Collisions on Parkside Drive have dropped by an average rate of about 20 per cent, or one incident per month, since a speed camera was installed in April 2022, police accident data shows.
Between January 2014 and March 2020, the street saw an average of 6.5 reported collisions per month. Since the camera was installed, that rate has fallen to 5.2.
It’s worth noting the data is affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused a dramatic drop in driving in general starting in about March 2020.
Since its installation, the Parkside Drive speed camera has been controversial. The camera has been illegally cut down three times, and was most recently tossed into the High Park duck pond in December.
When the speed camera was installed in 2022, the city also made several other safety-related changes to Parkside. This included lowering the speed limit to 40 km/h from 50 km/h, installing a new traffic light and adding new parking spots, which may also affect accident rates.
To evaluate collision rates in the area, TorontoToday examined reported incidents spanning from Parkside Drive to just south of Bloor Street West and just north of the Queensway.
The speed camera is located near Parkside Drive and Algonquin Avenue, toward the southern end of the park.
It has issued Toronto's highest total of speeding tickets in Toronto — over 65,000 from April 2022 to October 2024 — but that's partly because it is the city's longest-serving speed camera. In terms of monthly average tickets, the Parkside camera is in 12th place.
The Parkside camera’s first month in operation saw its largest number of tickets, 3,586, while October 2024 saw about half that number.
However, the consistent vandalism of the Parkside camera will certainly have affected the data, be that its repeated beheading or an instance that saw the lens spray-painted.
The sabotage complicates enforcement, but also makes it very difficult to use the data to determine what effect the camera has had on speeding.
The accident data obtained by TorontoToday covers all collisions reported to police. In most instances, nobody was injured.
Parkside Drive can be a busy thoroughfare for motorists driving between Bloor Street West and the Gardiner Expressway. However, the roadway also forms a barrier between a residential neighbourhood and High Park, which many pedestrians must work out how to cross safely.
"Narrow and missing sidewalks, lack of bikeways, excessive vehicular speeds and aggressive driving, and a history of collisions resulting in fatality or serious injury are frequently heard concerns," Barbara Gray, the city’s transportation manager, lamented in an October report.
A comprehensive redesign of Parkside was approved by city council last fall and aims to make the area safer. However, that plan includes bike lanes, and it remains unclear how that will relate to the provincial restrictions on new bike lanes announced in October.
In October, TorontoToday spoke with urban design experts who laid out ideas for calming traffic on Parkside Drive if bike lanes are no longer an option.
These included narrowing motor vehicle lanes, more formal crossings with traffic signals, a large sidewalk, or a wide mixed-use path with space for bikes and pedestrians, one lane of traffic in each direction, and design features that connect the park to the street.
