The Eglinton Avenue East death trap
When I interviewed Councillor Adrian Heaps, who heads the city’s cycling committee, for my column in the current issue of Toronto Life, I asked him if there was anywhere in the city where he thought bike lanes would not work. His answer: Eglinton East, where the cars move so fast at such high volumes that the street might as well be a highway. “I would not put them there right now,” he told me. This morning’s news (“2 dead, 8 hurt”) shows us why. Incidentally, that’s the second median-jumping multi-vehicle crash along that stretch in less than a month (the first didn’t result in any deaths, despite involving multiple cars).
How ironic is it that this stretch of Eglinton features a row of car dealerships? I bought my car there two years ago. I have never gone back, not even for servicing. The road struck me as the most aggressive I’ve ever driven on. Heaps mentioned that the TTC’s Transit City Plan will completely overhaul the street’s design, and the light-rail transit lines will serve as a de facto traffic-calming device. But that’s years away. In the meantime, city hall and the cops might want to pay closer attention to a road that appears to be spiralling out of control.
