Bring it, #NearMissToronto.

On behalf of the beleaguered pedestrians of our city, let us take this opportunity to thank a Twitter hashtag for creating a safe space in which to share stories of near death. As it turns out, the examples are plentiful.

That’s what it has come to, living and walking in Toronto, where no one with any authority over police or policies is protecting people who just want to cross the street without dying. If it grows, this citizens’ movement should rightly inspire decisive, meaningful and immediate action and force road safety onto mayoral platforms during Toronto’s municipal election this fall.

It’s already got the support of councillors like Kristyn Wong-Tam, who wants #NearMissToronto to become the catalyst for more citizens to speak out.

“It is vital that people speak out, both loudly and locally, and push for action now,” says Wong-Tam, who represents Toronto Centre-Rosedale. “This has been a low priority for too many at City Hall and important work has been delayed for years. The urgency is real and only a loud, broad public voice is going to bring the attention necessary to move this forward.”

Nothing else seems to have lit a blistering fire under civic leaders. In the two years since Mayor John Tory announced Vision Zero, a plan to eliminate all pedestrian and cycling deaths, almost 100 people going about their daily business have died. That is unconscionable.

To be fair, Tory and Toronto council recently voted to give Vision Zero an additional $22 million in new spending. Now, the city must ensure that plans move quickly and add improvements — like more policing — immediately. It’s not too dramatic to say that lives depend on it.

As the Star’s Sahar Fatima and Tamar Harris report, #NearMissToronto started when Toronto resident Abigail Pugh dropped off her daughter at school in Dufferin Grove and saw a car narrowly miss a young boy on a pedestrian crosswalk. “I just decided there and then that I needed to give people a voice for this kind of event,” said Pugh. It was a fortuitious decision.

Once she posted her experience online, others weighed in, including Daniel Leao, who tweeted about his near-miss with a snowplow when pushing his son in a stroller across the road at Roselawn and Rosewell Aves. As he told the Star, “When I was crossing, (the snowplow driver) accelerated against me.” That should sound unbelievable, but it’s not.

The point of #NearMissToronto may seem obvious, but clearly it needs to be stated: only through good luck or fast reflexes have hundreds or possibly thousands of additional pedestrians and cyclists have avoided injury or death.

However terrifying, it is a reality for Torontonians. Just a few days ago, pedestrians properly starting to cross Front and Yonge Sts. had to stop short when a concrete mixing truck blasted through a red light. Dozens of people were stepping onto the road. Think about that.

On another sunny afternoon, a couple of colleagues walking on Yonge St. had to pull each other back from the corner when a speeding dump truck drove so close to the sidewalk that it might have jumped the curb. Call it a close call or a near miss, but this is now normal.

Apparently, drivers like this have no reason to care. Do city leaders? The approval of new money shows that Toronto council knows it must do better. No one suggests Vision Zero is a quick fix but the city must come up with options that can be implemented now so that drivers cannot race through lights with impunity.

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As Wong-Tam says, “Residents need to demand safe streets everywhere and demonstrate that this is about missing sidewalks in Scarborough, speeding in Etobicoke and a lack of support for bike lanes in North York as much as it is about dangerous turns downtown.”

In other words, we’re all vulnerable. People on Toronto’s streets deserve better.

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