Parkside Drive speed camera cut down for fifth time: ‘It's just Groundhog Day'

Toronto Star

23-05-2025

What goes up eventually comes down. And down. And down.
The Parkside Drive speed camera — Toronto's busiest, handing out more than 65,000 tickets and racking up some $7 million for the city — was cut down for the fifth time in the last six months sometime overnight Thursday evening or Friday morning.
The camera, which was installed after a fatal collision on Parkside in 2021, has been the frequent target of vandals in recent months. It has been slashed time and time again, sometimes within 24 hours of being reinstalled, and was once dragged 200 metres and thrown in High Park's Duck Pond.
Its latest iteration, reinforced with a cubic metal pole and the camera emerging from the top, was reinstalled for the fourth time just last week.
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'It's just Groundhog Day,' said Faraz Gholizadeh, co-chair of the community group Safe Parkside. 'It's very frustrating and extremely disappointing that the city is just not acting on this issue, even despite everything that's happened to get us here.'
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Who keeps cutting down the Parkside Drive speed camera? Our man on the beat investigates
Raju Mudhar
The city installed the camera after Artur Kotula, 41, crashed on that stretch of road in 2021 while going 120 km/h. The crash killed two seniors, Valdemar and Fatima Avila, and earlier this year Kotula was sentenced to six and a half years for two counts of dangerous driving causing death, and a second concurrent sentence of four years for two charges of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.
Since being installed three years ago, the camera has earned the city millions. It has clocked drivers going as fast as 154 km/h.
'Again?' said Gord Perks, councillor for Parkdale-High Park, when informed by phone that the camera had been cut. 'This is infuriating.'
Perks said the city has taken 'quite a few short-term and long-term steps' to slow traffic on Parkside, including installing the speed camera, lowering the speed limit, installing two new traffic signals, adding pedestrian sidewalks and allowing parking on the east side of the street.
The city has also drafted plans to redesign the street with bike lanes, changing it from a major thoroughfare to a neighbourhood street, Perks said.
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Gholizadeh said speeding is 'still a massive issue.'
Faraz Gholizadeh, head of the neighbourhood group Safe Parkside, is seen beside the Parkside Drive speed camera earlier this month.
Nick Lachance/ Toronto Star
'When you have a two-kilometre street and you put a speed camera at the end of it, unfortunately it does very little for the rest of the street,' he said. 'A speed camera can be cut down with a power tool but actual infrastructure changes on the street level can't be vandalized the way the speed camera is.'
Each time the camera is cut down, the city's contractor, Verra Mobility, is responsible for fixing or replacing it within 30 days, the city previously told the Star. Verra Mobility must pay to replace it, the city said.
In a statement, Verra Mobility said it had reported the latest incident to the authorities and is working with them and city staff to find the perpetrators.
'This is an act of vandalism against the cameras that help protect citizens and improve safety on our roads,' Verra Mobility said. 'Once found, this person(s) will be held accountable.'
The city did not immediately respond to the Star's request for comment on Friday.
With files from Raju Mudhar