King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

[RC8]

Several blocks of gridlocked cars still carry less people than a single streetcar on Queen or King at rush hour.

 

[RC8]

Maybe you can have a streetcar ROW on both King and Queen if you convert them to one-way for cars and move the tracks to the side;

Queen

<<< Auto/P <<<
<<<< Auto <<<<
<<<< Rail <<<<
>>>> Rail >>>>

King

<<<< Rail <<<<
>>>> Rail >>>>
>>>> Auto >>>>
>>> Auto/P >>>

Turning ratios would make that impossible, I understand. We can do it on QQ because the streetcars under no circumstances will have to make a tun towards the lake, but on King or Queen we want (or need) streetcars and/or buses to be able to turn both left and right.

 

[ahm]

Maybe you can have a streetcar ROW on both King and Queen if you convert them to one-way for cars and move the tracks to the side;

Queen

<<< Auto/P <<<
<<<< Auto <<<<
<<<< Rail <<<<
>>>> Rail >>>>

King

<<<< Rail <<<<
>>>> Rail >>>>
>>>> Auto >>>>
>>> Auto/P >>>

moving streetcar tracks would be incredibly expensive and painful

 

[nfitz]

moving streetcar tracks would be incredibly expensive and painful

They are doing it now on Queens Quay. It's only a fraction of the rebuild price. More expensive perhaps. But not incredibly expensive.

 

[ahm]

but on queen, or king? even if the capital cost is not as expensive as i'm thinking (rails? concrete? switches? transportation of materials? labour?), there's the lost revenue when the construction makes an absolute hash of the street's merchants. having seen the preparations the city put into re-doing roncesvalles, and the subsequent problems, i'm discinclined to trust a project that massive could be swung without serious hitches. never mind the actual routine streetcar track upgrades in 2005 on queen in parkdale - businesses lost their minds with the noise, dust/dirt/detritus, loss of parking, difficult access, etc. i wasn't so bothered myself, even though i worked at the parkdale bia and had to mollify upset members of the bia by crossing the street to sylvia watson's office to express their concerns.

so yeah. if not incredibly expensive, incredibly painful. moving the tracks would take years. i'd rather not lose two of our more dynamic and valuable commercial and retail avenues for this.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I don't see why we need to move the rails at this point - and the closure can be restricted to windows during the rush.

AoD

 

[spider]

We don't need no stinkin' study, just close King Street to traffic other than streetcars for a week and see what happens. We will save hundreds of thousands of dollars in studies and get the real benefit, if any, of this experiment. Stop bashing each other over the head with wishes and opinions, just do it.

Is that too easy?

 

[RC8]

Ford and other suburban councillors would angrily oppose such a pilot project. Otherwise I'm pretty sure it'd get done.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

spider:

While I don't disagree with the notion of experimentation, how would you quantify "success" in that case? Beyond that, 1 week isn't enough time to get people used to the new system - making a judgement on that basis is premature at best. Ideally it should cover an entire year to see what the full range of impact is taking into account seasonal variation.

AoD

 

[nfitz]

spider:

While I don't disagree with the notion of experimentation, how would you quantify "success" in that case? Beyond that, 1 week isn't enough time to get people used to the new system - making a judgement on that basis is premature at best. Ideally it should cover an entire year to see what the full range of impact is taking into account seasonal variation.

AoD

A week? A year? Let's compromise on a month!

 

[ahm]

We don't need no stinkin' study, just close King Street to traffic other than streetcars for a week and see what happens. We will save hundreds of thousands of dollars in studies and get the real benefit, if any, of this experiment. Stop bashing each other over the head with wishes and opinions, just do it.

Is that too easy?

let me share with you a lesson i learned when i was shown how to edit news interviews, on reel-to-reel 1/4" tape: measure twice, cut once. when you are on your hands and knees looking at a dozen tiny little pieces of tape for the one with the important syllable (for instance, if a politician said something about a country but the last "-reeee" part is missing...) you appreciate the effort you have put into measuring.

 

[Palma]

So you want to take away at least 2 general traffic lanes and put in bike lanes and wider sidewalks on streets that are one-ways and that have a fraction of the pedestrian traffic that King and Queen do? The type of redesign you're talking about would not only face stiff opposition, it would run into the tens of millions, if not a hundred million, dollars.

It .

The reason it has FRACTION OF PEDESTRIAN TRAFFFIC IS EBCAUSE OF THOSE CARS ROAMING THROUGH THERE which does nto make it a destination street but a street to get into downtown and get out. And why would it cost millions? Just beucase you need to add the image of the bike indicating bike lane. As usual, when you are doing work for the city, contractors know whatever they quote they will get

 

[Palma]

I am so happy that there weren't any streetcars for you to block. It would be most unfortunate if your 2 passenger vehicle were to block a streetcar with 50 or 100 people on it.

I cannot believe peopel driving cars downtown thinking the streetcar is holding them up instead of the other way around. And what if they are driving on a bus route (i,e Eglinton), where there is 1 lane since the othe lane is for parking. Would they think the bus is holding them up or its only when its the streetcar is in front? Because buses are never in front of cars - ist only the streetcar. Most streets in Toronto are 2 lanes (i for mass transit and one is parking) until you get past the 401

 

[TOareaFan]

I cannot believe peopel driving cars downtown thinking the streetcar is holding them up instead of the other way around. And what if they are driving on a bus route (i,e Eglinton), where there is 1 lane since the othe lane is for parking. Would they think the bus is holding them up or its only when its the streetcar is in front? Because buses are never in front of cars - ist only the streetcar. Most streets in Toronto are 2 lanes (i for mass transit and one is parking) until you get past the 401

While I am not in favour of closing King or Queen to vehicular traffic, I am (as I stated earlier) very much in favour of enforced no-car in streetcar lanes in extended rush hours (6-10 in the a.m. and 3 - 7 in the p.m.). That said, there is a pretty significant differnce between how buses and streetcars interact with cars on two lane streets with mixed traffic.

Streetcars run in the centre of the street and when they stop to pick up or drop off passengers they block both lanes of traffic...a bus primarily (whenever possible) runs in the curb lane and even if it is not in the curb lane it generally pulls over to the curb to pick up and drop off passengers.....leaving the centre lanes for cars to pass.

 

[PinkLucy]

Streetcars that have the dedicated right of way (Bathurst, Spadina, QQ) don't block traffic because passengers embark/disembark on the medians.