The city of Toronto should eliminate all crosswalks. It should dismantle those flashing lights and paint over those zebra stripes and officially endorse jaywalking as the safest way to cross the street and make it to the other side alive. Forget “point and cross.” The best option in this town is point and run.

If you think this is an insane idea that’s because it is. Obviously, jaywalking is not safe, and crosswalks should not be abolished.

But in the absence of a sufficient crackdown on dangerous driving, it’s hard, as a pedestrian in Toronto, not to go a little bit insane.

It’s hard not to ask yourself: what use is my neighbourhood crosswalk if nearly every time I use it, my life flashes before my eyes?

I live on a major street downtown. I won’t say which one. But I will say that the crosswalk near my home is extremely dangerous. I don’t mean dangerous at night time or during otherwise low visibility. I mean dangerous all the time — whether it’s 11 p.m. on a weekend or 9 a.m. on a dry, clear, weekday, when the crossing guard is blowing her whistle at full blast.

No matter the time or the conditions, drivers at my crosswalk consistently roll through when pedestrians are crossing. Some are unaware that they’ve done anything illegal. Others have the gall to make eye contact with pedestrians as they speed through the light. Some even go so far as to give a meek salute to those of us trying to cross, a gesture that says: “I’m sorry I almost killed you, but I have somewhere to be.”

Oh that it was a court of law.

However, even though I’ve witnessed countless dangerous driving transgressions occur at my front door I haven’t seen law enforcement write a single ticket.

This is probably because even in the face of high collision rates, police aren’t charging bad drivers nearly as often as they used to nor as often as they should.

In the words of the Star’s Ed Tubb writing last month: “Despite seeing the most collisions on city streets in more than two decades, Toronto police charged fewer drivers with criminal traffic offences last year than any year since amalgamation.” These are serious crimes going unpunished: dangerous driving, impaired driving, failure to remain at the scene of a crash. Nearly 40 pedestrians have died so far this year on Toronto’s streets. It’s wilful blindness to deny a connection between these preventable deaths and the city’s lack of enforcement.

But in addition to wilful blindness I wonder if this tragedy is also attributable to a lack of first hand, on the ground, experience on the part of our leaders and police.

Earlier this week, TTC board member Jim Karygiannis put his foot in his mouth when he asked out loud in the middle of a meeting, “what’s the cost of a TTC fare? Three dollars, something like that?”

Though Karygiannis later claimed to be aware of the price of transit, he admitted to CityNews reporter Tina Yazdani that he rarely takes public transit himself. In other words, here is a member of the TTC board who rarely rides the TTC (the fate of which is partially in his hands) and who appeared not to know how much it costs. It makes you think: how many of our leaders are the same way when it comes to pedestrian safety? They may know the statistics, but do they know, from experience, how scary it can be to cross the street in this city sometimes? How many perilous crosswalks — if any — do they brave getting to and from work?

It would be nice if those making decisions about safety in this city were required to actually walk around in it on a regular basis. Crossing the street shouldn’t be an extreme sport. It should be easy.

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But unless enforcement improves, it won’t be.

Not long ago, I called the city and suggested it consider touching up the crosswalk near my house. Maybe a fresh coat of paint on those faded white lines will save a few lives. The person I spoke with was kind and receptive to my suggestions. He said the city would send someone out to my neighbourhood sometime. Whoever you are: be careful.