Toronto speed camera cut down a third time, thrown into pond

One of the busiest speed cameras in the city has been cut down for a third time and thrown into a pond.

Advocacy group Safe Parkside says the Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) camera near Parkside Drive and Algonquin Avenue was recently cut from its post, dragged into nearby High Park, and dropped into a frozen-over body of water.

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"When I got here, the speed camera was nowhere to be seen, which is a bit different because before they would just cut it and leave it there," Faraz Gholizadeh, Safe Parkside's co-chair, told CTV News Toronto in an interview on Monday, adding that the camera was taken down sometime in the early morning hours on Sunday.

"I was able to follow the trail down here where they dragged the camera and dumped it into the duck pond (…) These were very committed vandals."

It's the third time in two months that the camera has been removed. In November, the device was cut down less than 24 hours after it was reinstalled.

While Gholizadeh said he was "shocked" by the lengths taken to remove the speed camera, he feels more let down by what he described as the city's inaction.

"I would say most of my disappointment is pointed towards the city for not acting and delivering real safety on the street rather than a camera that just gets chopped down continuously," Gholizadeh said.

In a statement to CTV News Toronto, a spokesperson for the City of Toronto confirmed the camera was found in the pond and said it “condemns all acts of theft and vandalism.”

“Tampering with, damaging or stealing an Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE) device negatively impacts road safety and allows dangerous speeding to continue near vulnerable road users,” the statement read.

The city added that it does not own the vendor-provided speed cameras placed across the city and that it is the vendor’s responsibility to replace or fix any damaged devices and report any “serious” incident of vandalism to Toronto police.

Toronto police said it is not currently investigating the incident and a request for comment from the vendor was not returned.

The camera at Parkside and Algonquin has autonomously issued tens of thousands of speeding tickets since it was installed in 2022.

Safe Parkside says those fines total roughly $7 million, for a street which the city says has seen seven collisions that resulted in three fatalities and five serious injuries the last 10 years. Another 1,480 crashes were also seen in that time, according to the city.

The speeding issue on Parkside Drive was highlighted in 2021, when an elderly couple was killed in a five-car crash after a driver travelling at more than double the speed limit rear-ended their vehicle as it was stopped in traffic.

In addition to the installation of a traffic camera on the arterial road that connects to Lake Shore Boulevard, the speed limit was also reduced from 50 km/h to 40 km/h and new traffic lights were introduced in the months following that crash.

In November, city council also approved “in principle” a road safety project for the busy street, which includes bike lanes and design changes.

However, Safe Parkside said more could be done.

“Despite being a city-designated Community Safety Zone and despite the fact that three people have been killed on Parkside Drive within the last few years, Parkside continues to experience very high numbers of speeding and reckless/careless driving. Parkside and other concerned neighbourhood residents are left to continue their decade-long call for safety on Parkside Drive,” the group said in a news release issued Monday.