Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

[Northern Light]

Given that the title of school property is vested with the Board and not the city, I would think that eating into the parking lot would be costly, when you consider surveys, legal work, etc. even if the land was transferred for a token fee.

I can't find any Ontario reference that classifies Horse Chestnut as invasive in Ontario.

@nfitz is correct that it is not the same level of invasive as Norway Maple, European Buckthorn or Dog Strangling Vine to name but three.

That said, it does reproduce, on its own, in Toronto-area ravines, even when there isn't a mother tree particularly close by.
Which to me, would make it a concern for forest health.

As I noted, this particular site is nowhere near a significant natural area; so if Horse Chestnut must be planted, better here than many other spots.
On the other hand, I would rather get the City in the habit of sticking to mostly native species, and then those don't reproduce here in the wild at all.
The problem being that when a tree such as this is on a permissible list, it gets planted where it should not be; because, frankly, many of the staff don't know better.

Also the City of Toronto is one of, if the not the largest single buyer of caliper-size trees in all of Ontario.
So what they choose to order has a huge effect on what's available for everyone.
I would prefer fewer problematic trees on offer and far more natives!

 

[Northern Light]

Squirrels love the nuts. But they are NOT edible by humans.

The American chestnut (Castanea dentata) is native. Reaching over 30 metres tall and living up to 500 year.

Toronto would be the outer limit of its range, but it is/was native to south-western Ontario.

It is currently endangered here.

Landscape Trades

landscapetrades.com

 

[W. K. Lis]

Toronto would be the outer limit of its range, but it is/was native to south-western Ontario.

It is currently endangered here.

Landscape Trades

landscapetrades.com

Climate change may also change the range.

Expect to see palm trees and other southern trees to expand north. Likely with human intervention.

This Ontario Beach With Real Palm Trees Will Make You Feel Like You're In Cancun​

From link.

 

[evandyk]

Well, yeah. Those trees live in a greenhouse over the winter. If Port Dover can ever support palm trees year round, we won't be able to import them from Florida, because Florida will be under water.

 

[lenaitch]

We have a Horse Chestnut around here somewhere (Simcoe Cty). I only know that because I've found nuts on the ground that squirrels have dropped. Haven't found the tree yet.

There are strains of Palm that can survive (don't know about thrive)in S. Ontario climate. I think it was mentioned in a thread here a while back. Heck, our daughter had a Magnolia (don't know which one) at her place near North Bay. It took some Fall tlc to keep it alive. Then there is the Stuart McLean story about his neighbour that had the olive tree and buried it every Fall!

 

[W. K. Lis]

The forgotten history of how automakers invented the crime of "jaywalking"​

From link.

A hundred years ago, if you were a pedestrian, crossing the street was simple: You walked across it.

Today, if there's traffic in the area and you want to follow the law, you need to find a crosswalk. And if there's a traffic light, you need to wait for it to change to green.

Fail to do so, and you're committing a crime: jaywalking. In some cities — Los Angeles, for instance — police ticket tens of thousands of pedestrians annually for jaywalking, with fines of up to $250.

To most people, this seems part of the basic nature of roads. But it's actually the result of an aggressive, forgotten 1920s campaign led by auto groups and manufacturers that redefined who owned the city streets.

"In the early days of the automobile, it was drivers' job to avoid you, not your job to avoid them," says Peter Norton, a historian at the University of Virginia and author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. "But under the new model, streets became a place for cars — and as a pedestrian, it's your fault if you get hit."

One of the keys to this shift was the creation of the crime of jaywalking. Here's a history of how that happened.

Manhattan's Hester Street, on the Lower East Side, in 1914. (Maurice Branger/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)

When city streets were a public space
​

It's strange to imagine now, but prior to the 1920s, city streets looked dramatically different than they do today. They were considered to be a public space: a place for pedestrians, pushcart vendors, horse-drawn vehicles, streetcars, and children at play.

"Pedestrians were walking in the streets anywhere they wanted, whenever they wanted, usually without looking," Norton says. During the 1910s there were few crosswalks painted on the street, and they were generally ignored by pedestrians.

As cars began to spread widely during the 1920s, the consequence of this was predictable: death. Over the first few decades of the century, the number of people killed by cars skyrocketed.

Those killed were mostly pedestrians, not drivers, and they were disproportionately the elderly and children, who had previously had free rein to play in the streets.

The public response to these deaths, by and large, was outrage. Automobiles were often seen as frivolous playthings, akin to the way we think of yachts today (they were often called "pleasure cars"). And on the streets, they were considered violent intruders.

Cities erected prominent memorials for children killed in traffic accidents, and newspapers covered traffic deaths in detail, usually blaming drivers. They also published cartoons demonizing cars, often associating them with the Grim Reaper.

The November 23, 1924, cover of the New York Times shows a common representation of cars during the era — as killing machines. (New York Times)

Before formal traffic laws were put in place, judges typically ruled that in any collision, the larger vehicle — that is, the car — was to blame. In most pedestrian deaths, drivers were charged with manslaughter regardless of the circumstances of the accident.

In 1925 Midtown Manhattan, pedestrians compete for space with increasing automobile traffic. (Edwin Levick/Getty Images)

How cars took over the roads
​

As deaths mounted, anti-car activists sought to slow them down. In 1920, Illustrated World wrote, "Every car should be equipped with a device that would hold the speed down to whatever number of miles stipulated for the city in which its owner lived."

The turning point came in 1923, says Norton, when 42,000 Cincinnati residents signed a petition for a ballot initiative that would require all cars to have a governor limiting them to 25 miles per hour. Local auto dealers were terrified, and sprang into action, sending letters to every car owner in the city and taking out advertisements against the measure.

A 1923 ad in the Cincinnati Post, taken out by a coalition of auto dealers. (Cincinnati Post)

The measure failed. It also galvanized auto groups nationwide, showing them that if they weren't proactive, the potential for automobile sales could be minimized.

In response, automakers, dealers, and enthusiast groups worked to legally redefine the street — so that pedestrians, rather than cars, would be restricted.

The idea that pedestrians shouldn't be permitted to walk wherever they liked had been present as far back as 1912, when Kansas City passed the first ordinance requiring them to cross streets at crosswalks. But in the mid-20s, auto groups took up the campaign with vigor, passing laws all over the country.

Most notably, auto industry groups took control of a series of meetings convened by Herbert Hoover (then secretary of commerce) to create a model traffic law that could be used by cities across the country. Due to their influence, the product of those meetings — the 1928 Model Municipal Traffic Ordinance — was largely based off traffic law in Los Angeles, which had enacted strict pedestrian controls in 1925.

"The crucial thing it said was that pedestrians would cross only at crosswalks, and only at right angles," Norton says. "Essentially, this is the traffic law that we're still living with today."

Government safety posters ridicule jaywalking in the 1920s and '30s. (National Safety Council/Library of Congress)

The shaming of jaywalking
​

Even while passing these laws, however, auto industry groups faced a problem: In Kansas City and elsewhere, no one had followed the rules, and they were rarely enforced by police or judges. To solve it, the industry took up several strategies.

One was an attempt to shape news coverage of car accidents. The National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, an industry group, established a free wire service for newspapers: Reporters could send in the basic details of a traffic accident and would get in return a complete article to print the next day. These articles, printed widely, shifted the blame for accidents to pedestrians — signaling that following these new laws was important.

Similarly, AAA began sponsoring school safety campaigns and poster contests, crafted around the importance of staying out of the street. Some of the campaigns also ridiculed kids who didn't follow the rules — in 1925, for instance, hundreds of Detroit school children watched the "trial" of a 12-year-old who'd crossed a street unsafely, and, as Norton writes, a jury of his peers sentenced him to clean chalkboards for a week.

This was also part of the final strategy: shame. In getting pedestrians to follow traffic laws, "the ridicule of their fellow citizens is far more effective than any other means which might be adopted," said E.B. Lefferts, the head of the Automobile Club of Southern California in the 1920s. Norton likens the resulting campaign to the anti-drug messaging of the anti-drug messaging of the '80s and '90s, in which drug use was portrayed as not only dangerous but stupid.

Auto campaigners lobbied police to publicly shame transgressors by whistling or shouting at them — and even carrying women back to the sidewalk — instead of quietly reprimanding or fining them. They staged safety campaigns in which actors dressed in 19th-century garb, or as clowns, were hired to cross the street illegally, signifying that the practice was outdated and foolish. In a 1924 New York safety campaign, a clown was marched in front of a slow-moving Model T and rammed repeatedly.

This strategy also explains the name that was given to crossing illegally on foot: jaywalking. During this era, the word "jay" meant something like "rube" or "hick" — a person from the sticks, who didn't know how to behave in a city. So pro-auto groups promoted use of the word "jay walker" as someone who didn't know how to walk in a city, threatening public safety.

At first, the term was seen as offensive, even shocking. Pedestrians fired back, calling dangerous driving "jay driving."

But jaywalking caught on (and eventually became one word). Safety organizations and police began using it formally, in safety announcements.

Ultimately, both the word jaywalking and the concept that pedestrians shouldn't walk freely on streets became so deeply entrenched that few people know this history. "The campaign was extremely successful," Norton says. "It totally changed the message about what streets are for."

 

[innsertnamehere]

We have a Horse Chestnut around here somewhere (Simcoe Cty). I only know that because I've found nuts on the ground that squirrels have dropped. Haven't found the tree yet.

There are strains of Palm that can survive (don't know about thrive)in S. Ontario climate. I think it was mentioned in a thread here a while back. Heck, our daughter had a Magnolia (don't know which one) at her place near North Bay. It took some Fall tlc to keep it alive. Then there is the Stuart McLean story about his neighbour that had the olive tree and buried it every Fall!

The heartiest palms can survive in Ontario but require covering and even sometimes heaters for the coldest nights in January and February.

The do survive without help in Vancouver and even Halifax though, which are moderated by the ocean and don't get the extremes we do here.

Toronto is right on the edge of the Carolinian zone and tree species that take decline rapidly as you move north of Toronto. A ton of trees that are native to Toronto and SW Ontario won't grow in even Newmarket. The habitable zone moves further and further north every year though from climate change. Downtown Toronto is in a 7A climate hardiness zone, seen only in the areas of Niagara below the escarpment and the Windsor-Essex area elsewhere in Ontario, but by the time you get to Newmarket it's dropped to a 5B.

Canada's Plant Hardiness Site

Canada's Plant Hardiness Site

planthardiness.gc.ca

Fun fact: according to the USDA, Toronto shares the same hardiness zone as Bowling Green, Kentucky and Asheville, Tennessee.

 

[nfitz]

Toronto is right on the edge of the Carolinian zone and tree species that take decline rapidly as you move north of Toronto. A ton of trees that are native to Toronto and SW Ontario won't grow in even Newmarket.

When we got a tulip tree from the nursery, they said don't plant it north of 7, even though it's native here. But you see a lot h in our neighbourhood near Gerrard.

 

[innsertnamehere]

Yup.

that said, hardiness zones aren’t everything. I’ve been to Asheville before and despite being in the same hardiness zone I can assure you it is far warmer and has very, very different greenery.

 

[Northern Light]

When we got a tulip tree from the nursery, they said don't plant it north of 7, even though it's native here. But you see a lot h in our neighbourhood near Gerrard.

Tulip Tree is not native to Toronto.

It is native to Ontario, but south of here.

This is map showing natural (non-planted) Tulip Tree occurrence in Ontario:

Credit in image.

Just a couple in the Burlington area, otherwise limited to Niagara, Lake Erie north shore, and a the southern shore of Lake Huron.

The City has planted them as street trees in Toronto, many/most have died.

They're fine in sheltered locations, and sometimes can also manage if they're in a garden, both because of the extra soil volume/water, but also some TLC from a homeowner.

But left out in the wind, in a bad cold spell in a Toronto winter...........they tend to suffer/die.

Here's a North American Range map for the tree:

Credit: U.S. Geological Survey & Elbert L. Little, Jr., of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service - USGS Geosciences and Environmental Change Science Center: Digital Representations of Tree Species Range Maps from: Elbert L. Little, Jr. (1971), Atlas of United States trees, Vol. 1, conifers and important hardwoods: U.S. Department of Agriculture Miscellaneous Publication 1146, 9 p., 200 maps., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22089395

 

[W. K. Lis]

You can plant apple trees in Florida. However, to expect them to bear fruit is another story.

 

[W. K. Lis]

This intersection in Toronto is a danger zone for anyone who crosses it​

From link.

An intersection in Toronto has become a hot zone full of dangerous encounters for cyclists, drivers and pedestrians alike.

Many community members say they feel unsafe when crossing a specific turn, at the intersection of Bloor Street West and Christie Street, right in front of the Baskin Robbins.

In December 2020, Kay Lambert was riding her bike going west, beside the Baskin Robbins, heading toward Christie Pits Park.

Lambert says as she biked forward, a driver began to turn right at the same time. She rang her bell, but the two of them collided, and she was hit by the side of the car.

"Ironically, I was riding back from a ghost ride for the girl that got killed on Dufferin," said Lambert.

Alex Amaro, 23, died last year, not far from where Lambert was hit, after she was struck by incoming traffic near Dufferin Street and Sylvan Avenue.

Here's what makes the turn at Bloor and Christie so problematic:

Drivers have the ability to turn from both right and left sides of the intersection, to drive north onto Christie.

At the same time, cyclists are able to bike forward on Bloor or turn right, despite which colour the light is in front of them.

Most collisions happen here because cyclists are biking forward at the same time drivers are turning. Either that, or they're both turning right at the same time, without giving space for one to go ahead of the other.

Then there's the addition of pedestrians who are looking to walk across the intersection, with no walking light to guide them.

In addition, a line of cabs are always parked out front near the Baskin Robbins, causing little room for anybody turning onto Christie.

Overall, there's a lot happening at this very small turn, which often leads to honking, some shouting, and general congestion with TTC buses pulling into Christie Station, which sits a few steps away from Baskin Robbins.

Lambert isn't the only one who has experienced being hit at the intersection.

Sarah Margolius told blogTO that in June 2019, she witnessed a young man get knocked off his bike after he was hit by a delivery van.

Margolius says the van was travelling at high speeds, turning right onto Christie, and hit the cyclist in the exact same place where Lambert was struck. After they crashed, the van didn't stop and continued driving north.

"He [the cyclist] was just getting to his feet, shouting at the receding delivery van, he began sprinting toward it, I could see one of the bike wheels was very damaged," said Margolius.

It isn't just cyclists who've paid the price at this intersection.

Last week, Paul Barron went for a run in the area, and began crossing the intersection, heading west, toward Christie Pits Park.

Suddenly, a driver began turning left at the same time. They were very close to hitting Barron, but he quickly moved out of the way, which prevented them from colliding.

"It was so close, I could see the passenger's look of exasperation," said Barron. "They knew it was wrong to turn so close in front of me, but they just could not wait anymore," he added.

City councillor Mike Layton says he hasn't heard much feedback about the specific turn, but he does admit it's an awkward spot.

"There may be a temporary solution in making sure that sight lines are better in the intersection," said Layton.

blogTO asked Layton whether installing a convex mirror might help to improve sight lines, but he says the city doesn't use them, because they tend not to last.

"There may be an opportunity to reconfigure the intersection, if we talk about moving the island, but it's there to help the TTC turn, otherwise Christie turns into an enormously wide street," said Layton.

For now, Layton says he's willing to make a request to city staff to see what possible solutions there could be for making the Bloor and Christie intersection safer.

For Toronto, the cheapest way was to use paint. When they should have RAISED the crosswalk or continued the sidewalk. See link.

 

[ADRM]

At the same time, cyclists are able to bike forward on Bloor or turn right, despite which colour the light is in front of them.


Most collisions happen here because cyclists are biking forward at the same time drivers are turning. Either that, or they're both turning right at the same time, without giving space for one to go ahead of the other.

This intersection in Toronto is a danger zone for anyone who crosses it​

From link.

For Toronto, the cheapest way was to use paint. When they should have RAISED the crosswalk or continued the sidewalk. See link.

I live not far from this and can confirm that it is awful. It’s bad for people on bikes, people walking, and people driving. Mike’s an ardent incrementalist on road safety issues (or at least he dogmatically defers to Staff, which is actually worse than being an incrementalist), so I wouldn’t expect any significant change here despite the danger.

Last summer, I actually witnessed a driver turn into a cyclist at this intersection, knocking him off his bike, then stop his car in the middle of the road to get out of his car and yell at the cyclist.

 

[nfitz]

I'm not sure why they even keep that small piece of road open - and instead just use the main part of Christie instead. Perhaps with an exception for buses.

 

[W. K. Lis]

I'm not sure why they even keep that small piece of road open - and instead just use the main part of Christie instead. Perhaps with an exception for buses.

Likely used for a "kiss-n-ride" and taxi stand.