’Now it’s a thoroughfare:’ Annex group says prioritizing Palmerston for bikes clogs side streets with cars 

Concerns arise about changes to traffic patterns in The Annex.

It’s midday Monday – well before rush hour – and Fernanda Pisani’s ornate front porch in the Annex rattles as a cement mixer rumbles past, tailed by a long line of crawling cars.

Pisani was born in her Euclid Avenue home in the 1950s, and says the traffic along her once-quiet street has never been worse.

“What used to be a much more peaceful experience has now changed,” Pisani says above the engine noise.

“And not for the better.”

Pisani believes the spike in vehicle volume on her residential road stems from traffic changes one block over, where Palmerston Avenue was recently reconfigured as part of a city strategy to discourage through-traffic and promote cycling on the north-south route.

The problem, Pisani and some of her neighbours believe, is that all of the vehicles forced off Palmerston by a series of traffic-calming measures, including one-way conversions, have moved over to her street as the next best choice.

“You don’t shut off the tap on one street and let the overflow go everywhere else,” Pisani says.

“This street was so you could get home to your house. Now it’s a thoroughfare,” said neighbour Suzanne DePoe.

“Everything was working perfectly until it wasn’t,” echoed Djanka Gajdel, who also lives nearby.

“I don’t know why it was changed.”

Those changes were approved by city council in 2021 as part of a broader plan to connect the cycling network; Palmerston was chosen as the Annex’s bikeway backbone because of its 3.5-kilometre length and signalized intersections, according to transportation services staff.

“We call this a neighborhood greenway,” Adam Popper, acting manager of cycling and pedestrian projects, told CTV Toronto.

“So far, the data show that more people are cycling, vehicle volumes are down, and overall, the project’s been a great success,” he said.

“Not every street can be primarily a sewer for cars,” Councillor Dianne Saxe, who represents the area, said Monday.

“It’s a safe, quiet street where lots of people walk, and lots of people cycle, which is exactly what some streets should be.”

There has been a rise in traffic volume across many streets in the Annex for multiple reasons, Saxe acknowledged; Harbord Street has been undergoing watermain and sewer work for months, among other nearby construction work.

The influx of vehicles on Euclid is a “nuisance” to residents, Saxe said, but has not been deemed a safety issue.

Saxe said she intends to consult the community on additional traffic-calming measures for Euclid, such as one-way streets in opposite directions, more speed humps, or implementing parking on both sides of the street to slow vehicles.

‘No truck’ signs have already been posted, but police resources to enforce them are scarce, said Saxe.

“As more and more streets become quieter, the remaining streets get more traffic. And we know that this is just a continuous knock-on,” she said.

The group of Annex residents petitioning the city to address traffic overflow says the answer is not more changes to more streets – it’s getting rid of the greenway on Palmerston.

“It’s not for outside individuals to calculate what is best for the residents who live here,” said Gajdel.

“We live here, we know. I’ve been in this neighbourhood for 50 years. It’s never been as bad as it is now.”