Downtown-Wide 'Transportation Study' Planned by City

[Chuck]

Toronto has graduated past the small town notions of street parking, bikes sharing road space with cars, narrow sidewalks, and two way streets. Main streets need to be converted into balanced transportation machines like the avenues of New York, and to do this I'd support the following:

- convert all streets to one way.
- synchronize signals.
- ban street parking and make back alley deliveries mandatory.
- given the increased efficiency these measures would bring, the 4th lane on ALL arterials should be converted to a dedicated 1-way bike lane, with the rest of the width going back to the sidewalks.

The model road in downtown Toronto should be 3 lanes wide, have synchronized lights, be one way, and have no parking at any time. The 4th lane should be converted into a dedicated bike lane (1m wide), with each sidewalk also being widened by 1 metre.

 

[W. K. Lis]

An automobile carries on average 1.3 people in them each. even though they have a capacity of 5. The new low-floor streetcars will have seats for 70 people, but can have a capacity of 170 people. 170 over 5, streetcars win.

I see that streetcars should get the priority just because of the capacity they have, and that they don't need the 156.7 sq. ft. of storage space for each automobile downtown. Wonder how many people Rob Ford's SUV carries when he drives downtown?

 

[nfitz]

So that's the 1% of the streets with streetcar tracks dealt with.

Now for the rest of the city.

 

[W. K. Lis]

So that's the 1% of the streets with streetcar tracks dealt with.

Now for the rest of the city.

That was Transit City, the Transit City Bus Plan, and the Downtown Relief Line Study. Instead we got a reduction or cut in 42 bus routes and an unfinanced Fordtransit City plan.

 

[JoeParez]

That was Transit City, the Transit City Bus Plan, and the Downtown Relief Line Study. Instead we got a reduction or cut in 42 bus routes and an unfinanced Fordtransit City plan.

Transit City was never going to any good for downtown traffic and this is coming from someone who is/was for Transit City. If you can recall, the only funded lines for Transit City were Eglinton, Sheppard East and Finch; all suburban Toronto lines. I know you were making a point nfitz's response, but in relation to the thread topic Transit City wasn't going to do anything for downtown.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't the reason for the service cuts due to the fact that there was supposed to be a fare hike this year and everyone went ballistic?

 

[nfitz]

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't the reason for the service cuts due to the fact that there was supposed to be a fare hike this year and everyone went ballistic?

No ... the promise was the service cut money was to be used to increase service this fall.

Besides ... if a 25¢ fare hike is worth $50 million ... then the $4 million they saved with the service cut would have been a 2¢ fare hike.

The fare hike was averted with a combination of increased funding from the City - and the extra ridership that was projected if the fares weren't increased.

 

[unimaginative2]

I'd quite happily see Front Street extended to Dufferin Street.

However Front Street Extension was a misnomer ... as planned it was esentially an off-ramp from the Gardiner ending at Bathurst/Front. Is this what anyone living in downtown wants?

It may make sense if the Gardiner was essentially moved, and terminated at Bathurst/Front - but in addition to the current arrangement?

The original waterfront plan revived the Front Street extension so that the Gardiner could enter a tunnel at Bathurst and terminate at Spadina.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Toronto has graduated past the small town notions of street parking, bikes sharing road space with cars, narrow sidewalks, and two way streets. Main streets need to be converted into balanced transportation machines like the avenues of New York, and to do this I'd support the following:

- convert all streets to one way.
- synchronize signals.
- ban street parking and make back alley deliveries mandatory.
- given the increased efficiency these measures would bring, the 4th lane on ALL arterials should be converted to a dedicated 1-way bike lane, with the rest of the width going back to the sidewalks.

The model road in downtown Toronto should be 3 lanes wide, have synchronized lights, be one way, and have no parking at any time. The 4th lane should be converted into a dedicated bike lane (1m wide), with each sidewalk also being widened by 1 metre.

I like this idea. A lot. I'd start with Yonge and Bay. Make Yonge one way north and Bay one way south from Bloor to the lake. Queen and King can be turned into one way without disrupting bidirectional streetcar service; just convert one of the traffic lanes into a bike lane and have a streetcar "ROW" in the reverse direction of traffic.

I think the origin of the whole "two ways good, one way bad" mentality harkens back to a quote in Jane Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities. At the time, many of the Manhattan Avenues were being converted to one way, and Jacobs' reasoning was that bus ridership was dropping because people had to walk a block to take the bus in a reverse direction. Unfortunately, Jacobs was not much of an empirical researcher, and so we have no idea if this - and not, say, the drop in the amount of bus service provided, or declining population and jobs on Manhattan island in the late 1950s - was more responsible for the decline. Torontonians also conveniently forget that the length of a city block between two avenues in Manhattan is substantially larger than the distance between any city block in Toronto, so walking to the other bus stop is much more of a chore in NYC. Finally, most of the roads that we could convert to one way would not affect transit operations. As I said, Queen and King could be configured for one way traffic without losing streetcar bidirectionality; losing one direction of bus service on the 97 Yonge bus south of Bloor would hardly make a difference because that bus doesn't see that much ridership (or service) to begin with.

 

[Woodbridge_Heights]

I like this idea. A lot. I'd start with Yonge and Bay. Make Yonge one way north and Bay one way south from Bloor to the lake. Queen and King can be turned into one way without disrupting bidirectional streetcar service; just convert one of the traffic lanes into a bike lane and have a streetcar "ROW" in the reverse direction of traffic.

I think the origin of the whole "two ways good, one way bad" mentality harkens back to a quote in Jane Jacobs' Death and Life of Great American Cities. At the time, many of the Manhattan Avenues were being converted to one way, and Jacobs' reasoning was that bus ridership was dropping because people had to walk a block to take the bus in a reverse direction. Unfortunately, Jacobs was not much of an empirical researcher, and so we have no idea if this - and not, say, the drop in the amount of bus service provided, or declining population and jobs on Manhattan island in the late 1950s - was more responsible for the decline. Torontonians also conveniently forget that the length of a city block between two avenues in Manhattan is substantially larger than the distance between any city block in Toronto, so walking to the other bus stop is much more of a chore in NYC. Finally, most of the roads that we could convert to one way would not affect transit operations. As I said, Queen and King could be configured for one way traffic without losing streetcar bidirectionality; losing one direction of bus service on the 97 Yonge bus south of Bloor would hardly make a difference because that bus doesn't see that much ridership (or service) to begin with.

What's this? Questioning the wisdom of Jane Jacobs? Sacrilige!!!

 

[gweed123]

Here's what I would do:

1) Re-install/upgrade the streetcar tracks on both Richmond and Adelaide Streets and run an express streetcar service (in a dedicated lane) that runs the Queen route until Bathurst, and then switches to the respective 1-way through downtown until just east of Parliament, where it rejoins the Queen route. This route would run express from Bathurst to Parliament, only stopping at Spadina, University, Bay, Yonge, and Jarvis. This could either run as a rush-hour only route, or as an all-day route. The dedicated lane could also be used for express bus routes, opening up the option to have the TTC run downtown rocket buses from places like STC, NYCC, ECC, etc.

2) Construct a GO station at Liberty Village.

3) Purchase Ottawa O-Train style DMUs and run them on the Georgetown line between Bloor and Union, and on the Lakeshore line between Danforth and Union. This would be a good temporary DRL, and could be billed as a premium express service. Those sections of lines are entirely owned by GO, and the freight traffic on them is minimal at best. Run them at 15 minute frequencies off-peak, and 5 minute frequencies during peak. Naturally, once the GO system is electrified, this service can be discontinued, but it would be a good stop-gap system to get some additional capacity, even if it's only around 5,000 pphpd at peak.

4) Synchronize the traffic lights in downtown to provide for more efficient traffic flow.

 

[M II A II R II K]

And use the existing rail corridors for local express rapid transit with extra stops. If you have to pay more then have 2 different passes where you pay more for free access to the Go Local system in addition to the TTC, and those who don't have to use it don't have to pay more.

 

[unimaginative2]

Integrate the entire GO system with the TTC and 905 fare systems, so that riders can use each seamlessly. Then increase frequency to every 20 minutes on all the GO lines. That would do more for transit in the GTA than anything else.

 

[Electrify]

What's this? Questioning the wisdom of Jane Jacobs? Sacrilige!!!

I'm currently in Montreal, and some of the most pedestrian friendly streets happen to be one-way.

In fact, we really should look to Montreal on how to build a great city. They have plenty of road infrastructure and congestion isn't too bad, but the pedestrian, transit, and cycling networks are so attractive they make people WANT to use alternative modes of transportation.

 

[unimaginative2]

That is one of our big problems here: leaving aside all of the politics, our bike lanes indisputably suck. They should be proper lanes, separated by curbs from car traffic and with their own signals at crossings.

 

[gweed123]

I'm currently in Montreal, and some of the most pedestrian friendly streets happen to be one-way.

In fact, we really should look to Montreal on how to build a great city. They have plenty of road infrastructure and congestion isn't too bad, but the pedestrian, transit, and cycling networks are so attractive they make people WANT to use alternative modes of transportation.

Maybe we should stick to a better infrastructure repair schedule though :s