Forget about the war on the car - pedestrians suffer most casualties on Toronto roads, a point brought brutally home this month by 11 deaths in as many days. The latest occurred Friday at Danforth and Broadview when a man on crutches was hit by a dump truck.
Most of Toronto's roughly 30 annual pedestrian deaths occur at suburban intersections where, most believe, cars should not have to yield to anything but traffic lights.
But Dr. Paul Hess, professor of planning at the University of Toronto, believes that the intensity of foot traffic is higher in Toronto's suburbs than commonly thought - and that misconception is keeping planners from addressing potential perils.
Most major suburban roads are lined with shopping plazas and flanked by apartment buildings. This puts low-income residents within walking distance of their daily shopping, carrying groceries through seven-lane intersections that look like they were designed to accommodate jumbo jets.
"It's like having Kensington Market strung out along a highway," observes "walkability" advocate Jane Farrow as she tours Eglinton Avenue at Brimley Road.
The result is stark. From 1999 to 2008, 11 pedestrians were killed and 322 injured on Eglinton between Kingston Road and the Don Valley Parkway.
As Dr. Hess sees it, the fact that pedestrian fatalities in Toronto are increasing even as traffic deaths in total are dropping, shows where the city's priorities are. "If your priority is to move cars at 60 kilometres an hour, people are going to get whacked," says Dr. Hess.