The Toronto board of health backed away from a controversial plan to lower city-wide speed limits on Monday, opting instead to pursue traffic calming pilot projects in willing communities.
The decision came after a wave of negative reaction to a Toronto Public Health report that recommended reducing the unposted speed limit from 50 km/h to 40 km/h as part of an overall strategy to encourage walking and cycling.
The board balked at that idea at its meeting Monday afternoon but unanimously endorsed the remainder of the report’s recommendations, which included installing signal systems that give pedestrians and cyclists a head start at intersections, increasing investment in bike infrastructure, and setting long-term targets for improving active transportation rates.
The medical officer of health and the transportation manager will report back to the board on implementing the pilot projects, and staff have been asked to work at incorporating the other recommendations as part of city policy. Any reduction in speed limits would likely still be subject to council approval.
Board chair Councillor John Filion, who supports lower speed limits, said he hopes the pilot project approach would “remove the controversy from an issue that doesn’t need to be highly controversial.”
“I think people had the impression that they were going to wake up one morning and find that all of the speed limits on every street, expressway, and road in the city was being changed,” Filion told reporters after the vote. “I don’t think that was anyone’s intention.”
While several councillors and health board members expressed reservations about slower roads, reaction from the mayor’s office has been particularly incensed. On his weekly radio show Sunday, Rob Ford and his brother, Councillor Doug Ford, openly criticized medical officer of health Dr. David McKeown, who authored the report’s recommendations. On air Councillor Ford appeared to suggest McKeown should be fired, and the mayor promised to review the health chief’s $300,000 salary, calling it “an embarrassment.”
At Monday’s meeting, Filion said he planned to review the transcript of the radio show and consult with board members on taking “appropriate action” against the mayor and Councillor Ford.
“It’s very troubling,” Filion said. “We hire expert staff to give us their expert opinion. We can then choose to follow it or not follow it, but it’s highly inappropriate to publicly criticize staff – in particular the medical officer of health who is by legislation independent – for giving his best recommendations as far as what is good for the health of the residents of the city.”
McKeown himself appeared unfazed by the mayor’s public dressing down.
“I’m doing my job,” he said in a media scrum outside the board’s committee room. “It’s the job of the medical officer of health to look into the health of the population, not only through the services we provide through Toronto Public Health, but also by providing advice on the best policies the city can pursue to keep this population healthy.”
Asked if he felt intimidated by Ford’s comments, McKeown demurred.
“If he’s expressing an opinion on the wisdom of my recommendations, I’d be interested to hear his arguments,” he said.
Ford’s open condemnation of McKeown recalls his public dispute with former TTC general manager Gary Webster, who was fired after he refused to support the mayor’s subway vision.
McKeown, who has held the top position at Toronto Public Health since 2004, is less vulnerable to Ford’s disapproval than Webster was however because the mayor has little influence on the board of health. Six of its 13 members are left-leaning councillors, five are citizen appointees, and one is an elected school board rep, and it’s unlikley they’d vote to remove McKeown. By contrast, the TTC board that dismissed Webster was dominated by Ford’s allies (council has since replaced them with centrists aligned with TTC chair Karen Stintz).
TPH’s 96-page report, called Road to Health: Improving Cycling and Walking in Toronto, was prepared in collaboration with the city’s transportation division. It examined the health benefits and risks of active transportation and determined that “increased investment in the safety, attractiveness and feasibility of walking and cycling will help to improve health” by preventing serious accidents and lowering risk for chronic diseases. Data cited in the document showed that Toronto’s walking and cycling rates lag behind other North American cities like Vancouver and Portland, and McKeown concluded that improving them to comparable levels would prevent 100 deaths a year and yield $100 to $400 million in economic benefits.
He identified lowering the speed limit to 30 km/h on residential streets and 40 km/h on arterial roads as a low-cost way of increasing the safety and appeal of people-powered transportation, but McKeown emphasized that slowing motor vehicles was only one part of a wider plan that could also incorporate other traffic calming measures like speed bumps and pinch points.
Once city staff report back to the board, all of those measures, including lower speeds, could be tested by pilot projects in neighbourhoods identified through public consultations.
“The report outlines many different approaches, it’s really a question of finding the right mix here in Toronto,” McKeown said Monday.
