TORONTO, ON ― After years of failure to deliver road safety measures that in any way resemble the innovative Swedish program whose name they bear, John Tory recently unveiled plans for a more attainable and honestly branded project.
Over the next six years, Tory hopes to get Toronto to his vision of spending zero dollars, effort, or political clout on preventing deaths and serious injuries on Toronto’s streets, a goal toward which he has already made considerable progress in the six years since first launching Vision Zero Toronto.
Unlike Sweden’s original model, which recognizes human fallibility and works to create a system that prevents the deadly consequences of accidents, rather than accidents themselves, with expensive but worthwhile investments in infrastructure, the copycat Toronto scheme consists of the same finger-pointing PSAs that have never worked, under a misleading and plagiarized moniker.
This has yielded mixed results, with Toronto spending not nearly enough money on fundamentally restructuring its roads with such features as roundabouts and 2+1 lanes, with a corresponding reduction in fatalities and life-altering injuries of not nearly enough.
“We used the name of Vision Zero without adhering to the fundamental ideas that made it so much more successful than all other traffic safety initiatives before or since, and it didn’t work. But then, it didn’t involve work. And we don’t like work. So now we’re just reaffirming our commitment to not doing work,” Tory explained.
Many drivers were relieved to hear this. “I used to worry that Vision Zero might lead them to add more turns to roads, or regulate the number of screens built into cars. That would force me to pay attention to my driving, and then how would I text? So I’m glad they aren’t planning on messing that up for me,” said Selena North, a Torontonian cashier.
Meanwhile, Toronto’s pedestrians and cyclists reported that Tory’s Vision Zero perfectly complements their most effective strategy for getting home without accidents, Wishin’ Zero.
In related news, Tory also announced plans to rename HousingNow to HousingNowOnlyForTheRich, and clarified that the “Will” in his Green Will Initiative refers to the document everyone should write before the smog gets too thick to see.
