For several years, SEDRA has been working with Councillor Josh Matlow, City of Toronto staff, TDSB Trustee Shelley Laskin, TDSB staff, and community members on improving safety for pedestrians on Davisville Ave.
To our great frustration, the pandemic threw a wrench into plans to have a new traffic light replace the crossing (known as a PXO) at the Davisville-Spectrum school before the new building opened.
During the time of the planning for the new school building, the City ran a planning exercise to rework and rebuild Davisville Ave., between Yonge St. and Mt. Pleasant Rd. The existence of this plan for Davisville Ave. has been stated as a reason to delay any changes to the pedestrian crossings. The intention is to “do this once.”
There is now widespread agreement that improvements to pedestrian crossings can no longer wait for the rework of Davisville. The pedestrian crossings by the school and by June Rowlands Park are inadequate for the volume of pedestrians and vehicles. Worse yet, they are dangerous, as they provide a false sense of safety. Hundreds and hundreds of incidents have been reported to us, and observed and experienced by SEDRA members in recent years.
It is time to fix this, so SEDRA has proposed the following:
Davisville-Spectrum School Crossing
Our top priority, and the most dangerous place on Davisville, is the crossing outside of Davisville-Spectrum school. Hundreds of young children have to cross there with their parents every day. Many of these crossings happen outside crossing guard hours, as parents take children to and from the daycare. We have hundreds of reports of near-misses and dangerous driving at this crossing. The two apartment driveways immediately adjacent to the south side of the crossing make it that much more dangerous.
SEDRA board members have spent substantial time over the years watching the interactions between pedestrians and vehicle drivers here. One of our board members lives south of Davisville and has to use this crossing twice a day. Our view is that this location is far too busy and complex for a PXO to be sufficient for safe and efficient crossings. A pedestrian traffic light, aligned with the pathway that runs along the east side of the school, would be the best solution in our view.
A pedestrian traffic light would be both much safer for pedestrians, and would make the flow of vehicle traffic better. The light would be green for vehicle traffic at all times, except when a button is pressed for crossing.
Pedestrians would wait, and be batched, until the light turns green for them to cross. A red light for cars leaves no ambiguity and no leeway for drivers “squeezing through”. Then, the light would be green for vehicles for some time interval until the next pedestrian crossing request.
This would be so much safer for pedestrians, and most of the time, even at the start and end of the school day, the light would be green for vehicle traffic. This would be better and safer for all.
June Rowlands Park Crossing
The next priority is the PXO by June Rowlands Park, near Acacia Rd. We support a full standard intersection traffic light placed just west of the current PXO, at the intersection with Acacia Rd, on the west edge of the park.
Thousands of Davisville Village residents cross here to the park from the many towers in the apartment neighbourhood. There are many new developments in this neighbourhood, many of which are being built on what was green space. This loss of green space in the apartment neighbourhood will result in thousands more people using the crossing to June Rowlands Park.
This crossing needs to be made safer now. The danger at this crossing will only grow as the population of the Davisville apartment neighbourhood grows.
Middle Crossing (between the other two)
This PXO has lane restrictions, from two lanes to one in both directions, which we support. Because of shading from buildings and trees, it is dark, even during daylight. We recommend more street lighting here, and better signal lights for crossings.
Adding flashing lights at a lower level in the northwest bumpout (with the signal light facing east) and the southeast bumpout (light facing west), would make this crossing safer.
It is time for action. SEDRA and Councillor Matlow are pleased to report that City staff agree.
With news on this, we have the following message from Councillor Matlow:
To our Davisville Community,
As many of you are aware, recently there was a serious incident when two of our neighbours, a mom and her daughter, were struck by a driver and injured at the Pedestrian Crossover (PXO) at Davisville Avenue and Acacia Road. Thankfully, they are both recovering.
To update you, I was able to successfully move a motion to have a new crossing guard installed at Davisville and Acacia. While this is an important first step action in ensuring greater safety for pedestrians, it is not enough to remedy the fact that pedestrian crossovers with four lanes of traffic create a false sense of security. Even if the driver in the curb lane comes to a full stop, far too often the driver in the second lane continues throughout the crosswalk. That can’t be allowed to happen again.
Therefore, I have requested that both PXOs (crosswalks) in front of Davisville/Spectrum Public School and at Acacia & Davisville be reduced to a single lane. I have received confirmation from City staff that this will be done before the start of the school year in September.
I have also organized a community stakeholder meeting with Davisville/Spectrum Public School, TDSB, City transportation staff, and community stakeholders to move forward with next steps to redesign Davisville Avenue into a street that is functional, beautiful, and most importantly safe for all road users.
I’ll be certain to keep our community updated through my e-newsletter. You can sign up for it at joshmatlow.ca