Amid calls for roadway redesign and red-light cameras, some Torontonians’ efforts to use simpler and more immediate ways to help save cyclist and pedestrian lives have been stymied.A Star story about calls for solutions following the fourth cyclist death this year — a woman in a protected Bloor St. bike lane — triggered emails from Torontonians citing bureaucracy, budgets and an apparent lack of urgency thwarting their attempts to make streets safer.Their stories raise questions about how the current city council and staff will plan, fund and most importantly implement, major new initiatives when tools and rules already on the books are not being used.Leigh Pilgrim and her husband, Ian Warren, parents of a 5-year-old girl, tired of watching cars race up and down their straight, wide residential East York street.“Everything from people using us as a cut-through to a guy with a sporty car who will boot it at 60 or 70 km/h at least,” Pilgrim says.At the very least they wanted a speed limit sign, like the ones on most of the streets around Fairside Ave., which offers motorists a straight shot north from Michael Garron Hospital to Cosburn Ave.Without a sign, they learned, the default limit is 50 km/h — 20 km/h faster than similar side streets and even 10 km/h per hour faster than Cosburn and busy Coxwell Ave., just east of them.They reached out to their city councillor’s office in December 2015 and have since circled back, and talked to city transportation staff, and 311, and the Toronto Police Service.Read more: John Tory to seek another $13M for road safety planOpinion | Edward Keenan: We know how to make roads safer. We just have to do itAmid wave of Toronto deaths, cyclists hold first of four ghost bike ridesThey have received assurances, target dates, a traffic study, and a lesson in city budget restraint. But no speed limit sign.“I just feel kind of ignored,” Pilgrim told the Star on her porch as cars sped b ...
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