There are times when nothing beats the personal touch.
It’s a lesson Toronto is still taking on board when it comes to managing its severe gridlock, deploying more than 100 men and women wearing high-vis at busy intersections across the city.
The city’s traffic enforcement program has been growing for years and appears to be producing results that traffic lights and cameras have not.
“There are a lot of tools in the toolbox,” Mike Barnet, Toronto’s director of road enforcement and management, told Global News.
“Traffic officers have a time and a place they can be. We see a big benefit from them at special events where we have a lot of people, sometimes people who are not familiar with some of the rules. We talk about King Street, some of the special rules on King Street.”
The purpose of agents, unlike police officers or red light cameras, is to educate drivers and keep intersections moving, rather than handing out tickets to violators.
Over the past year, Toronto has increased the number of traffic agents it has on the books.
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At the beginning of 2025, Toronto had only 20 active traffic agents, located mainly on King Street and the Gardiner Expressway ramps.
Fast forward to July of last year, when the number had risen to 55. In early 2026, Toronto hit 100 active traffic agents. The city is currently recruiting an additional 27, to bring the total to 127 by the end of the year.
The recruitment has allowed Toronto to begin deploying its own traffic agents across the city.
Where once they were concentrated at key north-south hubbubs downtown, the Gardiner Expressway, or tasked with keeping the King streetcar moving, traffic agents are now spread across the city.
“When we had a smaller workforce, we obviously had to focus on a much more concentrated area,” Barnet added. “(The expansion) gave us the opportunity to really move them to more areas throughout the city than … just that downtown core.”
The launch of the Finch West and Eglinton Crosstown LRTs both benefited from traffic agents, which are also being used for major events such as Toronto FC games and running as far north as College Street and University Avenue during rush hour.
“Traffic officers out there are less about enforcement and really more about providing positive safety,” he explained. “When we put them out at intersections, they really become experts in how to move traffic because they’re there every day.”
Toronto saw its first big successes with the traffic cops on King Street, where drivers were regularly flouting rules designed to move a major streetcar route faster.
A study published by the city in early 2024 showed that traffic agents were essentially the change between vehicles that follow or break the rules.
With no traffic officers in place, the streetcars dragged on, taking between 45 and 65 minutes to run the length of King Street, according to the city.
But when traffic agents were introduced, travel times dropped by 74 percent, to between 17 and 21 minutes.
Barnet said the success of the program meant it would also be supported during the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup.
“Now, we have over 100 and so we are able to meet more requests,” he added. “Of course, FIFA will make a big demand on us later this summer.”
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
