Rating: NNNNN
Number of cars we photographed illegally using transit lanes on Bay in one hour: 65 (before the camera batteries ran out)
Number of cars we witnessed breaking the law but couldn’t photograph because they were too fast: about 30
What the lanes are supposed to do: move high volumes and emphasize how efficiently public transit can operate when given traffic priority
Number of transit lane violations laid by police during last four-day police blitz: 437
Total number of traffic charges laid during blitz: 3,500
Maximum fine for using designated transit lanes illegally: $65
What the TTC is proposing: onboard and roadside cameras to catch car culprits
Why they’ll never get them: public transit is not a priority and way too expensive ($25,000 for onboard cameras and $60,000 for roadside cameras)
Total number of designated transit lanes in Toronto: 4
Total number in London, England: 800
The big question: We’ve got a traffic law that’s supposed to protect public transit, so why aren’t police enforcing it? What cops say : “It’s up to each individual traffic unit to issue fines for traffic offences. We sent a memo out to our divi-
sions to do checks of the lanes, and they’re currently doing that.”
Toronto police Sergeant Ted Holtzhauser Translation : We don’t have time for this crap.
What we say : The snaps we took were on a stretch of Bay behind police headquarters
What TTC says : “Cameras, I think, are the only way to get the kind of enforcement we need.”
Chief TTC engineer of operations Gary Carr
Translation Translation
: Cops are not helping much.
What we say : Maybe it’s time to do what other jurisdictions are doing and put up barriers.
