Just days after the city approved a complete redesign of Parkside Drive near High Park, the speed camera on the street south of Algonquin Avenue was chopped down from its base.
Work began to improve the safety of Parkside Dr. in 2021, which resulted in the reduction of the speed limit from 50 to 40 kilometres per hour, adding speed cameras and signs telling motorists to reduce speed.
And last week, a new street approach was approved by City Council that comes with multiple safety improvements.
“We put in parking on the east side of the street, added a couple of traffic lights, improved sidewalks. But now we’re ready to make a big move that’ll really make the street a lot safer, which is to put in bike lanes, both north and southbound on the west side of Parkside Drive,” said Councillor Gord Perks.
This week, the speed camera was found knocked over. Perk says the city is unsure who or why anyone would chop down the camera.
According to data from the City of Toronto, the speed camera is the highest grossing, issuing over 63,000 speeding tickets to date, generating an estimated $6.8 million in fines.
“We’ve seen vandalism on this camera and others across the city. It really isn’t helpful. People die when our streets aren’t safe,” shared Perks.
Work to improve the roadway first began following the death of two seniors who died in a multiple vehicle crash at the intersection of Parkside Drive and Spring Road on Oct. 12 of 2021.
Faraz Gholizadeh is a local resident, a father of two, and an advocate with the community group, Safe Parkside. He said residents have been advocating for pedestrian safety for decades.
“The city of Toronto has all the data; they are very aware that on average 4,000 people are speeding on Parkside per day,” said Gholizadeh.
“We’ve seen what happens when people decide what speed they want to go on, on this street, we’ve had three people killed because people decided they can go faster than what the posted speed limit said they should be going.”
Perks has added it’s unknown when the speed camera will be replaced.
