Mayor John Tory said the will have some sort of new plan to avoid further road fatalities within “weeks,” after meeting with major residential and transit infrastructure construction firms Wednesday.
“This was a good start today, this will not be a long drawn out process,” the mayor said.
Tory announced the meeting last week in the wake of a female pedestrian being struck by a dump truck as she stepped off a streetcar on Bathurst Street.
That collision, which did not result in serious injuries to the pedestrian, came just a few weeks after a 54-year-old woman was killed when she was hit by a cement truck on Yonge Street at Erskine Avenue.
Following that crash, councillors Mike Colle, Jaye Robinson and Josh Matlow called for a pause in new development projects in the area until the implementation of a construction traffic safety plan.
One week earlier a female pedestrian was struck and killed at Yonge and Erskine by a dump truck.
Tory said that the meeting was attended by Metrolinx officials and a number of development companies and construction companies, who are active in the city. He said that the three city councillors from the Yonge Street and Eglinton Avenue area will also be in attendance in recognition of the “particularly intense development” that is taking place in their wards.
After the meeting, Tory said the construction firms agreed to supply more information on the scheduling of major vehicle-intensive activity at each worksite, the level of training each category of drivers receive, and more options on signage in various areas of the city to prevent trucks from using them.
“We don’t every single project in a two-block area taking their concrete deliveries all at the same time,” he said.
Toronto police Supt. Scott Baptist said eight people have been killed in collisions involving commercial vehicles in the city so far this year, seven of those people were pedestrians.
Coun. Robinson said the incidents involving pedestrians being struck by construction vehicles were top of mind at a recent community meeting she held.
“I had a meeting about a development this week and all people were talking about was ‘traffic, traffic, traffic’ and pedestrian safety.”
Coun. Matlow said the meeting went well and the industry representatives showed a willingness to make changes.
“Nobody there wants another person to be injured at Yonge-Eglinton or anywhere else in the city ever again.”
