Toronto police traffic officers are out in force on the streets of north Etobicoke during Canada Road Safety Week.

Toronto police are targeting aggressive driving and speeding, particularly at intersections, during the city-wide campaign, which runs through Monday.

"It's especially important in this city because of commuters," said 23 Division traffic Sgt. Dan Sutton. "We want to make neighbourhoods safer."

Education is key to the campaign, Sutton said, adding he sent traffic officers into local high schools.

"The message is we're out there," he said. "There's lots of radar and an increased presence of officers doing enforcement."

Sutton conducted a week-long safety awareness and enforcement campaign in January, after a spate of pedestrian fatalities and injuries.

Yesterday, Sutton credited the City of Toronto's installation of pedestrian countdown traffic signals at major intersections with a reduction in pedestrians fatalities and injuries.

Existing pedestrian signals indicate a white silhouette of a person, with an orange hand beneath.

New signals include a second countdown letting pedestrians know the amount of time left to cross the intersection.

"That has been a huge improvement," Sutton said of the new signals. "It has especially helped the seniors, who complain about the amount of time they have to cross the road."

In fact, the city has replaced all, or nearly all, pedestrian traffic signals in Etobicoke with the new countdown, Bruce Zvaniga, the city's manager of urban traffic control signals confirmed yesterday.

Installations began in late 2006. Last year, 300 intersections were upgraded with the signals. By year's end, another 1,100 signals will be installed. Project completion across the city is expected by June of next year.

Toronto adopted the signals after learning of positive results in more than 100 signal installations in downtown San Francisco, Zvaniga said.

"(San Francisco) couldn't attribute statistically that there was a reduction in collisions," Zvaniga said. "But what they did find was there was universal understanding by pedestrians of what the signal meant. Most people, if asked today, what the flashing hand means, they don't truly understand that's the period of time when you can safely cross the street."

That lack of understanding - by pedestrians and motorists observing pedestrians alike - has been a "big challenge" for Toronto for years, Zvaniga said.

"When San Francisco studies said 'everybody understands what it means and the drivers appear to be behaving better, pedestrians all seem to be completing their crossings by the time it counts to zero' from that point of view, from a comfort level, it's a very positive thing to do."