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From the Star:
Get cars off King, TTC asks City Hall
Experiment would virtually ban autos on four blocks downtown next summer
Mar 22, 2007 04:30 AM
Tess Kalinowski
transportation Reporter
In an attempt to unclog streetcar traffic on Toronto's busiest route, the Toronto Transit Commission is asking the city to experiment with making a downtown segment of King St. virtually a transit-only zone.
The proposal, similar to one floated in 2001, calls for the creation of a reserved right-of-way for streetcars in a four- to five-block "demonstration" section of King West. Exactly where is still to be determined, but it would likely be somewhere between Bay St. and Spadina Ave., for a couple of months in the summer of 2008.
If council approves the project, a single lane would remain open to taxis, cars and deliveries, alternating directions on each block. But the plan is designed to make the designated stretch a no-go zone to motorists.
"It's a pilot project, but there's a sense transit has to be given priority in the city," said TTC chair Adam Giambrone.
The King car is the busiest in the city, carrying 48,000 riders on a typical weekday. Heavy traffic, however, regularly forces streetcars to bunch up, creating gaps in service. Many become so crowded they must bypass stops, leaving frustrated passengers on the street.
Giambrone said the move to create a transit zone is a logical step in light of last Friday's launch of a plan to build seven light-rail corridors crisscrossing Toronto, which the TTC hopes will draw federal and provincial funding.
The 2001 proposal drew strong objections from some businesses on King.
Restaurants along the theatre stretch near John St. rely on walk-in business for much of their sales. Closing the street to traffic could result in a drop in sales between 10 and 20 percent, Grant Warfield, owner of Gabby's Grill and Bar, said yesterday.
"I think the city of Toronto has done everything they humanly can to deter business in the area already," said Warfield, who has been in the restaurant industry for 20 years. He said a ban would effectively limit his clientele to local customers.
"The businesses will either survive, or they won't... it's disappointing, but it's not unexpected," Warfield added.
Such objections have derailed similar projects in the past. But the King St. experiment might appeal to councillors' growing concerns about traffic congestion and the need to make public transit a more attractive option.
"With any service as frequent as every two minutes, there is no way to effectively manage and ensure reliability on a route operating in mixed traffic, an environment over which the TTC has no control," says the report approved by the transit commission yesterday.
Because the plan calls for temporarily widening sidewalks – giving more space to pedestrians and sidewalk cafes during the slower-traffic summer months – "you might find the Bay Street trades actually like this environment," Giambrone said.
Last night, the TTC also decided to ask the city to:
# Expand the designated no-parking and no-standing period by an hour, to 7-10 a.m. and 3-7 p.m.
# Designate King a "transit priority zone" between Dufferin and Parliament Sts., doubling fines for traffic and parking violations.
# Work with the province to expand the use of red-light cameras to discourage illegal left turns, and stopping and parking violations.
# Consider building taxi lay-bys so cabs no longer block curb lanes around Bay St. office towers.
The summer pilot would probably cost "a couple of hundred thousand dollars," Giambrone said, including temporary barriers, possibly planters, rubber curbs or wooden walkways.
In some ways, the King plan is similar to last summer's experiment on Queens Quay, where two car lanes were replaced by widened pedestrian walkways.
Past steps to make King more streetcar-friendly have had limited success, says the TTC report. Left-turn bans at most intersections have reduced delays, but many drivers still ignore them, it says.
The TTC has already assigned 30 per cent more than the standard number of streetcars on that route to help balance loads and alleviate bunching. But more of the new articulated cars won't be available until the end of the decade.
A ban on drivers using designated streetcar lanes during rush hours has been ineffective because there is no physical barrier to prevent it, said the report.
AoD
Get cars off King, TTC asks City Hall
Experiment would virtually ban autos on four blocks downtown next summer
Mar 22, 2007 04:30 AM
Tess Kalinowski
transportation Reporter
In an attempt to unclog streetcar traffic on Toronto's busiest route, the Toronto Transit Commission is asking the city to experiment with making a downtown segment of King St. virtually a transit-only zone.
The proposal, similar to one floated in 2001, calls for the creation of a reserved right-of-way for streetcars in a four- to five-block "demonstration" section of King West. Exactly where is still to be determined, but it would likely be somewhere between Bay St. and Spadina Ave., for a couple of months in the summer of 2008.
If council approves the project, a single lane would remain open to taxis, cars and deliveries, alternating directions on each block. But the plan is designed to make the designated stretch a no-go zone to motorists.
"It's a pilot project, but there's a sense transit has to be given priority in the city," said TTC chair Adam Giambrone.
The King car is the busiest in the city, carrying 48,000 riders on a typical weekday. Heavy traffic, however, regularly forces streetcars to bunch up, creating gaps in service. Many become so crowded they must bypass stops, leaving frustrated passengers on the street.
Giambrone said the move to create a transit zone is a logical step in light of last Friday's launch of a plan to build seven light-rail corridors crisscrossing Toronto, which the TTC hopes will draw federal and provincial funding.
The 2001 proposal drew strong objections from some businesses on King.
Restaurants along the theatre stretch near John St. rely on walk-in business for much of their sales. Closing the street to traffic could result in a drop in sales between 10 and 20 percent, Grant Warfield, owner of Gabby's Grill and Bar, said yesterday.
"I think the city of Toronto has done everything they humanly can to deter business in the area already," said Warfield, who has been in the restaurant industry for 20 years. He said a ban would effectively limit his clientele to local customers.
"The businesses will either survive, or they won't... it's disappointing, but it's not unexpected," Warfield added.
Such objections have derailed similar projects in the past. But the King St. experiment might appeal to councillors' growing concerns about traffic congestion and the need to make public transit a more attractive option.
"With any service as frequent as every two minutes, there is no way to effectively manage and ensure reliability on a route operating in mixed traffic, an environment over which the TTC has no control," says the report approved by the transit commission yesterday.
Because the plan calls for temporarily widening sidewalks – giving more space to pedestrians and sidewalk cafes during the slower-traffic summer months – "you might find the Bay Street trades actually like this environment," Giambrone said.
Last night, the TTC also decided to ask the city to:
# Expand the designated no-parking and no-standing period by an hour, to 7-10 a.m. and 3-7 p.m.
# Designate King a "transit priority zone" between Dufferin and Parliament Sts., doubling fines for traffic and parking violations.
# Work with the province to expand the use of red-light cameras to discourage illegal left turns, and stopping and parking violations.
# Consider building taxi lay-bys so cabs no longer block curb lanes around Bay St. office towers.
The summer pilot would probably cost "a couple of hundred thousand dollars," Giambrone said, including temporary barriers, possibly planters, rubber curbs or wooden walkways.
In some ways, the King plan is similar to last summer's experiment on Queens Quay, where two car lanes were replaced by widened pedestrian walkways.
Past steps to make King more streetcar-friendly have had limited success, says the TTC report. Left-turn bans at most intersections have reduced delays, but many drivers still ignore them, it says.
The TTC has already assigned 30 per cent more than the standard number of streetcars on that route to help balance loads and alleviate bunching. But more of the new articulated cars won't be available until the end of the decade.
A ban on drivers using designated streetcar lanes during rush hours has been ineffective because there is no physical barrier to prevent it, said the report.
AoD