TORONTO The City of Toronto has decided to opt out of an e-scooter pilot project due to safety and accessibility concerns. City council’s unanimous decision Wednesday applies to both shared and privately-owned e-scooters and will see Toronto’s existing ban on the use of the vehicles on public streets, bike lanes, sidewalks and other public spaces upheld. The provincewide, five-year pilot project, which began on Jan. 1 2020, allowed municipalities to approve the use of the vehicles on roadways or on the shoulder of a highway with municipal bylaw amendments in place, In a report released last month, accessibility advocates had argued the scooters present safety hazards, especially for people living with disabilities and seniors, when encountering them illegally operating on sidewalks.
Published Wednesday, May 5, 2021 7:08PM EDT The City of Toronto has decided to opt out of an e-scooter pilot project due to safety and accessibility concerns. City council’s unanimous decision Wednesday applies to both shared and privately-owned e-scooters and will see Toronto’s existing ban on the use of the vehicles on public streets, bike lanes, sidewalks and other public spaces upheld. The provincewide, five-year pilot project, which began on Jan. 1 2020, allowed municipalities to approve the use of the vehicles on roadways or on the shoulder of a highway with municipal bylaw amendments in place, In a report released last month, accessibility advocates had argued the scooters present safety hazards, especially for people living with disabilities and seniors, when encountering them illegally operating on sidewalks.
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The idea of people being removed from intensive care, unhooked from ventilators that might have saved them to make room for someone else more likely to survive is almost unfathomable, says the president and CEO of Canada’s largest university hospital.
“I believe we’ll fight that one as long as humanly possible, and I pray we never get to the point of having to consider that,” said Dr. Kevin Smith, head of Toronto’s University Health Network and co-chair of Ontario’s COVID-19 critical care table.
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The idea of people being removed from intensive care, unhooked from ventilators that might have saved them to make room for someone else more likely to survive is almost unfathomable, says the president and CEO of Canada’s largest university hospital.
“I believe we’ll fight that one as long as humanly possible, and I pray we never get to the point of having to consider that,” said Dr. Kevin Smith, head of Toronto’s University Health Network and co-chair of Ontario’s COVID-19 critical care table.
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Ontario’s life-and-death emergency triage protocol remains a work in progress Bookmark Please log in to listen to this story. Also available in French and Mandarin. Log In Create Free Account
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Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
If a third wave of COVID-19 overwhelms Ontario hospitals, and intensive care units run out of beds, the province’s doctors could be forced to make previously unthinkable decisions about who gets access to life-saving treatment. Precisely how they would do that remains largely under wraps even as concern mounts about the spread of more contagious new variants of the virus.