London puts traffic lights at crash-prone Old East Village intersection
Traffic safety review found signals are needed at Queens Avenue and English Street
The City of London is installing new traffic signals at an east London intersection flagged by residents as a frequent site of T-bone collisions and near misses.
Neighbours living nearby drew attention to Queens Avenue and English Street in Old East Village by sharing videos of those crashes captured on home security cameras to social media — with six collisions reported so far this year.
In a letter sent to residents dated Oct. 19, the city said temporary signals will be installed right away with a plan to replace them with permanent signals next year.
"I think it's welcome news to everybody who lives in proximity to this intersection," said Greg Gilles, who lives at the corner and has been speaking to city staff about the need for signals. "We've seen enough, and it's the best alternative to making this intersection safer."
In a CBC News story published in July, Gilles and other residents said they regularly witness collisions at the Old East Village intersection which brings together westbound-only traffic on Queens Avenue and north-south traffic on English Street.
That section of Queens Avenue is narrow and houses are close to the street making for tight sight lines. Although Queens Avenue drivers have the right of way and drivers on English Street have stop signs, drivers often appear mystified about how the intersection works.
Speeding on Queens is another problem, leaving drivers already confused by the intersection with little time to react when a vehicle appears in front of them unexpectedly.
There is a pedestrian-controlled signal that can stop traffic on Queens Avenue but now vehicle traffic in all directions will be signal-controlled.
City staff have been watching intersection
Doug MacRae, the city's director of transportation and mobility, said city staff had been keeping an eye on the intersection since residents began to raise it as a problem earlier this year.
"We did get wind that there were more collisions in this past year than normal," he said.
City staff contracted True North Safety Group of Burlington, Ont., to do a traffic safety review of the intersection last summer. The full report is still in the works, but early findings concluded a signalled intersection that controls traffic in all three travel directions is needed.
City staff decided to act on that recommendation right away to make the intersection safer immediately, MacRae said.
"We got a lot of good feedback from residents who observe this intersection, and there appeared to be confusion on behalf of drivers on English Street," he said.
Gilles was elated to see crews installing the temporary signals on Monday — but he said media coverage and social media posts about the collisions haven't been enough to change driver behaviour.
Minutes after he and his partner stepped away from standing in their front yard a few weeks ago, a collision pushed a vehicle onto the sport where they'd been standing.
"We've seen plenty of near misses, they haven't really abated," said Gilles. "My partner and I were almost hit standing in the garden so it hasn't dissipated at all."
There were four collisions reported at the intersection in each of 2018 and 2019 and fewer than that in 2020 and 2021. Last year there were zero collisions reported there, but that number is up to six in 2023 so far this year.
City staff have pointed out that not every minor collision is reported to police or to the Collision Reporting Centre. MacRae said the observations of residents played a key role in the city moving ahead with making this change.
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