Mississauga City Council scales back speed enforcement hours, commitment to pedestrian safety

Reducing speeds in parts of Mississauga where some of the municipality’s most vulnerable residents walk and play has been a mission of its local leaders. A council decision has moved the city away from the commitment, a vote denounced by one councillor who fears the Vision Zero plan to eliminate all pedestrian fatalities is being abandoned. 

Following a motion from Councillor Stephen Dasko seconded by Councillor Brad Butt the speed restrictions in school zones have been weakened, and are now only enforceable 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays. The decision was made despite a staff report that explicitly made recommendations counter to the motion, advising council the move would be in direct opposition to its Vision Zero pledge. 

The motion passed October 30 with Councillors Joe Horneck, Alvin Tedjo and Martin Reid voting against it.

In recent years, Mississauga has been reducing speed limits on local roads and introducing a number of other traffic calming measures such as automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras, speed bumps and bollards in an effort to change a chaotic driving culture that includes routine street racing and excessive speeds on its wide streets. 

The city’s local leaders, pushed by residents, had committed to the global Vision Zero framework to eliminate all pedestrian fatalities, but advocates see the latest council decision as a dereliction of their responsibility.

A public notice issued by Peel Regional Police in September following repeated complaints of unsafe driving around Ridgeway Plaza in Mississauga.

(Peel Regional Police)

Mississauga’s dangerous driving culture was previously documented in an eye-popping report that showed the number of drivers caught moving at excessive speeds by ASE cameras in zones where the limit is 30 km/h. The highest ticketed speed reported by a camera in a 30 km/h zone was 114 km/h on Mississauga Valley Boulevard west of Central Parkway East. Other cars caught in each of the 30 km/h zones with a camera included high speeds of: 111, 110, 109, 108, 108, 107 and 100 km/h. More than fifty zones throughout the city with a 30 km/h limit saw a high speed of 80 km/h or faster since 2021.

Recent data from the City also revealed that between 2015 and 2023, 65 percent of fatal collisions involved a “vulnerable road user,” meaning a pedestrian, cyclist, or motorcyclist were involved. Pedestrians alone accounted for 48 percent of deaths during that period with 59 deaths reported; 25 percent of 1,648 collisions resulted in an injury. 

Dasko told The Pointer the decision to reduce the enforcement hours reflected an approach to “sound, common-sense, traffic calming measures not perceived as a cash grab.” He added he believes the City is still moving toward Vision Zero with the latest decision and highlighted that 40 km/h has previously been the default speed limit in school zones for decades.

“It's not about making our streets less safe, I argue that it will be the opposite. This will make our streets more safe because from many people I have spoken with and polled… it's outside of that 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. time people perceive as a cash grab and most people tell me when they know that it's in effect, they choose an alternate route so that they won’t possibly get a ticket,” he explained. “People are taking alternate routes to get to and from and it's not making our streets safer, it's actually making them more dangerous.”

Lower speed limits are proven to reduce fatalities in the event of a collision.

(Vision Zero)

According to the Ontario Traffic Council, speed is a contributing factor in approximately one-third of fatal collisions. The City of Mississauga has also highlighted that when it comes to vulnerable road users such as pedestrians and cyclists, there is a 90 percent survival rate if the vehicle is travelling at 30 km/h, compared to only a 15 percent survival rate if struck by a vehicle travelling at 50 km/h.

“If they are driving over the speed limit they may not think it's a big deal, but in fact, if you're going 10 kilometers more than you're supposed to be going and you hit a child or any pedestrian, because of sheer energy and physical force, every 10 kilometers you go over, the chances of you killing that person or seriously injuring them goes up substantially,” Valerie Smith, director of road safety programs with Parachute, a Toronto-based non-profit that focuses on injury prevention, who also supports the organization’s Vision Zero network, previously told The Pointer.

While the default limit in the city has traditionally been 50 km/h, unless posted otherwise, recent years have seen speeds reduced across Mississauga. In 2020, the City introduced the Neighbourhood Area Speed Limit Project which included lowering speed limits in school zones and designating community safety zones. The result: all neighbourhood speeds were lowered from 50km/h to 40km/h and school zone speed limits from 40km/h to 30 km/h. This led to speed reductions on 3,280 roadways within 130 neighbourhoods, including 199 local school zones.

The move was in alignment with the City’s Vision Zero Action Plan, endorsed by council in 2018, which outlines 99 goals aimed at achieving zero fatalities and serious injuries involving pedestrians and cyclists across Mississauga’s transportation network. Vision Zero is a concept that originated in Sweden almost 25 years ago and has been an internationally endorsed long-term goal that strives to make roads safer for all users. 

“The Vision Zero approach acknowledges that people make mistakes and that the transportation system needs to be designed and operated in a way that mitigates the negative impacts of human error,” Mississauga’s website states. “To do this, the Vision Zero approach relies on data-driven decision making to provide a safe and equitable transportation network that protects all users, with specific emphasis on the most vulnerable users of our roads like pedestrians and cyclists.” 

The City’s Action Plan acknowledges, “Change can be difficult to adapt to, especially when it comes to speed reductions and perceived travel times, but as the needs of our residents change and safety is prioritized, our road network must also adapt.” 

The recent council decision raises questions about Mississauga’s commitment to its Vision Zero pledge.

The move will now reward drivers who were already wary of obeying the posted speed limit.

The City of Mississauga’s Vision Zero strategy aims to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries involving pedestrians and cyclists.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer Files) 

Dasko, who also chairs the City’s road safety committee, told councillors during the October 23 meeting he did not accept the staff recommendation as presented and instead expressed a desire to move forward with “time-of-day” speed enforcement, which he said would be a “safe” and “reasonable” policy decision. The move, he explained, was highly motivated by concerns from residents who see the City’s current measures as “a cash grab”.

“It’s not a matter of ‘are we making our roads safer here’, it’s the overall policy of what we’re looking to accomplish,” he said during the meeting. “As soon as the cameras go up, people take alternative routes and this just pushes our safety issue from one place to another.”

Councillor Butt said if the City moderates the program as proposed by Dasko, where it is enforced during what would be considered “traditional school hours,” he believes “we have done our job as the City of Mississauga in a speed enforcement program.” He noted concerns around the reduced school zone limits have also become a problem in recent years with the implementation of the City’s ASE cameras. “People don't feel it's right that they're getting a ticket on a Sunday afternoon at two o'clock because they were 38 kilometers in a 30-kilometer zone, it takes away the entire integrity of the program. The whole idea was school safety, not Sunday afternoon at two o'clock safety. It was school safety.” 

The decision went against the staff report, which asserted, “Revising the speed limit in school zones on local roadways to time-of-day speed limits poses several significant challenges. It is not consistent with our neighbouring municipalities, nor is it in line with the City’s commitment to Vision Zero.” It maintained that reducing speed limits full time in school zones to 30 km/h is consistent with the City’s commitment to Vision Zero, and that “Lower speed limits and lower operating speeds significantly reduces the potential for personal injury.”

It also highlighted that, “While most younger pedestrians and traffic occurs during the school day, most schools are adjacent to parks and playgrounds that are utilized by residents outside of school hours in the evening, on weekends and throughout the summer.”

Data from the City show the dramatic increase in injuries and fatalities when cars travel 30 km/h compared to 50 km/h.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer Files) 

Several incidents that have made news headlines within the last year alone have shown speeding habits don’t consider the time of day.

A man was rushed to hospital in September with life-threatening injuries after he was struck by a vehicle near Dundas Street West and Old Carriage Road. In August 2023, a pedestrian was hit by a vehicle near the intersection of Dundas Street and the Credit Woodlands and later succumbed to his injuries in hospital. In both cases the drivers allegedly fled the scene after striking the victim. A pedestrian was killed last year in Mississauga after being struck by two vehicles near Bristol Road and Creditview Road. Each of these incidents occurred after 11 p.m.

Councillor Horneck, who campaigned during the 2022 municipal election on enhancing road safety, has said traffic safety is one of the top issues among the residents in his ward. He pointed out that keeping the City’s current speed enforcement measures was in keeping with Mississauga’s commitment to Vision Zero. In his ward alone, Horneck said he has had three fatal accidents and one near fatal accident since he was elected. Two were in school areas, the others were outside those areas.

“The integrity of the program is changing mindsets about how you drive in front of schools,” he said during the October 30 meeting when the general committee report was presented to council for final approval. He cautioned that schools are often used as community hubs outside of school hours and on weekends for extracurricular activities and other community use, and that “Having it consistently helps people say, ‘I'm in a school zone, I need to slow down.’” 

“It’s about habit forming in the City of Mississauga and the surrounding municipalities. I want people to think about every time they enter a school zone, they are looking for any pedestrian, not just a kid, because there’s lots of people who walk their dog on school property, there’s lots of people who interact with the green space around school properties at all hours of the day.”

Councillor Joe Horneck told The Pointer and council that reducing the City’s posted speed limits in school zones only during certain times of day contradicts Mississauga’s Vision Zero strategy.

(Alexis Wright/The Pointer Files) 

Tim Nagtegall, inspector of road safety services with Peel Regional Police, told council during the October 30 meeting that since the start of 2024, 11 lives have been lost due to motor vehicle collisions in Mississauga and 24 across the Region of Peel. Each one, he explained, was considered “a preventative death, underscoring the need for preventable measures.” There have been over 12.600 reported collisions in Mississauga and over 24,900 in Peel Region this year. Over 37,500 charges have been issued, 1,409 of which included stunt driving charges, marking a six percent increase in incidents compared to last year. 

Wanting to consult more widely on the proposal to reduce speed enforcement to time of day, Horneck moved for the motion to be deferred, but it failed. Dasko’s motion to scale back the City’s measures instead passed with councillors Horneck, Tedjo and Reid opposed to the move.

“For perspective, we have 5,680 kilometers of road in the city. That's enough for you to fly to Monterey, Mexico and back, and that's the zones that we don't cover with ASE cameras or any kind of school zone. If you take all of the summary at the maximum width of 500 meters per school, you get 120 kilometers, which is barely enough to drive to Guelph and back,” Horneck said during the meeting.

“We're talking about one percent of our roads and people behaving on 1 percent of our roads. Have that stick with you. You're telling people one percent. I'm just asking you to behave on one percent of the road all the time, day or night.”

Data presented earlier this year by staff found the highest ticketed speed in one of the school camera zones was 78 km/h, nearly 50 km/h over the posted speed limit – a trend that has been identified at nine different enforcement locations. Data collected before and during enforcement periods showed an average decrease in vehicle operating speeds of 9 km/h. It also showed drivers’ compliance with the speed limit rose by an average of 30 percent. It revealed a total of 82,000 tickets have been handed out since July 2021 in areas where the cameras were operating.

In June, City Council authorized staff to extend the City’s ASE agreement for an additional five years (until July 2029) at an estimated cost of $18.4 million for the supply, installation, operation and maintenance of the system. The expanded program will include the existing 22 mobile cameras, plus 60 new cameras, which will rotate to 100 locations throughout the city and extend the program to major school zones and other major roadways where known speeding concerns exist. Sites are prioritized based on severity of the speeding concern and other factors including overall traffic volumes, the presence of sidewalks or cycling infrastructure, neighbourhood proximity to schools and parks, as well as collision history.

“I want staff to tell me where the 10 or 20 most dangerous spots in the city are,” Horneck later told The Pointer. “I don't care where they are, if they're all in my ward or none of them are in my ward. I just want to address public safety so that people in the public have confidence we're doing these things, not haphazardly, not because we're looking to make money off a camera, but because we care about the safety aspects.” 

Horneck said he is now considering bringing forward a motion that would prompt councillors to review and consult with staff on a site by site basis, on what the appropriate limits and other measures should be in areas where speeding has been a significant public safety threat.

Email: [email protected] 

Twitter: @mcpaigepeacock

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