More than 100 Toronto locations that no longer have speed cameras are seeing a notable uptick in speeding since the devices were forcibly removed by the province.
The data from a new report by city staff is “horrifying,” Mayor Olivia Chow said before a council meeting on Wednesday. The percentage of drivers going 16 km/h over the speed limit went up by almost 400 per cent, Chow emphasized. Drivers going 11 km/h or more over the speed limit quadrupled from two per cent to slightly more than eight per cent, the report notes.
Speed cameras across Ontario were removed in November after provincial legislation was passed to ban them. Premier Doug Ford called them a “cash grab” for municipalities.
“The increase in speeding after the cameras were removed was significant but also varied by location,” notes the report.
“Bring back those speed cameras, because this is just inexcusable,” said Chow.
In Toronto, two fatalities have occurred within 100 metres of where a speed camera was once installed, but staff note there is fluctuation in traffic fatalities and more time is needed to properly study the impact. Overall, there were 25 fatalities in Toronto in the six-month period from December 2025 to the end of May 2026.
In March, the city reported that traffic-calming measures needed to replace speed cameras will cost $52 million and take more than a decade to install.
Each speed hump or cushion (which have cutouts for vehicle wheels) comes with a price tag of about $4,000, said the city, and each block needs several of them. If there is a “moderate increase” in how many they install each year, it will take 13 years to install them on all eligible roadways within school zones in the city. In those school zones, speed cameras cut speeding by 45 per cent.
Other municipalities across Ontario have also seen negative impacts from the removal of speed cameras. After four years with speed cameras watching over Ottawa streets, nearly 90 per cent of drivers were going slower through the areas — primarily school zones — where the city had installed enforcement.
Three months after the end of ticketing, speeding more than doubled and there was a slew of concerning incidents. In April, a collision between two cars led to one flipping completely upside down in front of an elementary school where a speed camera had previously been installed.