More Toronto speed cameras were found damaged on Tuesday morning, only two days after the Parkside Drive speed camera was cut down for the seventh time in less than a year.
In an email to CBC, Toronto police confirmed 16 speed cameras were damaged overnight throughout the city. They said officers are investigating, but provided no further details.
Some of the damaged speed cameras include the two found cut down on O’Connor Drive, west of Coxwell Avenue, and Lake Shore Boulevard, just west of Woodbine Avenue
Coun. Brad Bradford posted a picture on social media on Tuesday showing the cut down speed camera on Lake Shore Boulevard.
“This is unacceptable. The perpetual struggle to keep these cameras up is becoming a joke,” Bradford wrote.
Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Premier Doug Ford said he is against the speed cameras and called them a “tax grab.”
He said Toronto should get rid of all of the cameras, just like Vaughan did.
“Get rid of the speed cameras or I’m going to do it,” said Ford.
Toronto first asked for speed cameras back in 2016 and, a year later, then-premier Kathleen Wynne made changes to the Highway Traffic Act to allow for automated speed camera use in school and community zones.
It was the Ford government, however, that passed enabling regulations in December of 2019 that allowed municipalities to run such programs.
Ford told reporters Tuesday that he is “all about public safety,” but that he’s against taxes brought on by people’s deaths.
“If you want to slow down traffic at school, you put the big huge signs, big flashing lights, crossing area, people will slow down,” he said. “Why don’t we put a police officer with a radar gun there every once in a while?”
NDP Leader Marit Stiles scoffed when she heard the premier’s comments.
“What an idiotic thing to say,” she said.
The cameras are about trying to ensure road safety, aside from the issue of municipal revenue generation, Stiles said.
“I think that if you’re speeding, you should stop speeding, because kids are going to get killed and pedestrians get killed, and nobody, nobody wants to hurt anyone,” she said.
Toronto’s speedcams keep getting vandalized. Are taxpayers on the hook?
In a statement, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto said they are aware that multiple speed cameras were vandalized overnight and are asking anyone with information to contact the police.
“The City of Toronto condemns all vandalism of these speed cameras. Damaging these devices allows dangerous speeding to continue and undermines the safety of vulnerable road users, as all ASE devices are located in Community Safety Zones such as near schools, playgrounds and hospitals,” said Laura McQuillan.
McQuillan said the city is working with police on solutions to prevent future incidents of vandalism.
So far this year, the City of Toronto has imposed about $45.1 million in speed camera fines, McQuillan said, adding that in April, the city doubled the number of speed camera devices from 75 to 150.
She said the city does not own any of the cameras as they are a vendor-provided service, and there is no cost to the city, and no additional taxpayer dollars are spent when a speed camera is damaged, as this is built into the contract with the vendor.
