Rally aims to put road safety on voters’ minds
Toronto Star, October 3, 2022, Clarrie Feinstein
More than 100 people gathered for a rally downtown to demand better road safety ahead of municipal election
More than 100 people gathered in downtown Toronto on Sunday 
night to “light up” Yonge Street with phones, fairy lights, and bike lights to demand better road safety ahead of the municipal election Oct. 24.
The Light Up Toronto for Safe Streets rally — organized by 15 community groups — began at Ramsden Park at 7 p.m. and ended at Yonge-Dundas Square. Many attendees brought their bikes and flashed their lights in an effort to “light up Toronto” and bring attention to their cause.
The main objectives of the event were to advocate for safe streets, a commitment to lower road speeds, tripling Vision Zero funding and to create more road space for transit, cycling, and walking.
More than a dozen city councillor candidates were in attendance as well as mayoral candidates Gil Penalosa and Sarah Climenhaga.
“I want to have our roads reallocated to have lanes for all users and to be places where everyone is welcome,” Climenhaga told the Star. “It will be of a benefit to everyone.”
One of the biggest issues, for Penalosa, is speeding vehicles. His solution is to ensure residential streets have a 30 km/h maximum to significantly lower the chances of fatal collisions. He also wants to build a 300-kilometre network of protected bike lanes in four years.
“Road safety is not a technical issue, it’s not a financial issue, it’s a political one,” he said, addressing the crowd while standing on a picnic bench, as attendees honked bicycle horns in approval.
The organizers purposefully held the rally before the election, said Albert Koehl, an environmental lawyer and representative for Toronto Community Bikeways Coalition. “In our view we can easily achieve road safety but what we need is political will.”
Koehl said the goal of the rally is to motivate people to vote for councillors dedicated to road safety based on three calls to action. These include reducing speed limits on residential streets and arterial roads by 2024, increasing the capital funding for Vision Zero Road Safety Plan in 2023 to at least $75 million, focusing on road redesign that induces lower speeds and to advancing TransformTO’s climate goal of converting 75 per cent of all trips under five kilometres to walking, cycling and transit.
So far, more than 30 candidates have signed the petition to implement the three calls to action.
Norm Di Pasquale, candidate for Ward 11, said he wants to see bigger investment in Vision Zero to ensure “no one dies on the city streets again,” adding the need to implement more protected bike lanes, such as the pilot project on Yonge Street.
Another Ward 11 candidate, Dianne Saxe, mentioned that the first kilometre of Avenue Road north of Bloor Street is the most dangerous intersection in the ward.
“Five per cent of all crashes happen there. It’s badly designed, gives drivers cues to go fast and the bike lane ends with nowhere to go. It’s important for the quality of life to improve the safety of that road,” she said.
Koehl hopes the rally will inspire people to vote for a candidate “who will bring road safety to city hall.”
