The SEDRA Owl is the South Eglinton Davisville Residents’ Association Quarterly Digital Newsletter.
Traffic Safety
An important message from John Hiddema, SEDRA Co-President
The term traffic safety is used as a catch-all for conversations about what happens on our streets as we move about the city. It covers what goes wrong when vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists collide.
That said, it’s not traffic we want to keep safe, it’s people.
Lost in the dry factual reports of collisions are the people. They’re our neighbours, our friends and our family.
People inside vehicles are protected by the mass of their vehicles, and by crumple zones, seat belts, child seats and airbags. Those protections have their limits, as we see every day in collisions between vehicles.
In collisions between a pedestrian and any kind of vehicle, pedestrians lose the most, every time.
Too often, the pedestrian loses everything.
On October 16, 2023, Wendy Patterson was struck and killed by a dump truck in the intersection of Mt. Pleasant and Davisville. She was crossing Mt. Pleasant on the south side of the intersection, with a green light when the dump truck made a right turn and hit her. Wendy was a long-time resident of Davisville Village, active in the community and known to many. Our condolences go out to Wendy’s family and friends.
On November 28, 2023, a pedestrian was crossing northbound on Yonge, on the east side of Soudan, when she was struck by panel truck making a left turn from southbound Yonge onto Soudan. She suffered “life threatening” injuries according to the police report. We offer her our best wishes and hope recovery is possible.
Condolences and best wishes seem inadequate to the problem at hand, so SEDRA board members are escalating our efforts to improve traffic safety in our neighbourhood.
Traffic crossing outside Davisville-Spectrum School: an accident waiting to happen?
One thing we are advocating for right now is the replacement of what so many people tell us is a dangerous pedestrian crossing on Davisville Ave., by the Davisville-Spectrum school. Hundreds of close calls have been reported to SEDRA board members. Two pedestrians were hit and suffered serious injuries here in May 2020.
This location needs a traffic light, which will be better for everyone, pedestrians and drivers alike. The traffic light would be green at all times, except when there is a call for pedestrian crossing, by button.
Traffic flow would be better, and pedestrian crossing would be MUCH safer.
Making these kinds of improvements is easier where community support is strong. Councillor Matlow and TDSB Trustee Laskin both support this improvement.
You can help them and us get this done by emailing them to express your support, using the links below.
Email Councillor Matlow
Email Trustee Laskin
SEDRA Tall and Mid-rise working group
This is the first of what we hope will be a regular installment in the SEDRA newsletter. The following is an update of development activity in our neighbourhood over the past three months (Note: this is not a comprehensive list of all active projects).
The updates are organized based on their location within our community area.
North
The following include three projects SEDRA is observing and commenting on that sit on the north side of Eglinton or farther north but close to Eglinton. SEDRA is working with the Broadway Avenue Residents Association (BARA).
1. 90-110 and 150 -164 Eglinton E.
On November 21, 2023 the developer (Madison) hosted a public meeting. The project, covering two properties on the north side of Eglinton, involves four towers of 60 storeys each. The projects are primarily residential, with grade-related retail and commercial office space. Urbanistically, the projects promote a north-south through block from Eglinton to Roehampton.
The project has yet to be submitted formally to the City.
2. 2-20 Glazebrook Avenue and 1840 Bayview
SEDRA is observing the mediation process between the two developers of these projects, the City and BARA. Both projects are proposing 34-storey towers. The first Mediation meeting took place on November 29th.
The following project SEDRA is observing and commenting on sits on the south-east corner of Bayview and Eglinton. SEDRA is working with the Leaside Residents Association (LRA)
3. 1779-1787 Bayview
SEDRA attended the first Ontario Lands Tribunal (OLT) management meeting on October 26, 2023. SEDRA co-authored a letter with LRA to the Toronto Design Review Panel requesting their action in setting up a formal review of this project. The project is a 35-storey mixed-use to be built above Leaside Crosstown Station. Adjacent heritage quadplexes are also impacted.
4. 589 Eglinton East – Rezoning
CMC meeting was held on November 7. Hearing date is Feb 28-March 4, 2024.
5. 717-733 Mount Pleasant – C of A
This project is heading to Committee of Adjustment on December 7, 2023. SEDRA worked to facilitate discussions with applicant and adjacent neighbour. The Application involves adding five additional floors and reduce side yard setbacks.
South
1. 289-299 Balliol – Rezoning
SEDRA attended the OLT Settlement Meeting held on November 21, 2023. Terms were presented and are in line with the original proposal.
2. 140 Merton – Rezoning
Project was approved at Planning and Housing Committee, City of Toronto, on October 26. The project is a 28-storey affordable rental building promoted by CreateTO, EllisDon, and Missanabie Cree Elders Care. The heritage building already on the site will be preserved in this revised proposal.
The City is supporting the creation of this project through its Housing Now initiative, which includes dedicating City-owned land and financial incentives for the development of affordable housing within mixed-use, transit-oriented communities. SEDRA is advocating for a small grocer/food store within this development.
West
1. 2079 – 2111 Yonge
The Application submitted on September 15, 2023 shows an 8 storey podium with 29 story tower. A Community Meeting was held on October 17, 2023. SEDRA met with Councillor’s Office on October 21, 2023 to discuss response options. SEDRA is supporting the mid-rise designation of the project which would restrict its height to 12 stories.
If you have any questions about any of these developments, please reach out by clicking here.
Q&A with Mike Colle
Councillor Mike Colle/ toronto.ca
Today’s feature is the last of three articles by freelance journalist Maryam Siddiqi – We hope that this short Q&A with Councillor Colle inspires you to learn more about important things happening in our city.
Interview by Maryam Siddiqi
With a growing population and intense housing and transit construction, traffic congestion is one of Toronto’s most pressing issues. The City recently updated its Congestion Management Plan for 2023-2026. Deputy Mayor and Ward 8 Councillor Mike Colle, Vice Chair of the Infrastructure and Environment Committee, which is responsible for traffic management, answers questions about the updated plan and where some of the major challenges still lie.
What do you think are the biggest congestion issues facing the city? And can the current congestion management plan effectively address them as it stands right now?
Well, the congestion management plan is really focused on managing the unprecedented amount of construction that’s going on in the city. That’s the main focus of it, it’s not to deal with the macro congestion issues that are to be found, like the 401. It’s the most congested highway in North America, and it runs right through the middle of the city and spills over into all of our neighbourhoods. The other main factor is that Toronto is the construction capital of North America. As a result of that, you’ve got all these construction trucks and construction equipment in the middle of the city nonstop.
At Yonge and Eglinton, we have a construction safety hub that’s been in operation now for about three years, where all the condo builders, all the construction companies that work with the Eglinton Forever Crosstown, have to report in terms of when they are on the roads when, they unload, when they assemble, so we manage that as best we can. There are full-time people assigned to monitor and oversee that area. Now there are three others throughout the city in wards 13, 18 and 19.
That’s one effective way of managing congestion and ensures safe practices in a construction area because certain parts of the city are overrun with traffic, aggravated by the construction that’s going on not only because of condos but we have $100 billion worth of transit construction going on. Again, more than all North American cities combined. That’s what we’re facing and I don’t think people realize. It’s amazing actually that traffic moves as well as it does in the city of Toronto considering those factors.
The City recently introduced Traffic Agents to increase safety and keep traffic moving. How many Traffic Agents do you expect to be deployed?
This Traffic Agent program is a very good initiative, and the first traffic agents in Toronto were at Yonge and Eglinton. The problem is that the provincial government has to approve them and it is so painfully slow. These people have to go through the training, they have to get licensed, and so on. I think we’ve got about 20 in the city right now. We need a minimum of 50. It’s a permanent program, but we have had a hard time getting them approved.
A congestion charge puts a price on bringing a vehicle to the downtown core. It reduces the volume of traffic on our streets and helps pay for road maintenance. It’s been successful in London, Stockholm and Milan and is under consideration in New York. Do you think that there would be any support for a congestion charge now or in the near future in Toronto?
No. Zero support. We’ve got a provincial government that’s subsidizing drivers to billions of dollars a year. They took away the licence fee and reduced the price of gas. There’s no way we could ever get a congestion charge ever approved.
What’s happening on the street level in the city is very different from the world that the provincial government is supporting or choosing to fund. How do you reconcile that with policies at the city level?
The philosophy of the provincial government goes back to the Ford brothers at City Hall. They hate streetcars, buses, bicycles. They just want subways to the cost of billions of dollars. Cars are king. People think magically if you build subways, you’re going to get rid of traffic, but it’s not true. The only way you get rid of congestion is to have alternative ways of transportation, like walking, cycling, public transit.
There’s a silver lining in that a lot of young people have made a different choice – they car share, they cycle. But on the other hand, there’s such opposition to bike lanes. It’s like this war against cycling. I try to tell people, if you see a cyclist, you should thank them because that means one less car on the road. It’s going to be an ongoing struggle to get people to realize that when they complain about being stuck in traffic they are the traffic.
One last question. Can you describe the City’s official traffic management plan for when the Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup?
Basically, we have none because we don’t think they will ever win. The good thing is, there’s hope with William Nylander spotted on the subway. We need more people doing what he’s doing.
We’d love to hear from you!
We love to hear what you think and who you’d like to see interviewed in future newsletters! We’re also always looking for volunteers – a featured opportunity involves joining/leading our GreenWaves working group. Get in touch by clicking here.
As always, we are here to help:
The South Eglinton Davisville Residents’ Association is a volunteer organization. Please take time to visit our website and spread the word about becoming a member!
Kind Regards,
SEDRA Board
Republished with permission. Copyright (C) 2023 South Eglinton Davisville Residents’ Association. All rights reserved.
