Item - 2020.IE15.7

The Infrastructure and Environment Committee recommends that:

1. City Council direct the General Manager, Transportation Services to include the 30 additional new locations in Appendix 5 to the report (September 2, 2020) from the General Manager, Transportation Services in the School Crossing Guard program for the 2020-2021 school year for consideration in the 2021 Operating Budget submission, as amended by Recommendation 2 below.

2. City Council amend Appendix 5 to the report (September 2, 2020) from the General Manager, Transportation Services by adding a 31st additional location at 50 Ameer Avenue, St. Margaret Beatrice Catholic School.

3. City Council direct the General Manager, Transportation Services to undertake a warrant review audit of the original 704 locations to determine whether or not the lunch time school crossing guard coverage is required as well as the anticipated cost-savings.

4. City Council authorize the General Manager, Transportation Services, to negotiate, enter into, and execute agreements, as may be required, with the Toronto District School Board and the Toronto Catholic District School Board to provide funding of $320,000 per year in total to both school boards for the next three (3) years (2021-2023) from the existing Vision Zero 2.0 program budget for the expansion of their existing school travel planning programs, on such terms and conditions satisfactory to the General Manager, Transportation Services and in a form satisfactory to the City Solicitor.

The 2019-2020 school year marks the first full year since Transportation Services operated the School Crossing Guard Program completely autonomous from the Toronto Police Service. Through direction from Council, Transportation Services contracted the services to two vendors Carraway Inc. and A.S.P. Incorporated. As anticipated, the measures put in place by Transportation Services through the two contracted vendors resulted in a very high level of service that progressively improved from 98 to 100 percent coverage consistently. The measures included the requirement for emergency backfilling of vacant guards, mobile supervisors patrolling locations to ensure guards were present and the monitoring system that required guards to use cellular apps to digitally check in when arriving and departing the site.

Staff are now proposing 30 new locations for the 2020-2021 school year that were deemed warranted using the new warrant process. These new locations originated from legacy requests that came in during the transition of the program from Toronto Police Service to Transportation Services. While there was underspending as earlier in 2020 as a resulted as a result of the COVID-19 shutdown that will offset these expansion costs for 2020, there will still be a requirement to increase the 2021 Operating Budget to include the expansion of the program to include the 30 additional guards.

In addition, over the years, there has been a growing problem with respect to student drop-off and pick-up around schools and subsequently, a motion was adopted by City Council in June of 2019 for Transportation Services staff to work with the school boards to develop a road map for a safety plan in this regard. With the re-opening of schools following the COVID-19 shutdown comes an even greater need for overall School Travel Planning development which would include the student drop-off and pick up safety plan.

The pandemic has resulted in significant changes in travel habits whereby more parents than usual may elect to walk their children to school in combination with those choosing to drive. To further encourage and facilitate this active transportation and to support safer drop-off and pick-up situations, staff are recommending to provide funding of $320,000 per year in total to both school boards for the next three (3) years (2021-2023) for the expansion of their existing school travel planning programs from the Vision Zero 2.0 Road Safety Plan budget.