Admiral Beez
Superstar
I've always thought the best retort to that is, "damn straight, we want private cars outta of this city, and everyone on instead in gov't issued transit or bicycles".
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Admiral Beez
Superstar
MetroMan
Senior Member
That's only during the pilot. The finished King transit mall will go to at least Dufferin.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
It won't. I'd gladly bet a lot of money on that. The only way this could happen is if the 501 streetcar was pulled off Queen Street. Otherwise, any benefit to the 504 would be completely negated by worse service on Queen, where a lot of King Street's traffic would end up going.
The project was cut back from Dufferin to Bathurst for this exact reason - Richmond and Adelaide can absorb King Street's vehicle traffic, but only between Bathurst and Parliament.
MetroMan
Senior Member
It wasn't not cut back. The pilot was always only going to be in the central portion.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
(A) No it wasn't - you can go back ~20 pages in this thread and see links showing that the entire corridor, from Dufferin to Parliament, was originally in the project. The "pilot" just meant that it was going to be done as temporary solutions that could be quickly installed and easily removed if the city chose to do so.
(B) Even if this wasn't the case, the rest of what I said is still true. You cannot limit traffic on King or Queen west of Bathurst without completely screwing up the other street's streetcar service. There's no net benefit, so it won't be done. The only way one street will be closed to through traffic is by completely removing streetcars from the other one (which won't happen). Bookmark this and come back to it a few years from now.
salsa
Senior Member
Slides are now posted on the city's website.
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=a8349ca0cc3f8510VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=a8349ca0cc3f8510VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD
robmausser
Senior Member
OH MY GOD WE NEED THESE AT UNION STREETCAR TUNNEL ENTRANCE SO BAD!!
And set up a similar camera of course.
And then put on CP24 with this music
salsa
Senior Member
You are referring to the "study area", which is not the same thing. This point was made clear even in the first public meeting back in February (for those who actually attended or read the materials).
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downtownordinary
Active Member
So left hand turns going west to south will still be allowed at King and Jarvis? Seems like that will slow down streetcars before entering the pilot area.
Source: http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toro...oposed King Street Pilot_BIG MAP_AS_FINAL.pdf
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aquateam
Active Member
A couple comments about the proposal:
1. They should really consider using Quebec-style signage, where the signs say what you CAN do instead of what you CAN'T do. As currently signed, it is very confusing.
2. I guarantee that, with all the mass of signage, the weaving in and out of lanes required, etc., that compliance will be very low, not out of maliciousness but just out of confusion.
3. I know they were constrained by parking garages, but the goal should have been to keep cars out of the streetcar lanes, not just to reduce volume by confusing motorists. There are lots of examples of sections where they could have kept the streetscaping to one side in order to allow cars to keep one lane and streetcars only in the other, like in the TTC's original vision. There are long sections with no access needed.
1. They should really consider using Quebec-style signage, where the signs say what you CAN do instead of what you CAN'T do. As currently signed, it is very confusing.
2. I guarantee that, with all the mass of signage, the weaving in and out of lanes required, etc., that compliance will be very low, not out of maliciousness but just out of confusion.
3. I know they were constrained by parking garages, but the goal should have been to keep cars out of the streetcar lanes, not just to reduce volume by confusing motorists. There are lots of examples of sections where they could have kept the streetscaping to one side in order to allow cars to keep one lane and streetcars only in the other, like in the TTC's original vision. There are long sections with no access needed.
Look at all of the signage on Queen's Quay -- this city loves signage, and people love to ignore it.
MetroMan
Senior Member
I agree with this. Without physical cues like an island forcing them to the right, cars will stop at the light in the lane they're at, staring at the signs trying to figure out why they can't go ahead even though there's an open lane right in front of them. Meanwhile, they'll be blocking the streetcar from proceeding who can't let out passengers because the stop is now on the far side.
Worse still, I looked at the diagram along the entire span and there will be a lot of through traffic still alowed. For example, a car can legally enter at Peter and continue all the way to University. Only now, they have to drive in the streetcar lane because there is only one lane to share amongst them.
This could have been avoided by making alternating one ways which everybody can intuitively understand. Leave it to this city to screw up the entire point of this project by compromising to both sides until neither of them get something that works. Call me cynical but this looks destined — if not designed — for confusion and further gridlock for both streetcars and cars.
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MetroMan
Senior Member
Then we've got this.
The part of King St's sidewalks most congested with pedestrians because of narrow sidewalks and busy theatres, they give nearly all of it to cars! Blue is the for pickups/dropoffs, taxi area.
Meanwhile, right across the street where there is already unlimited sidewalk space because of David Pecaut Sq., they add even more sidewalk space. Flip it around! People can be dropped off or grab a taxi across the street. Or move the taxi stand to Duncan. It's right there...
The part of King St's sidewalks most congested with pedestrians because of narrow sidewalks and busy theatres, they give nearly all of it to cars! Blue is the for pickups/dropoffs, taxi area.
Meanwhile, right across the street where there is already unlimited sidewalk space because of David Pecaut Sq., they add even more sidewalk space. Flip it around! People can be dropped off or grab a taxi across the street. Or move the taxi stand to Duncan. It's right there...
dowlingm
Senior Member
The project (not the pilot) could extend west of Bathurst a little (see the PM diagram). To make that work though, extending Front Street as 2 lanes past Tecumseth and through the works yard to Walnut, while moving the tennis courts on the west side of Walnut to the proposed park extension south of Wellington so that Walnut could be widened to two ways. Not a cheap solution, plus it rams a road through the "park on a lead factory" at 28 Bathurst, but it might help redirect some traffic away from Bathurst-King given that Wellington doesn't have much capacity to.