Road Safety News — Expanding Toronto's ASE Program and Other Initiatives

Vision Zero Updates
In 2015, as Chair of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee, I spearheaded Toronto's first-ever city-wide Road Safety Plan, Vision Zero, to identify and address the structural causes of collisions.

This month, City Council received a report with updates on several Vision Zero-related initiatives, including road design modifications to reduce speeding, our recently adopted Freight and Goods Movement Strategy, and ongoing pilots testing new truck safety technologies for City-owned vehicles, such as 360-degree cameras and collision avoidance systems.

In addition to these initiatives, the report also contains an update on my 2018 motion to double the number of Red Light Cameras in Toronto to a total of 300. The implementation of these new cameras is now anticipated to be complete by Q3 2022.

ASE
This month, City Council voted to expand the highly successful Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) program by approving the purchase and installation of 25 new units, which are expected to come online later this year.

Currently, there are 50 ASE units – two per ward – operating in School Safety Zones across the City. The new batch of units will bring the total number of cameras up to 75, or three units per ward.

Studies have shown that if a pedestrian is struck by a vehicle travelling at 80km/h, the risk of a fatality is 90%. At 59km/h, this risk is reduced to 50%, and at 30km/h, it is all but eliminated.