Community advocacy brings to life neighbourhood road improvement plan in Mimico-Queensway

Bordered by the busy Gardiner Expressway, Mimico-Queensway has seen a lot of traffic spill into its streets over the years.

In 2015, residents decided to speak out against speeding vehicles. Nine years later, the Mimico Neighbourhood Mobility Plan is now underway. It includes traffic-calming measures, such as speed humps, reduced speed limits, increasing signage and adding road design improvements like curb extensions.

Michelle Berquist, manager of area transportation planning for the City of Toronto Transportation Services, says the Mimico Neighbourhood Mobility Plan was the first-of-its-kind neighbourhood-wide road safety plan.

“What was new about the Mimico Neighborhood Mobility Plan was looking at the neighbourhood at scale. It’s not that the city hadn’t done that before, but in the past, the city might have relied on consulting services to do that kind of precinct look or zone look,” she explains. “This was our first time bringing that work into the city itself and working amongst our colleagues at City Hall.”

But it wasn’t an easy road to get there.

Residents first spoke to former city councillor Mark Grimes who raised motions on their behalf at Etobicoke-York Community Council since 2015. The situation escalated in 2018 after an eight-year-old boy was injured in a car accident, which prompted the start of a traffic study one year later. Finally, after community consultations through 2022 and 2023, the community council approved the Mimico Neighbourhood Mobility Plan this past June.

“This was very much a community grassroots-led initiative. I think that it was really through the support of community members primarily that we have gotten to where we are today,” Mimico resident Eric Vanderwal says.

“I think it was difficult for the councillor and for transportation staff — perhaps not living in this area, not being intimately familiar with the problems that existed — to understand what residents were really so fanatical about.”

All traffic-calming measures from the Mimico Neighborhood Mobility Plan are slated to be completed by the end of summer 2025. Meanwhile, some recommendations are still under review, such as designated pick-up and drop-off locations for schools, adding new pedestrian crossings and restrictions on street parking.

“Changing some signs on the speed limits, adding some stop signs, some cushioning, some speed bumps — the community doesn’t look at these things as they take seven years to come to terms with. We would have liked to see that stuff happen quicker,” says Michael Majeski, vice-president of the Mimico Residents Association.

Eventually, Mimico paved the way for the City of Toronto’s Neighbourhood Streets Plan program, which launched in 2023. Every year, five neighbourhoods that nominate themselves get selected for a road safety plan.