Several of the city's traffic lanes will soon be narrowed in an attempt to increase safety by slowing down drivers.
Wide lanes make drivers feel comfortable speeding, because they have a large cushion around their vehicles. Reducing lane width would make drivers automatically slow down, as they have less room to move to either side, a city official told CTV Toronto.
The lanes will be narrowed by adding bike lanes or widening sidewalks, so lanes are between 3 and 4.3 metres wide.
In areas with less bicycle and pedestrian traffic, lanes may be narrowed by adding a median.
Some of the narrowed lanes are already in place on streets such as Danforth and University Avenues, Toronto Mayor-Elect John Tory said Tuesday.
"I'll be watching like a hawk to make sure that the intended consequence of this is in fact achieved, which is to make traffic move better and more smoothly. Any sign that it's slowing traffic down will be something that I'll want to take up with (traffic services)."
Lanes will be narrowed on a case-by-case basis, taking in to account how much traffic travels along each road.
The changes will be rolled out over a period of years, as part of road restoration projects across the city.
