One of Toronto’s most frequently vandalized speed cameras has been chopped down for the seventh time in less than a year.
It’s unclear what time the incident occurred, but in an email to CP24 Sunday morning, Toronto police say the incident has been “reported” and that an “investigation is ongoing.”
The latest attack on the Parkside Drive speed camera comes just days after CTV News Toronto obtained new footage showing the camera being cut down in real time.
The video was captured by resident Richard Penner, who told CTV he installed a trail camera near the site after the device was damaged for a fourth time in April.
Footage shows Parkside Drive’s notorious speed camera being cut Obtained footage from May 2025 shows a person using a ladder in order to cut down the Parkside Dr. speed camera in the City’s west end.
Since it was installed in 2022, the Parkside camera has issued more than 66,000 tickets and over $7 million in fines. But frequent acts of vandalism have repeatedly left it out of service, sometimes for weeks.
Faraz Gholizadeh, a member of the community group Safe Parkside, has called on the city to do more each time the camera is taken out. He previously told CTV the repeated damage highlights Toronto’s failure to secure the site and its reluctance to redesign the roadway.
Parkside Drive, which borders High Park to the west and residential homes to the east, has long been flagged by residents like Gholizadeh as a high-risk speeding corridor.
Last November, city council approved a safety redesign for Parkside that included bike lanes and traffic-calming measures. But the project’s future is uncertain following new provincial legislation that prevents municipalities from removing traffic lanes to make way for bike lanes without approval from Queen’s Park.
Parkside camera The Parkside speed camera seen Sunday morning after it was chopped down (CP24 photo).
The Parkside camera was introduced in 2021 after a speeding driver rear-ended a stopped vehicle, killing two elderly occupants.
Following repeated damage, the device was reinstalled with a Toronto police surveillance camera earlier this summer, but it was cut down again on July 9. It was repaired and back in service by Aug. 10, only to be destroyed once more in this latest incident.
Toronto police say their investigation into the vandalism remains ongoing. It is not yet clear if their surveillance camera captured either the July 9 or the latest overnight attack.
This is a developing news story, more details to come…