Will you sign our petition to ask City Council for 4 basic intersection safety improvements?
Danforth Avenue and Birchmount Road is a dangerous intersection.
It is where a Birchmount Collegiate high school student was fatally struck while walking in the crosswalk by a driver in October 2021.
With a high school, community centre, parks, and other destinations nearby, safety improvements like those I suggested in a recent video are overdue.
4 proposed safety measures
1. Paint the crosswalks with zebra markings - FINALLY DONE!
Compare the before and after of Danforth Ave & Birchmount Rd. It is a good improvement though it took nearly 2 school years since the October 2021 fatal collision to add these zebra paint markings.
2. Add left-turn calming measures
Some Toronto intersections have bumps to force drivers to make slower turns and increase visibility by approaching the crosswalk at a safer angle. This is a life-saving measure that should be installed at Birchmount & Danforth.
Left-turn calming measures installed at Finch & Sandhurst help drivers make slower, safer left turns with improved visibility of the crosswalk (green) compared to typical left turns (red) which are wider, faster, and more dangerous. Learn more about Toronto's left-turn calming pilot.
3. Lower the speed limit
Speed kills. It's just physics.
The current 50 kph speed limits mean an 85% likelihood of a fatality in a collision. Setting the speed limit to 40 kph is much safer with only 30% likelihood of a fatality.
A 40 kph speed limit has a huge life-saving impact with negligible impact to driving time, especially if traffic lights are re-timed.
4. Bring back the Automated Speed Enforcement camera
Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) cameras have been very effective at reducing deadly speeding in front of Birchmount Collegiate. Citywide, about 90% of drivers who receive a speeding ticket from an ASE camera stop speeding at that location.
This effective, life-saving speed camera should be brought back to the Birchmount & Danforth Ave intersection.