{"id":669904,"date":"2026-05-14T23:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/669904\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T23:04:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:04:13","slug":"toronto-street-has-speeding-up-200-after-speed-camera-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/669904\/","title":{"rendered":"Toronto street has speeding up 200% after speed camera ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Speeding along Toronto\u2019s Parkside Drive has surged more than 200 per cent following the Ford government\u2019s removal of its automated speed enforcement program, community advocates say. <\/p>\n

The group Safe Parkside says newly analyzed data from the City of Toronto shows a \u201cdramatic and immediate spike in speeding\u201d following the removal of the cameras in November, calling the trend \u201cdisappointing, as it is predictable.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cToday marks exactly 6 months since speed cameras were banned across Ontario,\u201d the group wrote in an email to CTV News Toronto. <\/p>\n

\u201cJanuary to April 2026 saw a 235 per cent increase in the number of vehicles travelling 60+ km\/h on Parkside Drive when compared to the same time period in 2025 when the Parkside Drive speed camera was keeping a watchful eye over the street.\u201d <\/p>\n

Safe Parkside says the figures come from a city \u201cWatch Your Speed\u201d sign installed a few metres south of the former camera location.<\/p>\n

That camera continues to record the speed of vehicles alongside Parkside Drive and that data is posted publicly by the City of Toronto. However, no fines are issued.<\/p>\n

\"\"Parkside speed camera An image of a speed camera in Parkside allegedly cut down for the fourth time in recent months. April 19, 2025 (Safe Parkside\/Faraz Gholizadeh). \u2018We\u2019re going backwards\u2019<\/p>\n

Faraz Gholizadeh, a local resident and the co-chair of Safe Parkside, reiterated in an interview with CP24 that the recent figures were discouraging.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s entirely predictable that speeds would go up when you eliminate a safety feature as effective as a speed camera. So, it\u2019s not surprising what has happened. The most surprising part is that it\u2019s through the act of our premier that we\u2019re in this position,\u201d Gholizadeh said.<\/p>\n

The Ontario government banned speed cameras last year, which Premier Doug Ford called \u201ca cash grab.\u201d The government replaced the cameras with \u201calternative traffic-calming measures,\u201d such as speed bumps, speed cushions and roundabouts, as well as enhanced signage and education campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that the premier started using the cash grab narrative for something that has been proven to slow speeds, to make things safer,\u201d Gholizadeh said. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of disbelief that we\u2019re in this position, after all these years of advocacy, that the only safety feature Parkside has ever had is now gone, and we\u2019re seeing the consequences of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gholizadeh expressed concerns that Parkside will see more speeding unless effective measures from the provincial and municipal levels are implemented to curb the issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s been Parkside\u2019s history: nothing gets done, and the crashes just keep coming,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gholizadeh said residents have reached out to the province, but they have not gotten any response.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems like we\u2019re going backwards, which is really disappointing, and it will only lead to one outcome, and that\u2019s a tragic one,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

In a statement to CP24, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation claimed that, despite the speed camera on Parkside Drive issuing 70,000 tickets over its time, \u201cmore and more drivers\u201d broke the law and that speeding did not decrease.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are putting in place tangible measures to slow down drivers using speed bumps and roundabouts that actually protect children and families, supported by $210 million in funding to all impacted municipalities including Toronto,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

A look back at the vandalism <\/p>\n

The Parkside Drive speed camera was one of the most vandalized devices in the city before the entire program was halted. In 2025, the camera was cut down a record seven times in less than a year. <\/p>\n

At one point, CTV News obtained and released footage of vandals cutting down the device.<\/p>\n

To this day, no arrests have ever been made in the multiple incidents. <\/p>\n

Other occurrences of vandalism on Parkside involved the camera being cut down and dragged into the park, where it was later found in a pond. <\/p>\n

\"\"Parkside speed camera An image of the Parkside speed camera tossed in the pond in December 2024 (Safe Parkside photo). Millions in fines<\/p>\n

Safe Parkside says the final tally from the now-removed camera included 70,243 speeding tickets, an estimated $7.5 million in fines and a top recorded speed of 154 km\/h in the posted 40 km\/h zone.<\/p>\n

Gholizadeh has previously told CP24 that the problem is centred around road design mixed with poor driver behaviour. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you design a street where everything\u2019s geared towards motorists, you\u2019re going to have speeding problems. To fix that, you need to reallocate the road space,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

When speed cameras were in effect, at least one driver was once clocked going four times the limit. <\/p>\n

With files from Joshua Freeman<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speeding along Toronto\u2019s Parkside Drive has surged more than 200 per cent following the Ford government\u2019s removal of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669905,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[712,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-669904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-apple-news","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}