Jess Spieker

In 2015, Jess Spieker’s life was shattered when a reckless driver made a careless turn, t-boning her with his SUV. The crash threw Jess off her bike and left her with a broken spine, brain injury, and extensive soft tissue damage. The tissue damage in turn caused serious blood clot-related complications that nearly killed her.

Jess continues to struggle with chronic pain, neurological issues, depression and anxiety. The driver received a $300 fine.

But the problem is bigger than one reprehensible driver: it is a predictable result of how we design our streets. As with all urban and (especially) suburban arterials, at the site of Jess’s collision, the lanes for cars are wide and straight, causing drivers to feel comfortable speeding and driving inattentively. There is no infrastructure to protect cyclists and pedestrians from reckless drivers.

By this year, 2021, Toronto was supposed to have achieved Vision Zero. That’s “zero” as in ZERO deaths or severe injuries. Our city, however, has not achieved Vision Zero. It has abysmally failed its vulnerable road users, and even the record-setting installation of 40km of infrastructure improvements during the pandemic has not substantially moved the needle on road safety. The city has not even managed to fix design flaws at fatality and severe injury collision sites. This failure comes even as Toronto is spending $2.2 billion on rebuilding the Gardiner Expressway, even though for roughly 7% of that, we could instead install protective active transportation infrastructure on all 1175km of arterial roads in Toronto. This would save lives and bring equity to long-neglected areas where residents simply can't walk or ride a bike safely.

Walking across the street on a green light, walking on the sidewalk, riding a bike in a straight line with the right of way, or even riding in a painted bike lane - all remain safety hazards in Toronto. Because the notion of reducing vehicular speed to sane levels, or adding physical protection to keep vulnerable road users safe from reckless drivers, are viewed as political kryptonite. Opponents of road safety describe life-saving design changes as a “war on the car”.

This is why the members of Friends and Families for Safe Streets are channeling their pain into purpose by advocating for greater road safety in Toronto.