When it comes to Toronto’s speed cameras, vandalism can involve a lot more than a can of spray paint.
A document released to TheToronto Sun after a freedom-of-information request suggests the repeated felling of a speed camera on Parkside Dr., just east of High Park, may have involved a specialized power tool.
Meanwhile, other documents reveal that in the span of one weekend, eight mobile speed cameras were broken into and the devices inside were stolen. A city official, in an email, said those thefts appeared “connected.”
The eight machines were “vandalized, broken into and the camera units stolen from inside” over the weekend of Sept. 14 and 15, according to an email from Joel Smith, who works for Verra Mobility, the company that operates Toronto’s speed cameras. In a followup email, Smith told City Hall employees that it took nearly a month for those units to get running again, with the first three “restored to operation” on Oct. 9.
Plotted out on a map, seven of those eight cameras form a jagged west-east line, from the Humber Bay to Woodbine Beach, that runs roughly south of Bloor St. and Danforth Ave. Those cameras, from west to east, were at Lansdowne and Whytock Aves.; Dufferin St. and Waterloo Ave.; Concord Ave. and College St.; Dundas and Carlyle Sts.; Jarvis St., near Cawthra Square; Danforth and Cambridge Aves.; and Kingston Rd. and Heyworth Cres.
The outlier was near Cedarvale Park, southwest of the intersection of Eglinton Ave. W. and Bathurst St.
“That’s very unfortunate,” Trevor Kanhai, of the city’s transportation services division, wrote to Smith after getting a list of the ransacked cameras. “Seems like the incidents might be connected.”
Recommended video
Meanwhile, the documents shed light on the serial vandalism trouble on Parkside Dr., which began in November and stretched into the new year.
In a police report, Smith told cops the fixed camera was cut down after midnight on Nov. 30, mere hours after it had been restored.
“It appears that a power tool such as an angle grinder was used to cut the steel pole down at the base, which exposed the electrical wires,” Smith wrote in the report.
“The cost to repair the camera is approximately $2,000 if no internal components have been damaged,” Smith added.
Faraz Gholizadeh, with the community group, Safe Parkside, works in construction and said “it’s unlikely that it was an angle grinder” that brought the camera down.
“It’s a reciprocating saw that was used, because you would need to do it quickly. I’ve looked at the cut,” Gholizadeh said.
“You would have to have a background in construction. I don’t think it would be like, someone off the street. You would have to have the tool, know how to use it, be comfortable enough using it.”
Roughly a month after Smith’s police report, the camera was down again – and under water.
“We spent a lot of time trying to retrieve it, but it’s really not safe for the technician to attempt,” Smith wrote to city officials. “The enclosure is about 15 (metres) into the lake, which looks fairly deep.
“We can’t see any signs of the enclosure being dragged,” he added, “but think potentially the vandal slid it out onto the lake,” then it fell in when the ice thawed.
In January, in what was reported to be the fourth installation job in a span of roughly two months, a camera was put on Parkside on a much beefier pole. (That same day, Verra replaced a camera at Avenue Rd. that was similarly cut down, Smith wrote city staff in an email.)
Gholizadeh is unsure the thicker Parkside pole is enough, as he said these new details about speed camera vandalism suggest “these people are obviously well-prepared, know how to tackle these things to take them down if they wanted to.
“I went down and looked at this new one as well, and I was able to find some weak points on it, like things that you could easily do to vandalize it,” he said. “It’s not like it’s vandalism-proof now. It’s just it looks more intimidating than it actually is if you know what to look for.”
In a statement, the City of Toronto said there has been no serious vandalism of speed cameras since the events covered in the report, only “minor incidents such as spray-painting.” The city doesn’t own the cameras, so any damage is Verra Mobility’s problem, the statement said.
The city said vandalism hasn’t caused it to rethink its approach to speed cameras, but referred most other questions to Toronto Police.
The police had few details to offer. Shannon Eames, a media relations officer, told the Sun that officers don’t have any suspect information but are seeking witnesses.