Toronto's speed enforcement cameras have been sabotaged beyond repair 22 times across 20 different sites, new City of Toronto data shows.
In figures released to TorontoToday, city representatives said the 22 speed cameras were damaged between January 2020 and November 2024.
The city didn’t start issuing tickets until July of 2020; three of the attacks happened in January of 2020, a time when they were only issuing warning letters.
Some of the instances account for repeated damage to the city’s speed cameras.
Two cameras near each other at Albion Road and Thistle Down Boulevard, close to Islington Avenue, have each been destroyed twice in a five-month period between September 2023 and January 2024.
The camera closer to Thistle Down Boulevard in north Etobicoke only had the chance to issue three tickets before it was sabotaged for the second time in January of 2024. It didn’t issue any tickets before it was destroyed the first time, in December of 2023.
Nearly half of the irreversible damage occurred in September 2024 when nine speed enforcement cameras were destroyed beyond repair. Nearly all instances were in the older part of the city, largely in the west end.
The city’s speed enforcement camera program began in the summer of 2020.
The data only records cases where the camera was so damaged that it couldn't be repaired.
Most famously, the Parkside Drive camera has been vandalized three times but two of those incidents only involved sawing down the pole without damage to the actual camera.
However, city spokesperson Saira Virani said a December incident in which the camera was cut down, dragged through the park and thrown into a duck pond did damage it beyond repair.
The Parkside Drive camera was re-established this month and is now on a thicker pole with the lens higher off the ground.
The city’s speed cameras have issued 1.4 million tickets between July of 2020 and the end of November 2024.
The cameras are owned by a contractor, who pays for repair costs.
