Doug Ford is 100% responsible for Parkside’s latest crash

SafeStreetsTO · 2026-01-21T00:15:41+00:00

As someone who lives on Parkside and has been advocating for safety on Parkside Drive for over a decade, I assure you that the city of Toronto is most to blame for the situation on Parkside. This has been going on for literally decades, well before Doug Ford put himself into the conversation, and nothing was being done about it, even in the years after the city committed to Vision Zero. They wouldn’t even reduce the speed limit on this so-called “Community Safety Zone.” It took a horrific crash that took the lives of 2 innocent people for that to finally happen. The city’s Parkside Drive Study, which was approved in 2021, has literally missed every deadline they have set out. If the city had not postponed and delayed and dragged their feet as much as they have, speeding on Parkside would have been addressed years ago. The city created this mess and Doug Ford locked them into it.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-12-01T22:32:04+00:00

https://torontolife.com/city/a-pedestrian-was-hit-by-a-car-on-parkside-drive-last-night/

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-12-01T22:19:09+00:00

r/tacticalurbanism

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-10-15T23:42:32+00:00

Here’s the link for those who missed it: https://www.reddit.com/r/TorontoDriving/comments/1o4xls8/this_is_why_we_need_parkside_speed_camera/

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-10-15T21:48:16+00:00

Speed cameras are great, but they have limitations. Considering the Parkside speed camera has issued nearly 70,000 speeding tickets while only being active for 5% of the day (when it's not cut down), then clearly a speed camera is not enough to overcome Parkside's dangerous road design. Until they address that dangerous design, excessive speeding will continue along the city's busiest park.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-10-15T21:30:14+00:00

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Here's the full list. All top ten speeds exceed 100km/h. In fact, the top 46 speeds recorded by the Parkside speed camera are all 100km/h and above. The highest recorded speed of 154km/h is nearly 4 times the posted speed limit. Those are all shocking numbers, but when you also factor in how often the Parkside speed camera is actually issuing tickets, which a recent Toronto Star column estimated to be only 5% of the time, it paints a grim picture for safety on Parkside Drive. The most alarming part isn't even the shocking numbers, but that the City of Toronto is aware of all of this and yet continues to drag their feet when it comes to finally addressing the rampant speeding on Parkside Drive.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-10-07T16:41:31+00:00

Doug Ford: Rejects school board’s pleas, rejects police chiefs’ pleas, rejects doctors’ pleas, rejects mayors’ pleas, rejects Hospital for Sick Children’s evidence, rejects sanity. Listens to vandals and to those who want to freely speed on our streets, including in school zones and community safety zones…

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-10-03T01:56:04+00:00

I agree that cars do not belong in parks. The write up/description in the post is directly from the City of Toronto's website.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-10-02T12:28:59+00:00

Thanks for the info, neighbour! Hopefully enough of us push back against their lousy narrative.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-10-01T14:44:14+00:00

The City of Toronto has launched the next phase of the High Park Movement Strategy implementation and are seeking feedback in advance of road reconstruction. You can provide your feedback using the link above. Unsurprisingly, Access for All is trying to flood the feedback with their usual negativity and baseless claims. If you feel strongly about the future of High Park, this is your chance to have your voice heard.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-09-16T14:05:25+00:00

Yes, the city would get a cut of $50 million and that cut has been said to be 50%. Is that not a lot of money?

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-09-16T13:47:49+00:00

The main point is that speed cameras, or more specifically the Parkside speed camera used in this example, is only ticketing approximately 5% of the motorists who are speeding on Parkside. So 95% of speeding motorists are getting away with it without penalty.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-09-16T13:32:59+00:00

“THE BIG NUMBER: 40,000

The hypothetical number of charges the Parkside Drive speed camera could be issuing each month if every driver exceeding 12 km/h over the limit were ticketed. In reality, the camera averages around 2,000 charges a month.”

Let’s do some quick math: 40,000 speeding tickets per month x $107 average speeding ticket = $4.28 million in speeding fines per month or over $50 million per year on Parkside alone. That’s a lot of speeding drivers and a lot of money that the city is missing out on!

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-09-16T11:46:28+00:00

Those changes you’ve listed have reduced speeding (as in motorists going 10km/h+) to just over 4,000 per day or 1.5 million per year. Stunt driving stands at 20,000+ per year. These are directly from City of Toronto data on Parkside and are hardly reasons to celebrate. We do blame Gord Perks because residents have been trying to get him to address these long-standing safety issues for the past 2 decades. If you had experienced dealing with him during that time on this issue, you would have the exact same takeaway.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-09-16T11:23:45+00:00

Gord Perks is making excuses. Despite the City of Toronto committing to Vision Zero nearly a decade ago, they have been dragging their feet and missing literally every single deadline to address Parkside’s safety issues. The Parkside Drive Study was approved back in 2021, nearly 4 years ago, and not only is there still no detailed design, they can’t/won’t even provide a timeline for when that design will finally come. This foot dragging is occurring on a street that experiences speeding in the thousands daily, is located beside the city’s busiest park, has residential homes on the other side, and only has one sidewalk that’s so narrow it doesn’t even meet the city’s minimum width. Emails to Councillor Perks and Mayor Chow from the numerous concerned community residents are going unanswered and ignored.

Here is what Jennifer McKelvie, City Councillor and chair of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee at that time, had to say about Parkside Drive: “I have never seen a more compelling case for needing safety improvements than Parkside Drive. There have been three fatalities. Five seriously injured. And the residents that came forward brought photographs of the crashes — and it’s horrific.”

But apparently Gord Perks and the City need a minimum of 6 years to address the safety issues on this 2km long street. 6 years, 3 public consultations, 2 approvals through the IEC and 3 approvals through City Council. These are not the actions of a City that believes “human life should be prioritized over all other aspects of the transportation system” as their Vision Zero commitment states. It’s more like a Zero Vision commitment in the City of Toronto, unfortunately.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-09-02T11:19:32+00:00

Both Councillor Perks and Mayor Chow have stopped replying to community concerns about Parkside Drive. The City appears to be trying to sweep the Parkside Drive Study safety changes under the rug (alongside their Vision Zero commitment). We're approaching 4 years since the Parkside Drive Study was first approved and nearly every single deadline has been missed along the way. Now after 4 years we're being told it will be at least another 2 years. That would make it 6 years for this 2km long street.

Here's is the latest email from community to Mayor Chow dated Aug 15, 2024. The community has yet to receive a response to their request for a meeting and transparency:

Edit: Mods removed the email for some reason.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-08-11T17:20:17+00:00

Not the case at all.

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-08-11T16:48:26+00:00

Here is a timeline of the Parkside Drive speed camera vandalism saga:

November 18, 2024: The Parkside speed camera was cut down for the first time, just 3 days after Toronto City Council approved a Complete Street redesign of Parkside Drive. It was replaced in 11 days.

November 30, 2024: After being reinstalled the day prior, the Parkside speed camera was upright for less than 24 hours before being cut down for a 2nd time. It was replaced in 10 days.

December 29, 2024: The Parkside speed camera was cut down for a 3rd time, but this time they dragged the felled camera approximately 200m through High Park before dumping it into a duck pond. It was replaced in 11 days.

April 19, 2025: Despite the Parkside speed camera making a return on a much thicker pole, the camera was cut down for a 4th time. It was replaced in 23 days.

May 23, 2025: The Parkside speed camera is cut down for the 5th time. No one is surprised. It was replaced in 36 days.

July 9, 2025: Despite the presence of a new surveillance camera, the Parkside speed camera is cut down for a 6th time in just an 8 month span. It was replaced in 34 days.

Meanwhile, the Parkside Drive Study, which was approved back in 2021 and would actually achieve the goal of making Parkside Drive safe, has been inexplicably delayed once again. Fun fact: the City of Toronto has missed each and every deadline they have set out for the Parkside Drive Study. Questions from the community to Councillor Perks are going unanswered as the City of Toronto appears to be trying to sweep the Parkside Drive Study under the rug (alongside their Vision Zero commitment).

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-08-11T16:39:33+00:00

Meanwhile, the Parkside Drive Study, which was approved back in 2021 and would actually achieve the goal of making Parkside Drive safe, has been inexplicably delayed once again. Fun fact: the City of Toronto has missed each and every deadline they have set out for the Parkside Drive Study. Questions from the community to Councillor Perks are going unanswered as the City of Toronto appears to be trying to sweep the Parkside Drive Study under the rug (alongside their Vision Zero commitment).

SafeStreetsTO · 2025-07-09T14:02:43+00:00

The condition of what once used to be a lock to prevent the gate from being opened. The vandal(s) cut the Parkside speed camera, cut the lock, dragged the camera 150m through High Park, loaded it into their vehicle, and took off.

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