Toronto councillor wants speed cameras shut off until September, calls them 'speed traps'

A Toronto councillor said he wants the city's speed camera program put on hold, calling them "speed traps."

Humber River-Black Creek Coun. Anthony Perruzza said he wants speed cams shut off until September so city staff can review Toronto's approach to slowing down motorists. 

In a news release, Perruzza said he would prompt a vote on the matter at Thursday's council meeting, but during the lunch break, he told reporters he would try to pause the speed camera program another way. He now says he will work with Mayor Olivia Chow on amendments to a city report to the infrastructure committee on Vision Zero, Toronto's road safety strategy.

"At the end of the day, I want to get to a place where these cameras are visible," he said. "For us to have a program that is about safety, not about entrapment. That is about fewer and fewer injuries on the road, and not just not about fines."

His appeal comes three months after the city doubled the number of automated speed cameras it uses to 150. The system launched in the summer of 2020, under former Mayor John Tory, with the goal of slowing down drivers in community safety zones, such as on roads next to schools, and areas where there have been serious collisions.

Perruzza, without providing supporting evidence, said in a news release the cameras have "no meaningful impact."

Perruzza's bid to pause the speed camera system comes weeks after Vaughan's city council opted to do just that after drivers there racked up more than 30,000 tickets in three weeks.

It also comes after five speed cameras in Toronto were reported damaged from Tuesday to Wednesday. 

All investigations are ongoing and no arrests have been made, Toronto police spokesperson Cindy Chung said in an email Thursday. Anyone with information is asked to contact police.

Perruzza said he's heard from plenty of frustrated drivers in his ward.

"Often, drivers are unaware that this camera exists here, and responsible drivers are ticketed despite traveling at speeds close to the posted limits," he said in the release, leaving them feeling "unfairly penalized."

The city always posts signs 90 days ahead of a speed camera being installed, and keeps signage in place where they are running. It also maintains a map of the speed camera locations. 

Perruzza says speeding drivers should be punished

Asked Thursday if drivers shouldn't be punished for breaking the law, he said they should. But he said drivers should be made more aware of cameras, and there should be some clemency in certain cases.

Perruzza gave an example of a speed camera on a straight, "very wide, arterial road" near a school on Islington Avenue, where the speed limit near the camera gets "reduced substantially." At 2 a.m., when no one's on the road, he said it would be easy to miss the change.

"It's very easy to get to that 70 kilometres an hour. You get dinged. It becomes effectively a speed trap," he said. "Is that what we intended the program to be?" 

By the end of 2022, the city had collected some $34 million in fines from speeding drivers caught on camera.

This March, Transportation Services head Barbara Gray maintained the program isn't focused on bringing in revenue.

"If the cameras generated no revenue, that would be best, because that would mean that people weren't speeding," she said.