City council to debate bolstering traffic enforcement as road fatalities hit 10-year high

A city report blames population growth, driver behaviour and photo radar restrictions for a spike in fatal crashes in 2025. Jeremy Thompson reports.

The City of Edmonton has a goal for safer streets.

Guided by the global safety strategy Vision Zero, Edmonton aims to have no traffic deaths or serious injuries, but lately, the number of fatal crashes have been increasing.

The city began the Vision Zero program in 2015, after averaging 27 annual traffic deaths the decade prior.

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The strategy appeared to be making a difference, even outside of the record-low deaths during the pandemic when fewer cars were on the road.

Starting in 2019, the Alberta government brought in restrictions on photo radar. On April 1 this year, it banned photo radar on all provincial highways and connectors, limited photo radar speed enforcement to school, playground and construction zones, and restricted intersection cameras to red-light enforcement only.

A new report for Edmonton city council says speeding got worse as traffic deaths climbed in recent years, reaching 31 so far in 2025.

The raw death totals don’t tell the full story on traffic safety. The city report shows our population has grown by more than 200,000 people since 2017, the total number of licensed drivers is up more than 122,000 since the COVID-19 pandemic, and city data shows overall traffic volume is up more than 30 per cent in just the last five years.

Mayor Andrew Knack says it all adds up to a different mindset for drivers.

“(There are) more people driving in an unsafe manner, with the loss of things like photo radar,” Knack said during a media conference on city construction. “It feels like there are fewer consequences for people’s actions on the road in terms of them being held accountable.”

In a statement to CTV News Edmonton on Tuesday, Edmonton police said that, “regardless of the Province’s automated enforcement guidelines or the City’s decision to scale back the tool, (they) will continue in its on-going traffic safety efforts using more traditional direct policing measures.”

“We will also work collaboratively with our numerous traffic safety partners to maintain and prioritize the safety of the public using our existing response and specialized traffic resources to ensure that those individuals choosing to engage in dangerous or other unlawful behaviours are held accountable,” police said in the statement.

A spokesperson for provincial Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshan said Tuesday in a statement to CTV News Edmonton, said the department is “working closely with police to hold dangerous drivers accountable and keep our roads safe,” referencing the increase in Alberta’s population over the last few years, “which means more vehicles and more overall activity on our roads, and ongoing investments to improve intersections and extend passing lanes.”

Knack’s solution: a new traffic safety team of peace officers, one that “works seven days a week, morning to night, that can hold folks accountable for unsafe behaviour, because along with all of the work that we’re doing on streetlabs and roadway redesign, there does need to be an enforcement component to this,” he said.

Community standards peace officers already perform thousands of traffic stops each year.

One option for the new team would quintuple the number of hours dedicated to catching speeders and distracted drivers, draining the city’s photo-radar reserve to do so.

The most expensive version of a traffic safety team would cost $6 million for the first year.

If funded, the new team could be in place at some point in 2026.

City council will debate the proposal during budget talks next week.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Craig Ellingson