

Chris Fox, CP24.com





Mayor John Tory’s executive committee has voted in favour of a staff-endorsed plan on how to distribute an additional $22 million in funding for road safety initiatives that was first approved by city council last month.

In June, council voted to double the funding set aside for the Vision Zero road safety plan in 2018 following a rash of pedestrian deaths.

At the time, Tory had already proposed using a budget surplus to commit an additional $13 million to the plan in 2018 but amendments on the floor of council eventually brought the total increased investment to $22 million.

At today’s meeting, members of the executive committee heard a presentation from staff on how best to distribute that money.

Staff suggested that $4 million of the funds go towards conducting safety audits in each of Toronto’s cultural corridors with another $1 million being put towards the installation of plants and bollards to increase the separation between cyclists and vehicles along a dozen streets.

Staff also proposed that $2.83 million be invested in installing 188 “Watch Your Speed” signs across the city as well as installing additional signage warning drivers to slow down in 40 school zones.

“The report that the committee will have in front of it talks about how they can extend existing contracts or do things to allow us to spend the money responsibly,” Mayor John Tory told reporters on Tuesday morning. “I would never advocate to them that they should spend the money just for the sake of saying they spent it but they have come forward with a very specific list of projects, to adjust intersections, to add new signals that are safer for pedestrians, to add signage and to do the kinds of things that experts have agreed are in the best interests of keeping pedestrians and cyclists safe.”

Some of the other initiatives that are set to receive funding include:

$2 million to develop a communications strategy and framework to support behavior change

$1 million to install necessary signage to designate 250 school zones as community safety zones

$1 million to complete a review of potential safety improvements in school zones

$500,000 to install an additional 81 speed bumps on top of the 131 already being installed

New affordable housing units approved

Today's meeting of the executive committee was the final one held during this term of council.

In addition to the debate around the Vision Zero funding, members of the committee also approved 893 new affordable rental units and 300 affordable ownership units.

Those units will bring the number of affordable dwellings approved this year to 1,650, thereby allowing council to exceed its target of 1,000 approved affordable units per year.

Last month, Tory said that the city should set a more ambitious target of 40,000 new affordable housing units over the next 12 years, which would average out to about 3,300 per year.

“I am proud to say that today executive committee will consider and recommend forward to council the approval of hundreds more affordable housing units and I think that represents progress, not enough progress but it allows us to say that we have met and exceeded two years in a row now a target that had never even been met before,” Tory told reporters on Tuesday morning.

All of the items considered by the executive committee today will go to city council as a whole for final approval during their meeting next week. It will be the final meeting in this term of council.