The Toronto neighbourhood where five-year-old Kayleigh Callaghan-Belanger was hit and killed by a garbage truck was supposed to get a new sidewalk this spring, but that project has been put on hold by residents leery of the changes to their rural-feeling street.
Chine Drive is about half a dozen blocks away from the intersection on Cliffside Drive where a garbage truck making a left turn killed Callaghan-Belanger and sent two other children to hospital Thursday.
Like most of Cliffside Drive, Chine has no sidewalk. The winding road, which has a public school at the end of a cul-de-sac, poses serious safety risks, says local councillor Gary Crawford. “There had never been accidents around there, but there had been a lot of close calls.”
The street is badly in need of repair. But a reconstruction proposal in the works for years has run up against vocal resistance from residents who argue adding a sidewalk would hurt the historic, rural appeal of this southwest Scarborough area.
“The inclusion of sidewalks will be detrimental to the overall look and feel of the neighbourhood as well as requiring damage to street trees, some of which are several hundred years old,” read an e-mail from a longtime resident sent in October, 2011 as part of the project’s consultation process.
“Any concerns about the safety of students travelling to and from Chine Drive Public school could better be addressed through policing the out-of-area drivers, many of whom are careless and inconsiderate in their driving as they ferry children to and from the school,” the e-mail continued. “The addition of sidewalks would only serve to penalize the residents of this lovely street while doing little to protect pedestrians.”
The latest iteration of the proposal includes a walkway on one side of the street, elevated and separated from vehicle traffic. It would be made of pressed asphalt instead of concrete “in order to better capture the rural look and feel of this street,” Toronto Transportation Department spokesman Steve Johnston said in an e-mail.
There’s no set timeline on when a decision will be made, Crawford said. “We were looking at doing construction starting this spring, and now it’s pretty much on hold.”
There was supposed to be a study into street safety in the area more than 15 years ago, Crawford said. That never happened. “I need to find out why we never implemented that.”
Many of the streets in the area have partial sidewalks or none at all. This has rankled parents for years, who worry for students going to and from one of several schools in the area.
For some, Callaghan-Belanger’s death, on her way home from school, made that fear far too real.
“This is brutal. … Something’s got to be done,” said Karl Kercmar, who lives in the area and said there have been ongoing petitions for safer streets.
“I mean, the sidewalk stops right there,” he motioned to the end of a truncated sidewalk near the school, “It should be going all the way down. I mean we’ve got hundreds of kids here.
“It shouldn’t have happened.”
With files from Christina Stevens
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