Taxpayers will fund a six-week, $80,000 police blitz to more efficiently tag and tow cars blocking traffic on Queen Street during the evening rush hour.

On Friday morning, Mayor John Tory and city officials announced they were trying a new strategy: towing cars stopped illegally across Queen to nearby streets instead of yards well outside the core, which will allow police and the trucks to move more vehicles faster.

The initiative will begin Monday.

“We’re going to stop making nice,” Tory said at a photo-op at the corner of Queen Street West and Gore Vale Avenue at the edge of Trinity Bellwoods.

“We know that the benefits of keeping cars moving will improve efficiency for people. It will reduce delays, it will reduce frustration, it will reduce the damage to productivity in the economy and it will further reduce greenhouse gas emissions, so this is a good thing.”

Toronto police Supt. Scott Baptist, who heads the traffic services unit, said that because they have existing contracts with towing companies that can’t be torn up, taxpayer dollars are needed to test the new model.

For the duration of the pilot, drivers whose cars are towed will still receive a $150 ticket, but won’t have to pay the typical towing surcharge. That cost will be covered with existing taxpayer funds.

“What we anticipate is this will be a far more efficient system in terms of moving vehicles that are blocking traffic,” Baptist said, including fewer delays on the Queen streetcar.

In 2018, police handed out about 12,000 no stopping tickets along Queen Street and 6,000 vehicles were impounded, Baptist said.

“There are a number of vehicles that would have been towed were it not be for the inefficiency of a historic system that needs to be re-examined,” he said.

Baptist said officers will be conscious of not tying up local side streets with towed vehicles and that police worked with the city’s transportation division to identify several locations across the city to move cars, including the opposite, less busy side of the street where stopping is permitted during the evening rush hour.

As usual, anyone whose car has been towed will have to call the dedicated police line and will be told where their car has been moved.

Tory has announced several tagging and towing blitzes during his two terms in office, initiatives that are always temporary measures. He acknowledged the results have also been temporary.

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“What we’ve tried is things that have worked for as long as they’ve lasted,” Tory said. “But we find that when we stop the blitz the behaviour returns to what it was before.”

The mayor said he hopes in changing the towing method, the city can assess the data and determine whether to make the new method permanent.

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