Drivers who use the Bayview Ave. extension will need a light touch on the gas pedal to stay within the new 50 km/h speed limit.

The Bayview extension, which runs south from Moore Ave. to Queen St., is a key rush-hour route used by thousands of drivers every day to get in and out of the downtown core.

There are no homes or businesses with direct access to the extension, and just four traffic signals between Moore and Queen, making it easy for traffic to hum along at the speed limit.

For decades, that was 70 km/h, but it was reduced to 60 km/h about 10 years ago. Drivers grumbled that 60 was too low, and that it was reduced only to make it easier for cops to issue speeding tickets.

But with no fanfare or warning, the speed limit was recently lowered again to 50 km/h, which for many drivers seems far too low for an arterial road that serves as an alternative to the Don Valley Parkway.

Among them is Ken Fitzsimmons, who sent us a note saying the most recent reduction is ridiculous, since the extension is a wide-open, four lane street with no traffic entering or exiting except at the signals.

“I can’t fathom why the city has twice reduced the speed limit,” said Fitzsimmons.

“There are no residences, no pedestrians, no sidewalks, few traffic lights and a separated bike path and yet the speed limit has been reduced to a mere 50 kilometres per hour.

“It seems ridiculous to me to have a major alternative to the DVP with only vehicles and separated bike traffic at the same speed limit as pedestrian crowded city streets.

“What the hell is with that?”

We drove along the extension Tuesday and noticed that the cycling and recreational trail briefly converges with the road at several points, but a waist-high guard rail separates it from traffic.

Like many drivers, it had us wondering why the limit on a route that appears made for traffic to travel at higher speeds is reduced to not much more than residential streets with speed bumps.

So we put the question to Roger Browne, manager of Toronto’s traffic safety unit, who says the reduction is part of the Vision Zero road plan approved by city council last July to improve safety by reducing traffic speed.

“The idea behind it is that people are going to make mistakes, and we want to be able to mitigate that,” by lowering traffic speeds to lessen the chances of catastrophic injury or death from a collision, he said.

Traffic studies show that survival rates from a collision with a “vulnerable road user,” defined as pedestrians and cyclists, improves as the speed decreases, said Browne.

The primary reason that the speed limit was lowered is the multi-use trail next to the extension, he said, adding that the number of cyclists and people using it is expected to greatly increase.

“We’re trying to curb aggressive driving and strike a balance,” between the need for traffic to move at a reasonable speed and the requirement of the plan to improve safety for vulnerable road users, he said.

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While it may make the extension an even bigger bonanza for police radar enforcement, Browne stressed that the city added more 50 km/h speed limit signs along it than is required to warn drivers.

The bottom line is that the cops will be targeting it with radar speed traps, which should be reason enough to slow down, even if it seems excessive.