Toronto has spent millions on bike lanes. So why are so many cyclists getting killed?

Yet the mounting toll comes at a time when the city is, in fact, pouring tens of millions of dollars into its cycling network as it pursues its safer streets goals, which leaves some experts wondering: is it possible to make the city safer for cyclists at a time when congestion, construction and a rapidly growing number of riders with varying skills levels have made the streets much more dangerous?

“Toronto is a very large, growing city that has many different forms, with the downtown compact, dense urban form, as well as the suburban scale,” said Barbara Gray, the city’s general manager of transportation services, adding that it’s difficult to pinpoint a single reason why cyclist deaths have spiked.

Gray’s department is responsible for overseeing Vision Zero, the city’s strategy to eliminate traffic fatalities. The program is part of a global effort to make city streets safer by redesigning them to reduce the severity of any collision.

Though Toronto traffic fatalities for all road users averaged more than 60 a year between 2017, when Toronto adopted its Vision Zero program, and 2019, the quieter streets during COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 reduced that number to 40 deaths. Since then, fatalities have trended downward, though Vision Zero data shows serious injuries creeping back up to pre-pandemic levels in 2023.

The notable exception has been cycling deaths.

“I think (Vision Zero) is realistic. But whether or not it’s actually attainable, I’m not sure,” said urban designer Blair Scorgie. “There are so many problematic segments of streets and so many problematic intersections in the city, it’s going to be probably many years at the rate they’re going.”

Scorgie said part of the problem is the city has a lot of wide streets and intersections that were designed long ago for cars and actually encourage speed, which makes any collision deadlier. The city needs to get better at minimizing these, while filling gaps in the cycling network so there’s a continuity of protective barriers.

“Paint is not infrastructure,” said Scorgie.

The tragedies have struck in a number of ways. Ali Sezgin Armagan, 39, was riding his e-bike to deliver food for Uber when he was killed on Avenue Road. Bill Petropoulos, 47, an experienced cyclist, was run over by two cars on St. Clair Avenue. And the latest, late last month, a 24-year-old female cyclist struck by a dump truck on Bloor Street after she left the bike lane, possibly to avoid a dumpster.

Of the five cyclists killed this year, four were killed riding where there was no protected cycling lane. Two fatalities occurred on the wide arterial roads in Scarborough with no bike lanes, one was killed on Avenue Road which had no bike lane and one was killed on Bloor Street with only a painted bike lane.

In certain cases it may be possible to force drivers to slow down by physically narrowing the width of travel lanes for cars and on-street parking lanes by, for example, building out the boulevards or introducing bump outs, Scorgie said.

Gray said that the city adopted lane width standards in 2017, “which are helpful in doing exactly that,” pointing to narrowed lanes on Adelaide and College streets plus Six Points in Etobicoke as examples. 

“There are many instances in Toronto where we have roads designed for certain speeds, now we’ve reduced the posted speed limit (but) people are still flying down the street. How do we enforce this?” Scorgie said, adding that speed bumps are only a “low-hanging, interim solution.”

Gray acknowledges speed is a problem, and the main reason people get killed, noting next year the city will finish its roll out to bring speed limits down to 40 km/h on arterial roads and 30 km/h on local roads.

But Gray maintains “Vision Zero is the right goal … what’s the right number if not zero?” But because of Toronto’s size, “it takes a long time to do.”

Meanwhile, the pressures on the city’s bike infrastructure are increasing rapidly, as the population grows and more people are attracted to cycling because of the expanding city infrastructure. For example, the University of Toronto’s School of Cities found that Bike Share ridership increased from about 665,000 trips in 2015 to over 4.6 million in 2022, logging record-high numbers each year.

“Amongst those folks are going to be people at various skill levels,” Gray said. “And why I think it is so important for us to have safe, separated cycling infrastructure … yet there is obviously still more we need to do.”

In addition, the amount of construction happening in Toronto has made the streets much more hazardous — for motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.

Gray acknowledges that more construction is making it “way trickier” to navigate the city, but maintains that the “tools” to achieve zero deaths — like “good” urban design, enforcement and “effective, responsive” traffic signals — are still relevant to Vision Zero.

Jess Spieker, spokesperson for Friends and Families for Safe Streets, said she doesn’t think there’s enough “political will” provincially or municipally to “overhaul” arterial roads, where cyclists are statistically killed the most, into complete streets.

“It’s maddening,” she added, that governments put ”nearly $100 million into (accelerating construction on) an expressway … whereas the people who are transporting themselves in a way that doesn’t create carbon emissions are being killed left, right and centre without a commensurate response.”

Spieker said that automated speed cameras and protected bike lanes “are easy wins to go after.”

Gray said that the city tries to put protected lanes wherever possible, but the concept behind complete streets means having to consider other road users. That means somewhere like King Street, “we don’t really have the space because of the streetcar traffic,” Gray added.

Mayor Olivia Chow said she “absolutely” believes Vision Zero is still achievable, but there are three parts to it: educating drivers and cyclists, enforcement and infrastructure.

Gray and Chow said the city is in discussions with the province to give it permission to expand its ability to use automated cameras, currently restricted to zones near schools, so they can apply them to transit lanes and bike lanes.

One way the city could “lead by example,” Chow suggested is by having sideguards installed on Toronto’s fleet of trucks, a mandatory feature in Europe that resulted in a 60 per cent decrease in cyclist fatalities. She has asked staff to look at the feasibility of doing so.

“One (death) is too many,” said Chow.

Clarification - Aug. 14, 2024

This article was updated from a previous version to make clear that there was no bike lane on Avenue Road when one of the cyclists was killed on the road. However, a bike lane was recently added on the road, between Bloor Street and Davenport Road.