Traffic enforcement
Re Carol Burtin Fripp’s July column, “Where’s the enforcement?!” I’d like to grumpily ask the same thing and to encourage more articles like this one, in hopes of stirring up community participation to demand that our elected officials or urban planners or police – or somebody – make changes that benefit our communities.
I live on Broadway, which is either plagued by careless, distracted, speeding drivers who never stop at any stop sign, OR completely congested between 3:30 and 6 p.m. with cars taking Broadway to Brentcliffe to make a left onto Eglinton and head home after work. Can we count on police to help with this? I haven’t seen a single traffic officer in my years living here. If police aren’t willing to send traffic officers to patrol our neighbourhoods for speeders/distracted drivers, have we ever proposed to install speed cameras? And as for the congestion, have we ever made a case to revise the lanes, light automation and signage at the Brentcliffe/Eglinton intersection? The entire pocket is an accident waiting to happen.
I am not a police expert or an urban planner. I don’t know how to solve the complex issues that are plaguing our city from a lack of infrastructure/traffic standpoint, and I do not know how we fix our policing problems. I do work in technology/software development, and I have seen other cities do great work solving some of these problems through technology and automation. Why don’t we demand that our local officials invest less in policing and more in automation; speed cameras (on Broadway in particular to catch speeders and distracted drivers and those who do not stop at stop signs), intersection cameras (to ticket those who are blocking intersections or failing to stop), and smart traffic lights (to help with congestion during rush hours).
Shannon Kerr Wright
Note: this letter has been edited for space.