Mayor calls for additional action on road safety

Mayor John Tory says he has asked staff to look into “additional measures” that can be taken to improve road safety in the wake of an 11-year-old boy being struck and killed by a vehicle in Scarborough.

The boy was attempting to cross Canongate Trail at Purcell Square at around 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday when he was hit by a northbound vehicle. The boy had just left nearby Kennedy Public School at the time of the collision. He is the second child to be fatally struck by a vehicle in a school zone so far this year. A Portuguese five-year-old girl was killed outside her Downsview school in January when she was pinned by an unoccupied vehicle.

“I was angry. No child, eleven years old, should be in that situation,” Tory said of the latest accident on Wednesday. “I convened a meeting in my office last night and again before I came here this morning to say look whatever it is we are doing it is still not enough and we need to determine other things we can do to improve the level of safety for pedestrians.”

So far this year, there have been nine pedestrians that been struck and killed on Toronto streets, which would put the city on pace to surpass the 42 pedestrians killed in 2017.