ActiveTO – Quiet Streets – City of Toronto

Last updated: April 26, 2021 at 11:40 a.m..

In 2021, the Quiets Streets program will be rolled out in some neighbourhoods in consultation with communities and local councillors.

Staff will continue to focus on year-round improvements to local streets including traffic calming, speed limit reductions, implementation of School, Senior and Community Safety Zones, Automated Speed Enforcement, neighbourhood cycling route installations and neighbourhood-scale mobility and traffic management planning. Community members can also request a Watch Your Speed Sign to raise motorist awareness in locations prone to speeding.

2020 Quiet Streets Survey Findings

From May to October 2020, Quiet Streets designated 65km of streets in 31 locations as Shared Space to enable people to maintain physical distancing while walking, running, using mobility devices and biking. On these streets, signs and temporary barricades opened space on the street by encouraging slow, local vehicle access only. Routes were also designated on digital wayfinding platforms (e.g. GoogleMaps and Waze). No regulatory changes, such as speed limit reductions or parking permissions, were made. The program relied on voluntary compliance from motorists.

The City of Toronto partnered with 8 80 Cities to survey Quiet Street users in an effort to understand whether the program achieved its intended goals. There were 9,824 surveys submitted. View the executive summary report and the public survey results report.

Key findings included:

63% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that Quiet Streets helped enable physical distancing while 18% strongly disagreed, with notable variation between streets;
13% of respondents relied entirely on parks and public space for access to the outdoors; the majority of respondents (63%) have exclusive access to ground-level outdoor space; 13% have exclusive access to balcony or rooftop space; and the remaining respondents have shared access to outdoor space at home;
60% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that Quiet Streets made it feel more safe to share the road, while 20% strongly disagreed, with notable variation between streets;
Respondents scores averaged 6.1 out of 10 regarding the effectiveness of Quiet Streets at slowing/reducing vehicle traffic and improving/increasing active travel; and
Qualitatively, respondents were generally in support of the intent of the program but concerns were raised that the implementation was inadequate to fully meet the program aims or remain effective in the long term. Many expressed concern or dissatisfaction with impacts to traffic and level of maintenance of the equipment