Just 2 reports daily at Toronto cyclist crash report centre

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Numbers suggest that a clear majority of reported pedestrian and cyclist collisions didn’t involve the dedicated centre

Published Jan 25, 2026 • Last updated 2 hours ago • 4 minute read

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Cyclists near open car door Cyclists are seen on an eastbound bike lane along Bloor St. W. near Ossington Ave. in Toronto on Thursday August 6, 2020. Photo by Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun filesArticle content

You could say Toronto’s special traffic collision reporting kiosk, set up explicitly for cyclists and pedestrians, is a bicycle built for two.

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The Toronto Police Service, after a freedom-of-information request, told the Toronto Sun that 824 collisions were reported to their kiosk for pedestrians and cyclists at 350 Dovercourt Rd. in the 18-month period between April 1, 2024, and Sept. 30, 2025. (Toronto Police answered questions and provided data about collision reports but declined to make a representative available for an interview.)

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That stretch of time covers the start of operations at the Dovercourt site, after the kiosk was moved from a TPS building in Liberty Village, as well as some promotional work by city hall to get the word out.

While those 824 reported collisions represent hundreds of potential tragedies for individuals, averaged out that would be just over 45 reports per month. As the kiosk’s hours of operation are 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays only, that would mean it gets a little more than two reports for each eight-hour shift.

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The 824 collisions also represent a mere sliver of Toronto’s total traffic mishaps. In 2024 alone, more than 70,000 vehicle collisions were reported, according to the TPS’s database.

Of those, only 1,632 (2.1% of the total) involved a pedestrian and 1,343 (1.7%) involved a cyclist. (It is possible for a collision to be counted twice, both a pedestrian and a bicycle were involved.)

Those numbers suggest that a clear majority of reported pedestrian and cyclist collisions didn’t involve the dedicated centre. Any collision, even those involving a bicycle or pedestrian, can be reported at the two regular centres in North York and Scarborough, which have less limited hours of operation than the Dovercourt kiosk but are far outside Toronto’s downtown core.

The kiosk was called for in the City of Toronto’s Vision Zero 2.0 road safety plan, adopted in July 2019. Paula Fletcher, the councillor who represents the Toronto-Danforth ward, brought forward an amendment that established “modernized collision reporting” for cyclists and pedestrians in the city’s centre. (The COVID pandemic delayed its implementation.)

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Fletcher told the Sun that her intention was to give cyclists, who tend to live downtown or close to it, a more convenient option. She said it strikes her as unrealistic to expect cyclists to pedal all the way out to the suburbs after an accident.

“When I found out that the collision reporting was at 401 and Kennedy, for pedestrians and for cyclists — it’s one thing if you’ve had a fender-bender and you drive your car 10 or 15 miles up there. It’s another thing if you just have a bicycle … It just seemed reasonable as a service not to have to travel that far in such an inconvenient way,” Fletcher said.

“It’s just a kiosk, it’s not a full operation.”

Toronto-Danforth Councillor Paula Fletcher is seen at an executive committee meeting at Toronto City Hall on Wednesday, March 19, 2025. Photo by Jack Boland/Toronto Sun files‘Bonus’ data

Fletcher said if the existence of a dedicated centre would encourage more reports about minor collisions, resulting in better data, that would be “an added bonus.” But while the councillor wasn’t seeking to grow the number of collision reports, city hall’s messaging hints that may be a goal for others.

“Reporting collisions will expand the city’s and Toronto Police Service’s collision database, which is instrumental in helping us make informed decisions to make our roads safer for everyone,” the City of Toronto wrote in an October 2024 Facebook post about the reporting centre.

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The reporting totals were even lower before the kiosk’s relocation. The kiosk logged 172 cyclist collision reports between Jan. 1, 2024, and when it relocated in late May of that year. For the rest of 2024, 341 cyclist collisions were reported. (The numbers of reported pedestrian collisions were largely unchanged.)

A study, published in the online-only medical journal Injury Prevention in 2024, suggested TPS’s data captured only about half of hospital visits related to injury from a collision between a cyclist or pedestrian and a motor vehicle.

The provincial Highway Traffic Act requires all drivers involved in a collision to report it to police if the event involves an injury or property damage exceeding $5,000, or if a vehicle’s door contacts a cyclist or bicycle, the Ministry of Transportation told the Sun in an email.

The Toronto Police Service told the Sun the reporting centre has been in operation since March 2022. While initially set up in a building on Hanna Ave. in Liberty Village, the reporting kiosk has been hosted at the TPS’s 14 Division on Dovercourt since May 24, 2024.

The TPS said the kiosk is staffed by just one person, an employee with Accident Support Services International, which handles collision reporting work for the police.

jholmes@postmedia.com

Just 2 reports daily at Toronto cyclist crash report centre

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