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King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

Better off painting that yellow markings on the track 100% RED and for at least 200' from the intersection. Regardless, drivers will disobey it since they are from out of town and no idea of the law or will to take a chance of not getting caught.

Yellow paint for the stops are good until the road is rebuilt.
 
mdrejhon said:
Red paint would be welcome to deter through traffic.
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If red paint would deter people I agree it's a good (cheap) idea but I doubt strongly it will do so. Some people know very well they are breaking the law, others simply are confused. Red paint (or clear signage) might work if NO CARS etc were on a street but the current situation IS confusing. You come to a street and see a car in the distance going where you want to go - it looks as though you can follow them. If you are stuck behind a streetcar you follow it (it gets what looks like a regular green light) and then realise you have just gone straight through and not turned right. The arrangement is simply complicated but there really is FAR FAR less car traffic on King and the streetcars can maintain a very good speed. That is the aim and it really has been achieved to at least the 90% level. I think we should stop obsessing about having 100% compliance!
 
DSC said:
You come to a street and see a car in the distance going where you want to go - it looks as though you can follow them. If you are stuck behind a streetcar you follow it (it gets what looks like a regular green light) and then realise you have just gone straight through and not turned right.
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A variant of this is how out of town people find it confusing. Many times I have seen cars waiting in the right turn lane at the intersection when a car drives straight through illegally. The cars in the right turn lane hesitate for a moment, then pull left and drive through too. Sometimes chains of three or four cars do this. I suspect those drivers unfamiliar with the area would default to think "I guess you are allowed to drive through here because that guy just did." That decision is easily reinforced by the solid green signal. This happens far less often--almost never--when no cars driving straight through.
 
Jonny5 said:
A variant of this is how out of town people find it confusing. Many times I have seen cars waiting in the right turn lane at the intersection when a car drives straight through illegally. The cars in the right turn lane hesitate for a moment, then pull left and drive through too. Sometimes chains of three or four cars do this. I suspect those drivers unfamiliar with the area would default to think "I guess you are allowed to drive through here because that guy just did." That decision is easily reinforced by the solid green signal. This happens far less often--almost never--when no cars driving straight through.
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Other jurisdictions use the red, yellow, and green arrow traffic signals. Other jurisdictions use have more specific and DIFFERENT transit signals. Not here in Toronto, because they didn't think of it, so cannot be implemented.
 
Sydney monitors bus lanes with cameras. Lots and lots of cameras. Driver compliance, at least for the 333 bus, is virtually 100%. Of course, NSW actually enforces its traffic laws and levies eye-watering fines on offenders (hello $112 parking ticket), so drivers tend to be pretty law-abiding. I guess that would be impossible here.
 
Sorry for bringing up the previous posted article but I wonder if the Atlantic article regarding car ownership rates in the US versus Western Europe doesn’t mean what it is trying to say. Could it really be that US and Western European car ownership rates are similar and that the difference is largely accounted for by demographic factors (less children and differences in family composition in select Western European nations)?
 
W. K. Lis said:
Other jurisdictions use the red, yellow, and green arrow traffic signals. Other jurisdictions use have more specific and DIFFERENT transit signals. Not here in Toronto, because they didn't think of it, so cannot be implemented.
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The problem might be at the provincial level rather than at the city level. If the Highway Traffic Act (Ontario) has no such transit signals defined, Toronto cannot use them.
 
202239

Some people just don't have a clue.
 
I have to say I would like to see more transit riders on King standing out in that space to "claim it." I get that shouldn't be necessary, but I make a point to stand right out in the corner of the box to let drivers know that, yes, this space is for me, not you. It's weird how coming up on two years into the pilot I still see 50 people waiting for the streetcar at rush hour, and 47 of them are standing back on the sidewalk.
 
Jonny5 said:
I have to say I would like to see more transit riders on King standing out in that space to "claim it." I get that shouldn't be necessary, but I make a point to stand right out in the corner of the box to let drivers know that, yes, this space is for me, not you. It's weird how coming up on two years into the pilot I still see 50 people waiting for the streetcar at rush hour, and 47 of them are standing back on the sidewalk.
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What's even more frustrating for me is seeing people waiting in vain at the old stop location, which are no longer in service but no one bothered to remove the shelters.
 
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