Walking Toronto comes to Facebook

I’ve set up a new Facebook group, “Walking Toronto“, to provide a venue for people who are interested in walking issues in our city and beyond to share information. Please join if you are interested.

The most recent item I’ve posted there is a motion by councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker coming to the Public Works committee tomorrow (Wednesday), calling for the city to find ways to improve safety at the 100 worst intersections for pedestrians in Toronto. It’s a response to the Global News story this summer that identified these 100 worst intersections for pedestrians – four of the five were in De Baeremaeker’s ward.

The City has also finally collated the pedestrian accident statistics for 2010 (PDF) – until recently they only had them for the first nine months of the year, meaning incorrect statistics were floating around (I had a media inquiry about them myself). The good news is that there were only 20 deaths — fewer than usual — but the number of pedestrians injured was typical of previous years, so there’s no sign of a fundamental improvement.

Here are some of the other interesting links people have posted in the Walking Toronto group so far:

•  Articles in the New York Times and The Atlantic analyzing the Dangerous by Design study of pedestrian safety in the United States by Transportation for America.

• An article from The Gazette in Montreal that nicely analyzes how the humble curb radius can make a big difference to pedestrians.

• A feature on a display of “walking man” (and woman) traffic signals from around the world.