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King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

In the King Street Report to the Board they recommend installing a new curve @ York. It would also be good to add/repair the track on Adelaide at least from York to Victoria.

Streetcar track network enhancements: improving the intersection of York Street and King Street by adding an additional east-to-north movement that allows for more routing options for diversions or adjustments. Layby tracks within the pilot area may also provide an opportunity to provide greater service resiliency with standby vehicles.
 
Made an opinion video on this:

I think its all super exciting, now lets enhance the stops with next car displays, shelters etc and bumpouts!

I think more important is lets install ticketing cameras for cars that illegally continue through the intersection.

$150 fine. We can label it a donation, your contribution towards the King Street Transit Mall!
 
This is clearly going to sail through City Council. Even Denzil MW voted to make it permanent without any amendments.

Bearing that in mind, we can start thinking about what form King Street is going to take. We have a lot of time to decide because a full King Street rebuild won’t happen until 2023 when the TTC is planning to replace the tracks.

In the interim, staff have recommended that some permanent fixtures and infrastructure be put in place this Summer:

- Transit shelters are moving to their proper places at the new far side stops. This will finally end the confusion where a transit shelter isn’t actually a transit stop.

- Concrete jersey barriers will be replaced with sidewalk bumpouts and transit stops will either be built out as extended sidewalks or modular sidewalk extensions will be put in.

- Permanent street furniture will replace the temporary chairs and other street furniture that was initially designed to be easily moved around and removable.

- New patios going in for this Spring/Summer (over 30 licenses were granted) will be built to last.

- Wherever a developer is building a tower, the sidewalk adjacent to it will be rebuilt according to the new layout. We'll probably see this first at King and Peter where King Blue condos are nearing completion and are adjacent to a transit stop. KING condos will be another opportunity to transform nearly an entire city block.

- Other things like transit priority and traffic light timing adjustments are happening this Summer without the restriction of the possibility of having to revert it back.
 
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I didn't know that King Streetcar Track Replacement was slated for 2023. That's a long time to repave King Street for true transit priority and permanent improvements to the public realm.
I heard this in this video at 2:18:45 and wanted to ask if this was the case.
 
The Executive Committee voted unanimously to approve City Staff's recommendations to make the King Street Pilot permanent. I'm surprised that no amendments were attempted by the more conservative councillors. It was a straight up approval of all of staff's recommendations as is.

That's honestly very surprising that none of the suburban, auto god councillors try to back it down,
 
I didn't know that King Streetcar Track Replacement was slated for 2023. That's a long time to repave King Street for true transit priority and permanent improvements to the public realm.
I heard this in this video at 2:18:45 and wanted to ask if this was the case.

Hard infrastructure changes will happen in the interim as needed. 2023 is just an opportunity to completely reimagine the street since it’ll be ripped up.

As condo developments slated for King Street are completed, the new sidewalks adjacent to the new construction will be built according to the new street layout. As I pointed out above, King Blue at King and Peter is at a streetcar stop so the new sidewalk they build when finished would include a raised streetcar platform and light posts would be moved.

Gradually, the King Street Pilot changes will solidify as a permanent layout. It’ll look like a patchwork but still better than the temporary look we have now. I think it’ll happen faster than we think. There are a ton of developments about to start construction along King. The MEC/Shoppers block, KING, Mirvish are some big ones that come to mind.

In 2023 the whole thing will be rebuilt according to a vision that the city will develop over the next few years.
 
Hard infrastructure changes will happen in the interim as needed. 2023 is just an opportunity to completely reimagine the street since it’ll be ripped up.

As condo developments slated for King Street are completed, the new sidewalks adjacent to the new construction will be built according to the new street layout. As I pointed out above, King Blue at King and Peter is at a streetcar stop so the new sidewalk they build when finished would include a raised streetcar platform and light posts would be moved.

Gradually, the King Street Pilot changes will solidify as a permanent layout. It’ll look like a patchwork but still better than the temporary look we have now. I think it’ll happen faster than we think. There are a ton of developments about to start construction along King. The MEC/Shoppers block, KING, Mirvish are some big ones that come to mind.

In 2023 the whole thing will be rebuilt according to a vision that the city will develop over the next few years.
So a vision for King Street's final configuration will be designed, but only small sections next to new developments will have this implemented, rather than sections at a time or all at once? Then when the tracks get replaced, the rest of the streetscape where no new developments happen will be completed.
 
So a vision for King Street's final configuration will be designed, but only small sections next to new developments will have this implemented, rather than sections at a time or all at once? Then when the tracks get replaced, the rest of the streetscape where no new developments happen will be completed.

No. A vision for King Street will be developed over the next few years which could include for example wide cobblestone sidewalks with rows of trees and an interlocking stone streetcar corridor. That vision will be built all at once in conjunction with the streetcar track replacement in 2023.

What will happen as a patchwork is before that. As new buildings get completed or as the city needs to do work, those sidewalks won’t be put back as they were before the pilot, they’ll be rebuilt according to the King Street Pilot layout.

The result is that we’ll have a street that is incrementally more permanent with temporary aspects being replaced by hard infrastructure. Then in 2023, all of King Street will be rebuilt according to a vision.
 
What will happen as a patchwork is before that. As new buildings get completed or as the city needs to do work, those sidewalks won’t be put back as they were before the pilot, they’ll be rebuilt according to the King Street Pilot layout.

I hope step one is to quickly restore and improve the temporary works there now which aged poorly over the winter. I know the city likes to wait like a gardener--hold off until the May 24 weekend to say winter is officially over--but it's getting ridiculous how it has deteriorated. It was built cheap and fast on purpose, but as a result it all looks like junk now and they shouldn't wait months to spruce it up again.
 

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