*This article was published in Vol. 51 No. 6 of Cycle Canada digital magazine.
The City of Toronto is taking steps to correct dangerous left-turn behaviour on its roads. A “Left-Turn Calming Project” will install rubber speed bumps at eight intersections with signal lights where collisions involving turning vehicles were high. Wording of the City’s press release suggests more concern is felt for pedestrians and bicyclists, but motorcyle riders might benefit, too. A lot of collisions between motorcycles and cars occur when a car turns left and cuts off a bike that’s going straight.
The speed bumps will be laid approximately in line with a road’s centreline and outside of a crosswalk—so at 90 degrees to way an ordinary speed bump is laid down, and inside the curve radius. They would straighten the path of a turning car on both sides of its turn, preventing it from cutting diagonally across the intersection, slowing it, and presumably giving the driver more time to put down the phone and take a glance out the windscreen. Check out the scenery, which might involve a pedestrian or, more importantly, a motorcycle.
Two intersections have already been fitted with these speed bumps and six more will be done. It’s a pilot project and will be evaluated over the next year, so we might get more widespread use of these things.
Interested? Check out Toronto.ca and look for “left-turn calming.”
