It’s 10 o’clock on a weekday morning and the corner of King and Yonge is busy. While a southbound dump truck waits at the lights, two tractor trailers are parked on King making deliveries.

Except for the fact they move freely throughout the city, these absurdly oversized vehicular behemoths are completely out of place in an urban context. Anyone can see they are too big, too heavy, too noisy and, mostly, too dangerous to be on roads also used by cars, pedestrians and most ominously, cyclists. Yet there they are, oblivious to their surroundings and glaringly at odds with the city whose needs they serve.

Most of these trucks are so poorly designed, drivers have little idea of what's happening on the streets around them. On the relatively narrow arteries of the "old" city, the results can be deadly. This is true of Queen, Bloor and everything in between, as the trucks' massive blind spots leave their drivers unaware of their surroundings.

Unlike Toronto, some cities demand more. In Europe, many trucks now have lower cabs that bring operators down to the same level as other drivers. That eliminates blind spots and enables truckers to see what's unfolding on the streets around them. This is an obvious no-brainer, but for economic and efficiency reasons, North American truck makers have historically put engines and drivers up front and up high so they can maximize the length of the trailer.

What do you think?

Other cities restrict where and when trucks are allowed. Toronto is among them; “No heavy trucks” signs can be seen in many residential neighbourhoods. Time limits downtown would mean trucks could only use certain streets during certain hours. Typically, these would be late at night or early in the mornings when streets are quiet — and safe.

For the most part, however, trucks are an unpleasant but necessary fact of urban life, especially in Toronto, where a seemingly permanent building boom has turned streets into construction zones. So far, our answer has been to add another blind spot, this one bureaucratic. As director of the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation, Nancy Lea Smith, points out, “One thing that would be really helpful in preventing people getting pulled under trucks and killed is side guards. But when regional and provincial coroners recommended trucks incorporate side guards a few years ago, Transport Canada rejected the idea because ... it concluded they were too much of a financial burden for the trucking industry.” Still, in jurisdictions including the U.K., side guards are mandatory, and somehow British trucking firms have survived.

Even more interesting is the idea of the “transfer hub.” Futurists love this concept; basically, it foresees a time when long-haul transportation will be handled by autonomous rigs. They’ll take widgets from a factory to a transfer point somewhere on the edge of town. There they will be transferred to smaller, human-controlled trucks and delivered to their final destinations. Lea Smith points to the Ontario Food Terminal as a facility where a variation of this sort of transfer is already happening.

But as Anne Harris, who teaches at Ryerson University's School of Occupational and Public Heath, argues, “We could do a lot better with street design and infrastructure. The key thing is physical separation for bikes. That’s a very efficient way to intervene.” She also refers to the “typical Dutch corner design, where each mode of transportation has its own traffic light cycle.”

The inescapable conclusion is that trucks can be accommodated, but that no level of government in Canada has bothered to make the effort. If anything, Canadian legislators seem more focused on protecting trucking industries than their victims. This isn’t just wrong, it’s counterproductive. The benefits of better design and smarter regulation work both ways. How can better visibility not be good for truck drivers? And even side guards make trucks more aerodynamic and improve fuel efficiency.

At some point, though, cities must get tough. In London, Mayor Sadiq Kahn has announced that dangerous trucks will be banned from city streets in 2020. Trucks will be rated for danger and by 2024 only those with highest scores will be allowed on the roads of the British capital.

Toronto might want to consider something similar. But knowing this city, it’s more likely cyclists and pedestrians will be banned first.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...