Downtown-Wide 'Transportation Study' Planned by City

[W. K. Lis]

In downtown Toronto, streetcar traffic can be improved one of several ways:

1. allow parking at all times, but then have bumpouts for the streetcar stops, as they have on Roncesvalles
2. allow no parking at all times, with streetcar stops where passengers have to walk up to the streetcar entrance
3. where it is wide enough, use streetcar islands, so lonesome individuals in their cars could pass
4. where it is wide enough, use streetcar right-of-ways, like on Spadina or St. Clair
5. use light rail vehicles instead of streetcars, either on exclusive right-of-ways or underground subway, like on Bay Street south of Front Street

 

[BMO]

In terms of Jarvis, we should return it to a 5 lane setup, but we should also turn the far right lanes into HOV lanes during their respective rush hours. We have a large number of people commuting from a general corridor all commuting into a central core. Encouraging car pooling along this stretch makes far more sense than to encourage people to cycle for several miles from Mt. Pleasant and St. Clair.

well said *claps his hands*

 

[DTowner]

well said *claps his hands*

5-lane suburban-esque highway doesn't belong in a downtown core. An HOV lane still encourges driving a car downtown when in fact the exact opposite should be happening. Travelling-time hasn't been impacted regardless of what Fraud will have you believe. It was safer, and just as fast as a four-lane road with two bike lanes. And, sorry BMO, downtown does have neighbourhoods in need of protecting and developing. Especially if you live in a downtown neighbourhood instead of just driving through one. I wouldn't go to the suburbs and demand roads be narrowed, pavements widened and speed bumps be installed everyplace to slow traffic to make it easier for me to walk in. Once you reach the central core, you just have to accept there will be (shocker!) traffic and you will have to slow down. Just like as a pedestrian, I am not about to go the suburbs and start jay-walking across Vic Park Ave or the 401. There ARE two different cities with two different cultures – one shouldn't impede on the other.

Of course, without a proper mode of transport to get people from the suburbs downtown (subway, LRT, whatever) the debate will go on and on and on... The argument that suburbanites shouldn't drive downtown would be stronger if there was a viable alternative (I used to live in Scarborough and I know what it is like waiting for a bus at 7am in a blizzard — just to get me to the subway!)

 

[Thanos]

In terms of Jarvis, we should return it to a 5 lane setup, but we should also turn the far right lanes into HOV lanes during their respective rush hours. We have a large number of people commuting from a general corridor all commuting into a central core. Encouraging car pooling along this stretch makes far more sense than to encourage people to cycle for several miles from Mt. Pleasant and St. Clair.

This is ridiculous. Jarvis should never be turned back into a 5 lane street. If the bike paths are to be removed then the sidewalks should be widened.
Jarvis has gotten enough damage over the past 50 years.

I think turning King and Queen into 1 way streets, 2 lanes each, and the streetcar has its on lane would be a good solution.

 

[BMO]

I think the point that was trying to be made was that instead of just making it back into a normal lane where 1 person occupied vehicles could go, it should be made an HOV lane which would allow bicycles, taxis and more efficient vehicles to use it.

 

[taal]

Wow ... thanks a lot for that, I've been looking for something like that for a while now ... though you can find many general articles about the decline of business in the downtown area of many North American cities I never found anything concrete.

It almost looks like Toronto, though we're farther back on that chart.

But here's a question, in the case of that chart, what is meant by suburbs, is it still the city proper or is it the surrounding area ?

 

[dunkalunk]

In downtown Toronto, streetcar traffic can be improved one of several ways:

1. allow parking at all times, but then have bumpouts for the streetcar stops, as they have on Roncesvalles
2. allow no parking at all times, with streetcar stops where passengers have to walk up to the streetcar entrance
3. where it is wide enough, use streetcar islands, so lonesome individuals in their cars could pass
4. where it is wide enough, use streetcar right-of-ways, like on Spadina or St. Clair
5. use light rail vehicles instead of streetcars, either on exclusive right-of-ways or underground subway, like on Bay Street south of Front Street

...added to your list.

6. Convert entire streetcar ROW to a 2 lane road with left turn provisions and curbside parking where there is room
7. Make illegal left turns from the streetcar tracks where possible
8. At major intersections with little room, relocate one of the tracks to allow for a centre-left turn refuge for both sides and a curbside streetcar stop.
9. Install signal priority lighting in which an advanced green would remove left-moving vehicles that would block the streetcar's path.
10. Build the DRL/Waterfront LRT so that the downtown streetcars can be used for local trips like they are supposed to be with that stop distance.
11. Designate one East-West street as a cycling route. I actually propose Queen due to the high amount of existing delays from pedestrian and motor vehicle traffic.
12. Sign and encourage parking on side streets for shopping deliveries with the help of a "find parking" mobile app, begin a registry/hotline for the dedicated delivery spaces.
13. Designate spaces for delivery vehicles on side-streets.
14. Variable parking pricing similar to SFpark payable by cash/credit/Presto card
15. Build city garages on the edge of downtown (Keele, Bloor, and Don River) in addition to garages directly accessible from ramps off the Gardiner/DVP.

Although a lot of these things may not be directly related to streetcar, these measures will help speed the streetcar up and make it more reliable.

 

[Electrify]

Jarvis is being returned to 5 lanes, like it or not. At least with my suggestion, it will encourage and reward people for carpooling, which means less cars in the core. And since most of the people who use this corridor commute to and from the same general areas, I believe such a move would be highly successful.

Seeing as this is supposed to be a thread about improving mobility in the downtown core, and seeing where it is heading, I feel I should post my favourite article from transit planner Jarrett Walker:

imagining cities without mobility

Philips Corporation, like everyone, is running a livable cities program, in this case a set of awards for individual projects rather than big-picture rankings of cities. I just stumbled on it, and got a rude shock.

There are eight categories: Neighborhood, Mobility, Care, Education, Water, Shade, Sport, and Regeneration -- all excellent things. Obviously, I'm professionally interested in mobility, so I looked to see who was winning there.

The leading candidate for the Mobility award is Plaza Movil Street Park, a proposal (for Buenos Aires, Argentina) for temporary street closures to create community park space. Its benefits are described like this:

Creating recreational spaces for local communities to relax, play, meet, and chat.

That's wonderful. It's glorious. I'm all for it. To use Philips's terms, it's great for Neighborhood, and probably also for Shade. But it's not mobility!

The only relationship that this plan has to mobility is that it takes space normally used for mobility and uses it for something else.

St. Augustine observed that we are always either being or becoming. In urbanism, "being" corresponds to placehood, and "becoming" corresponds to movement or mobility. The late 20th Century car-centered model led to the massive conversion of land area from placehood functions to mobility functions. Transit's great virtue is that it provides a lot of mobility using relatively little space, so that more area can be devoted to places, both public and private.

And yes, a great street provides an experience that integrates placehood and mobility to a degree. And yes, good urban redevelopment also reduces our need for mobility up to a point.

Bravo for well-designed street closures. But to give a street closure a mobility award seems to imply that mobility -- our ability to get to places we want to go to -- just no longer matters.

There is a strong current in New Urbanism, not without detractors, that does seem interested in abolishing mobility. Patrick Condon's idea for Vancouver, for example, would cancel a single proposed subway line and instead replace all of the city's electric trolleybuses with streetcars that go the same speed as the buses do. He would cancel a mobility-improving project and instead spend money in way that that may do great urban things but doesn't increase mobility at all. Once his network was complete, nobody could get anywhere any faster than they can now.

This makes sense only in a context where going places (even under renewable elecric power) is an objective evil. Streetcars, in this vision, supposedly cause greater urban density to be built at livable neighborhood scales, so that people meet more of their needs close to home. People spend most of their time in their own "villages" and others nearby. They simply do not travel far across the city, and had better not be in a hurry when they do.

It's understandable that "urban village" is a winning concept right now. We do need to increase the self-reliance of each part of a city, so that travel demand for many of life's needs can met closer to home. The pendulum swung far the other way in the late 20th century, toward surrendering placehood to movement. I support and eagerly participate in efforts to help it swing back.

But I think we can see what it might look like to swing too far in the new direction. We stay close to home, and thus evolve transport systems that are useful for going short distances and useless for going long ones. And the obvious retort to this is: In that case, why live in a city? Why not just live in a country village, or in a small city?

The whole point of living in a city is to have access to unusual things that are only possible at a large scale. If you want major league sports or a good symphony orchestra or a world-class major university, you need to be in some kind of urban area. If you have a very unusual interest, only a place with lots of people will have a few people who share that interest. If you want choices, you need redundancy, also known as competition. You need there to be two or more sources for whatever service or product or experience you're looking for, readily available from where you live. For those things, you need a certain amount of urban mass, and some options for moving around within it.

The great irony of anti-mobility village-first thinking is that it inevitably leads to monotony -- less choice and therefore less opportunity for people to form specalized communities where unusual thought and creativity can flourish. More disturbingly, it leads to a world where only the internet offers those things, which leads in turn to nightmare images of a world of plugged-in couch potatoes, people who never go outside anymore because their social and intellectual needs simply aren't met by the 500 people who happen to be within walking distance.

The antidote to conformity and monotony is the city. For a city to function as a city, you need mobility. Streetcars are fun to ride, but not if you're in a hurry. Closing a street on Sundays so people can dance is a great thing. But you can't run an economy that way, nor can your citizens feel free.

http://www.humantransit.org/2011/03/imagining-cities-without-mobility.html

 

[BMO]

Thank you for the article Electrify.

I found it very refreshing, compared to the Richard Florida and Jane Jacobs stream of thought. Mixed-use and having amenities close to one's house are beneficial, but regardless of whether most services can be provided within walking distance, people will always want to move around the city and not always be cooped up in their small Toronto neighbourhood.

 

[Palma]

With the exception of some streetcar routes, and obviously the subway lines. Suburban bus routes are generally much busier and overcrowded than downtown bus routes. pe.

Downtown does not have bus routes till you get to Eglinton - they have streetcars. Perhaps if people living in downtown toronto did not have to pay 2.50 (3.00 if not paying by token) for a 1-2 stops, more of them would be taking the TTC instead of walking. The fare system needs to change. There is no way someone living in the city and going a few stops should be paying the same amount as someone going from Steeles to Union. The fare system needs to be revised and be based on distance.

My friend who moved to Amsterdam (outside of there) says the way the system works there is you swipe a card once entering the system (the card is loaded with money) and the first swipe takes the full payment for a ride off and then when exiting, you need to swipe the card again and money is put back. So the further distance you go the less money is put back onto the card and so forth. You just need to remember to swipe the card again when you get off though.

 

[Mapleson]

Downtown does not have bus routes till you get to Eglinton - they have streetcars. Perhaps if people living in downtown toronto did not have to pay 2.50 (3.00 if not paying by token) for a 1-2 stops, more of them would be taking the TTC instead of walking. The fare system needs to change. There is no way someone living in the city and going a few stops should be paying the same amount as someone going from Steeles to Union. The fare system needs to be revised and be based on distance.

If and when Toronto implements PRESTO, they'll have the infrastructure to charge flat rates (TTC), zonal rates (YRT), or distance rates (GO). We had zonal rates until the first amalgamation of Toronto and since then the outnumbering fringe has always outvoted the inner core.

It doesn't matter if you live downtown or not, if you don't have a Metropass, you aren't going to take the TTC less than a kilometer, unless it's adverse weather.

I wonder if this report is just deep cover for a DRL. They will find that there are a couple tweaks we can do, but traffic is so bad more roads won't help, so we need a new subway going downtown.

 

[gweed123]

If and when Toronto implements PRESTO, they'll have the infrastructure to charge flat rates (TTC), zonal rates (YRT), or distance rates (GO). We had zonal rates until the first amalgamation of Toronto and since then the outnumbering fringe has always outvoted the inner core.

It doesn't matter if you live downtown or not, if you don't have a Metropass, you aren't going to take the TTC less than a kilometer, unless it's adverse weather.

I wonder if this report is just deep cover for a DRL. They will find that there are a couple tweaks we can do, but traffic is so bad more roads won't help, so we need a new subway going downtown.

I've often thought about how to more equitably structure fares.

One idea that I've been toying with involves Presto using a tap on, and voluntary tap off.

1) Divide Toronto into 4 fare zones: Downtown (Lake-Bathurst-Bloor-Don River), Inner Toronto (Lake-Jane-York Mills/Wilson-Victoria Park), Outer West Toronto (Lake-427-Steeles-Yonge), and Outer East Toronto (Lake-Rouge River-Steeles-Yonge).
2) The cash fare would remain the same (maybe with a small raise to cover the change in fare structure).
3) How it would work with Presto is you get charged the full fare when you tap on, but based on where you tap off part of that fare is re-credited to your card. If you don't want the money back, don't tap off on your way out.
4) I'm thinking something like $1.50 for 1 zone, $2.50 for 2 zones, and $3.50 for 3+ zones.
5) One thing this would necessitate though is Presto machines at the back doors of all buses and streetcars, as well as at the front door.

This would give people a definite incetive to start using Presto, especially if you're doing short to medium range trips. It also keeps it simple for people who want to pay cash: you just pay the maximum fare.

 

[BMO]

Downtown does not have bus routes till you get to Eglinton - they have streetcars. Perhaps if people living in downtown toronto did not have to pay 2.50 (3.00 if not paying by token) for a 1-2 stops, more of them would be taking the TTC instead of walking. The fare system needs to change. There is no way someone living in the city and going a few stops should be paying the same amount as someone going from Steeles to Union. The fare system needs to be revised and be based on distance.

My friend who moved to Amsterdam (outside of there) says the way the system works there is you swipe a card once entering the system (the card is loaded with money) and the first swipe takes the full payment for a ride off and then when exiting, you need to swipe the card again and money is put back. So the further distance you go the less money is put back onto the card and so forth. You just need to remember to swipe the card again when you get off though.

would this really improve transit ridership or be a detriment? If transit ends up costing more to suburbans, where's the "money saving" incentive of taking transit? Add -on the fact that if it is indeed much cheaper in the downtown core, there would be a lot fewer cars, and ultimately just more space for suburban vehicles to move in and consume.

 

[BMO]

I've often thought about how to more equitably structure fares.

One idea that I've been toying with involves Presto using a tap on, and voluntary tap off.

1) Divide Toronto into 4 fare zones: Downtown (Lake-Bathurst-Bloor-Don River), Inner Toronto (Lake-Jane-York Mills/Wilson-Victoria Park), Outer West Toronto (Lake-427-Steeles-Yonge), and Outer East Toronto (Lake-Rouge River-Steeles-Yonge).
2) The cash fare would remain the same (maybe with a small raise to cover the change in fare structure).
3) How it would work with Presto is you get charged the full fare when you tap on, but based on where you tap off part of that fare is re-credited to your card. If you don't want the money back, don't tap off on your way out.
4) I'm thinking something like $1.50 for 1 zone, $2.50 for 2 zones, and $3.50 for 3+ zones.
5) One thing this would necessitate though is Presto machines at the back doors of all buses and streetcars, as well as at the front door.

This would give people a definite incetive to start using Presto, especially if you're doing short to medium range trips. It also keeps it simple for people who want to pay cash: you just pay the maximum fare.

I like this idea, I'm not too sure what the exact % of ridership is based on area, but if most ridership is crossing three borders than this can work. if the data does in fact show that a majority of trips are done locally then I think this may be a money-looser.

 

[sixrings]

Id prefer either 2$ for your first entrance to any TTC vehicle, then 1$ for each additional transfer...