Comment 6255

By Rusty (registered) - website | Posted April 05, 2007 at 15:13:56

Hey Ryan,

I don't have any of that data but I can tell you that, despite the examples mentioned here, Toronto has a significant street speeding problem. Last year a mother was hit near me, at Jarvis and Esplanade, after just pushing her pushchair out of the way of a speeding motorist.

The junction nearest to me - Lower Sherbourne and Esplanade - is particularly scary. Every morning there are lines of school kids - mine included - standing by the road mere feet from the speeding tractor trailers that hurtle by.

I have had so many confrontations with drivers walking to work I wouldn't know where to begin. I've been driven at, side swiped, swore at - you name it. And every time while WALKING LEGALLY ACROSS A MARKED PEDESTRIAN CROSSING!

As to what to do I concur with your suggestions Ry - implement well-known traffic calming measures, but don't go too far. Allow a 'naked' street design to encourage the free flow of pedestrians and cars so that cars are more likely to voluntarily slow down.

As a previous post pointed out, in Europe you do indeed have jay walking chaos, but you also get a level of consideration not seen in N America. Here I find the streets are often over designed and with bylaws like Jaywalking you tend to get an attitude focused around rules and rights and not much in the way of common sense, and just generally being considerate .

Ben Bull. Cap'n Bully has a new Blog! http://bullysmoviereviews.blogspot.ca/ or something like that.

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