee Parthi Kandavel listen to community members.
Vine said he’s seen a higher police presence around the school but said, unfortunately, the best answer is to hit people in the pocketbook.
“If they are getting ticketed for parking and stopping illegally on Birch Cliff or on Freeman or they roll through stop signs, when they start getting those fines that’s going to be the best thing. We can try to educate people until we are blue in the face,” Vine said.
Vine said he’s also going to talk to the Parent Council about possibly starting an initiative to encourage students to walk to school. Vine said he believes the vast majority of children are driven to school and he would like to do data analysis to confirm.
Vision Zero and Birch Cliff
Marko Oinonen, Scarborough’s manager of traffic operations, explained that Birch Cliff Public School is part of a “community safety zone”, which means that fines for traffic tickets are doubled.
The school has not, however, been designated a “school safety zone”, as defined by the City of Toronto’s new Vision Zero program. That would allow flashing speed signs as well as automated speed enforcement, more commonly known as photo radar.
So far, only five schools have been chosen to be part of the photo radar pilot project and the province has yet to enact the necessary regulations for implementation. Crawford’s office has made a request to the Transportation deparment to add Birch Cliff to the list.
“I appreciate the meeting and the information that was shared,” said Birch Cliff PS parent Natalie Dasilva. “I’m disappointed that there aren’t more tangible actions with a timeline that were communicated. It doesn’t seem there are any plans to implement anything. We were told about things that can be implemented but “we’re not on the list”, “we haven’t been prioritized” and “we don’t know when that’s coming”. So that’s disappointing.”
Councillor Crawford mentioned that the City of Toronto has tripled the funding for the Vision Zero program to improve progress. Among other things, he said a Vision Zero department has been set up to implement the measures more quickly.
Oinonen suggested that concerned parents could apply grassroots methods of securing improvements to traffic around the school, such as petitions and a possible lowering of the speed limit around the school from 40 kph to 30.
“I’d never known that you just need 25 per cent of the residents for either speed bumps or for lowering the speed limit or that type of thing,” said community member Leo Troy. “I was really surprised about the speed bumps because I was led to believe that speed bumps were never going to happen in our area. So that was that was the number one thing that I liked hearing today.”
One grassroots idea that came from a community member involved adjusting the traffic lights at Kingston Rd. and Birchcliff Ave. (a school zone), which are currently set to prioritize cars instead of people. The light remains green, facilitating high speed traffic on Kingston, unless somebody is waiting on the side street. Councillor Crawford promised to look into it.
One new safety measure that is already in the works includes the implementation of an all-way stop at Birchmount and Hollis at the entrance to the Birchmount Community Centre. Stop signs for the intersection have been recommended by city staff and the measure will be supported by Crawford at Scarborough Community Council soon.
For the record, here is a list of other safety measures that have been implemented in Birch Cliff since the last big traffic meeting in January 2018:
- Kingston Rd. speed limit reduced from 50 kph – 40 between Victoria Park and Birchmount
- Kingston Rd. speed limit reduced from 60 kph – 50 between Birchmount and Midland
- Warden Ave. speed limit reduced from 50 kph to 40 between Kingston and Danforth
- Kingston and Warden intersection lights changed to give pedestrians a five-second head start. Signal length also increased for vulnerable users.
- Zebra markings installed along all side streets on Kingston Rd. in Birch Cliff and on side streets along Warden from Kington to Hollis
- Queensbury speed limit reduced from 40 kph to 30 to deal with short cutters
- Four-way stop sign introduced at Hollis and Eastwood
- Four-way stop sign approved for Freeman and Eastwood
- Turning prohibitions installed for westbound left turns on Clonmore at Queensbury
- Turning prohibitions installed for northbound right turns at Queensbury and Clonmore
- Community safety zone installed on Birchcliff Ave. between Hollis and Kingston as well as Freeman St. between Eastwood and Birchcliff
VERY IMPORTANT. THERE SHOULD ALSO BE A 4 WAY STOP AT FREEMAN ST AND MANDERLEY DRIVE. BLIND CURVE THERE FOR NORTH SOUTH TRAFFIC MAKING TURNS. MUCHLY NEEDED.