King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

[crs1026]

I still believe the old rules, if enforced, would have done that too.

Most definitely, although - did we have the same complete left turn prohibition before? IIRC There were some legal left turns, so there would still have been some cases where autos legally blocked streetcars while attempting to turn left.

This is something Council never had the same level of courage about before, and I doubt the Traffic people would have recommended it until this initiative.

Even if I have that fact wrong, I'm happy to give Council a pat on the head for this - in hopes they will do more of the same in other locations.

- Paul

 

[TOareaFan]

Most definitely, although - did we have the same complete left turn prohibition before? IIRC There were some legal left turns, so there would still have been some cases where autos legally blocked streetcars while attempting to turn left.

This is something Council never had the same level of courage about before, and I doubt the Traffic people would have recommended it until this initiative.

Even if I have that fact wrong, I'm happy to give Council a pat on the head for this - in hopes they will do more of the same in other locations.

- Paul

yes there were legal lefts before ( a few of them).....to be clear when I talk about bringing back the old restrictions I see them being expanded a bit.....

1. Time: I would have them be full on from 6 in morning to 9 or 10 at night.
2. Lefts/Parking:
   1. No stopping/parking anywhere on that route from 1 hour before until 1 hour after whatever period of time the streetcar restrictions were in place
   2. No left turns at any intersection during the restricted period.
   3. First offense ticket for ignoring any of those $500 and 2 demerit points.

Enforce that and I bet you can move the King streetcars pretty well and get those 65k people to/from their destinations in a pretty rapid fashion and still utilize more of the capacity of the built form by allowing other motorized vehicles to use the right hand lane.

 

[W. K. Lis]

bad ttc policy. Essentially the TTC maintains some of its switches poorly. Drivers are supposed to stop, check to ensure they are in the correct position, and drive over them at 5km/h, to ensure that the poor condition switches are not damaged. Of course most switches are perfectly fine to go over at full speed, but a few bad apples ruin the bunch as the TTC applies the policy network wide. If the TTC did like most other streetcar operators globally and actually ensured it's switches were up to standard and had their automatic switching working, the policy would be unnecessary. Hell, they could even just limit the policy to the switches that actually need it. You also notice these poor standards when drivers often have to get out and manually change the switch position, as many of the automatic switches are broken and the TTC has not bothered fixing them.

This bad policy is now EMPHASIZED but having the streetcars stop at each track switch. Before, it looked "normal" for the streetcars to move slowly, now it advertises the remaining problem the TTC has with inadequate funding.

 

[mdrejhon]

I'm looking forward to seeing this become permanent.

Turn King into a proper LRT.

Level boarding platforms. Rampless wheel on.

Better hold-green transit priority lights, so vehicles coast to far side platforms with fewer red lights.

Urban realm enhancements.

Add double the streetcars, to push 100K people per day.

 

[gweed123]

My latest article summarizes the first few days of the King Street Transit Pilot: http://urbantoronto.ca/news/2017/11/king-street-transit-pilot-full-swing

 

[MetroMan]

I'm not convinced that this stretch of city is the highest priority for a walkable mall. I would put that on Queen, myself.

Queen St. isn’t the fastest growing residential centre with over 100,000 pedestrians per day.

It amazes me how nobody thinks of streets from the perspective of pedestrians, only those who use the road. The majority of users — we’re all pedestrians at some point — are the last to be considered. Reminds me of this cartoon:

 

[MetroMan]

I'm looking forward to seeing this become permanent.

Turn King into a proper LRT.

Level boarding platforms. Rampless wheel on.

Better hold-green transit priority lights, so vehicles coast to far side platforms with fewer red lights.

Urban realm enhancements.

Add double the streetcars, to push 100K people per day.

I wonder if we can revise our Flexity order to include a couple of additional segments in each streetcar. Maybe we can take the Crosstown’s LRT cars since the province doesn’t want them.

The 514 can take on the roll of a downtown express line until the relief subway is built in 15 years.

 

[reaperexpress]

I agree with Steveintoronto that I was expecting temporary pre-built decks to extend at-sidewalk-height toward the middle lane for streetcar stops. Similar to what they do for temporary patio space in Hamilton.

I agree with @steveintoronto as well, and indeed that was the original plan. Unfortunately I can't find any public documentation of the reason it had to be changed, but rest assured that it wasn't from lack of initiative.

I wonder if we can revise our Flexity order to include a couple of additional segments in each streetcar. Maybe we can take the Crosstown’s LRT cars since the province doesn’t want them.

The 514 can take on the roll of a downtown express line until the relief subway is built in 15 years.

That's a really interesting idea. Many of the streetcar stations have platforms 45 metres long, which was originally for three 15-metre streetcars (CLRV/PCC/Witt) or two 22-metre streetcars (ALRV). But now the Flexities are 30 metres long, which leaves room for only one streetcar, with 15 metres of wasted space behind (think of Spadina or Union stations for example). Increasing the streetcar length to 45 metres would allow the lines' person-capacity to be increased, without reducing the vehicle-capacity any further.

Most of the on-street platforms are built to 30 metres (formerly 2 CLRVs, now 1 Flexity). Those would all need to be lengthened.

bad ttc policy. Essentially the TTC maintains some of its switches poorly. Drivers are supposed to stop, check to ensure they are in the correct position, and drive over them at 5km/h, to ensure that the poor condition switches are not damaged. Of course most switches are perfectly fine to go over at full speed, but a few bad apples ruin the bunch as the TTC applies the policy network wide. If the TTC did like most other streetcar operators globally and actually ensured it's switches were up to standard and had their automatic switching working, the policy would be unnecessary. Hell, they could even just limit the policy to the switches that actually need it. You also notice these poor standards when drivers often have to get out and manually change the switch position, as many of the automatic switches are broken and the TTC has not bothered fixing them.

This is not quite correct.
- The maximum speed over switches is 10 km/h, not 5 km/h
- Drivers don't actually need to stop. Once they confirm that the switch is correctly set they can proceed at 10 km/h. But in practice this does require coming almost to a stop.
- The speed restriction is due to the crude antiquated design of switches, not their maintenance per se (this was discussed earlier in the thread, here). So none of that type of switch can be exempt.
- Whether or not a switch operates automatically has nothing to do with its ability to accommodate a vehicle at speed.
- The TTC has begun transitioning to a modern switch design that allows vehicles to travel through unimpeded. For the moment it is only used in the Leslie Barns because there isn't an associated remote trigger mechanism yet from the vehicles (the current transponder-based system is not suitable for faster operation). In the yard the switches are controlled centrally, avoiding the need for any communication from the vehicle to the switch.

 

[44 North]

What happens if a switch is stuck halfway, is there something that alerts the driver other than visual? Feel like if it's only visual that could be easy to miss, particularly if it's dark or rainy.

 

[AHK]

King Street westbound at Portland - earlier this evening (around 6 PM)

Traffic exiting King Street westbound to go north on Portland was getting quite backed up, often with cars which had been in the centre lane trying to merge into the curb lane to make the right hand turn, but stuck with their back ends hanging out into the centre lane, blocking and backing up the westbound 504 / 514 cars. The combination of traffic backed up northbound on Portland, along with the amount of pedestrian traffic crossing Portland at King contributed to the problem.

With no requirement for westbound traffic to exit northbound at Brant Street, the situation was as follows:

• vehicles coming north on Spadina could (and were) turning left onto King Street westbound
• vehicles coming south on Spadina could turn right onto King Street westbound (and a number were as Spadina southbound was backed up)
• vehicles coming south on Brant Street could turn right onto King Street westbound

all of which were trying to make the right hand turn at Portland (less any vehicles which may have turned off King at Brant Street, or into a parking lot). At the same time, there was other traffic already on Portland going north from the south side of King Street West. All this resulted in Portland being severely backed up from Adelaide down to King Street, and backing up the King Street westbound vehicles.

From my perspective, the Brant Street intersection should be should be made into a must exit corner for non-TTC and non-emergency traffic King Street westbound traffic. The further advantage of having traffic exit northbound on Brant Street is that Brant Street does not extend south of King, so no northbound traffic crossing King Street to compete with the right turning vehicles exiting King Street.

 

[MetroMan]

King Street westbound at Portland - earlier this evening (around 6 PM)

Traffic exiting King Street westbound to go north on Portland was getting quite backed up, often with cars which had been in the centre lane trying to merge into the curb lane to make the right hand turn, but stuck with their back ends hanging out into the centre lane, blocking and backing up the westbound 504 / 514 cars. The combination of traffic backed up northbound on Portland, along with the amount of pedestrian traffic crossing Portland at King contributed to the problem.

With no requirement for westbound traffic to exit northbound at Brant Street, the situation was as follows:

• vehicles coming north on Spadina could (and were) turning left onto King Street westbound
• vehicles coming south on Spadina could turn right onto King Street westbound (and a number were as Spadina southbound was backed up)
• vehicles coming south on Brant Street could turn right onto King Street westbound

all of which were trying to make the right hand turn at Portland (less any vehicles which may have turned off King at Brant Street, or into a parking lot). At the same time, there was other traffic already on Portland going north from the south side of King Street West. All this resulted in Portland being severely backed up from Adelaide down to King Street, and backing up the King Street westbound vehicles.

From my perspective, the Brant Street intersection should be should be made into a must exit corner for non-TTC and non-emergency traffic King Street westbound traffic. The further advantage of having traffic exit northbound on Brant Street is that Brant Street does not extend south of King, so no northbound traffic crossing King Street to compete with the right turning vehicles exiting King Street.

To make matters worse, Portland is a hive of illegal parking. All the time. You can pick any time of day and walk down Portland to find cars parked illegally with their flashers on, many of them mounted on the sidewalk — as if that made their parking less illegal. The King Street Pilot has made parking enforcement critical.

 

[pstogios]

To make matters worse, Portland is a hive of illegal parking. All the time. You can pick any time of day and walk down Portland to find cars parked illegally with their flashers on, many of them mounted on the sidewalk — as if that made their parking less illegal. The King Street Pilot has made parking enforcement critical.

It will be extremely interesting to see what becomes of the nightmare that is the Spadina and King intersection on a Friday or Saturday night. Before the pilot at those hours, there is always a huge backlog of cars westbound on King in the Portland/Brant area. Cars coming north or south on Spadina always turn westbound onto King regardless of the backlog, thereby blocking the Spadina intersection. Now with the right lane of King blocked by the barrier, I wonder if this backlog will be worsened.

 

[pstogios]

I walked eastward along King from Spadina to Yonge around 4:30 pm today. I was impressed with how car free King was, impressed with the speed of the 504/514 cars, and was mildly disturbed by how eerily quiet the street was. It definitely seems quite strange.

But I would like to stress that there needs to be much better education and/or enforcement of pedestrians ignoring the right advance signals. King and University was a disaster. Dozens of pedestrians crossed University during the right advance, without a care in the world. As someone that strictly obeys all the rules of the road, it disgusted me to see how ignorant so many people were.

Not only that, but it’s only a matter of time until someone gets hurt by a right-turning car that has the right of way.

Are police enforcing the pilot talking to pedestrians at all?

 

[crs1026]

I saw a lot of this: pedestrians jumping into the intersection from force of habit, then stopping when they realise the light hasn't gone to 'walk', wondering (in genuine confusion) what is wrong with the pedestrian light.....and taxi's (who by and large have figured out the rules, and aren't the most numerous offenders) educating them with their horns. And the odd suit just ignoring everything and jaywalking, as always.

I found that several times I instinctively started into the intersection when the light changed.... and I was there with my camera trying to catch others messing up. It's not an easy habit to break. So I'm not willing to criticise quite yet. It's a learning process.....

- Paul

 

[pstogios]

I saw a lot of this: pedestrians jumping into the intersection from force of habit, then stopping when they realise the light hasn't gone to 'walk', wondering (in genuine confusion) what is wrong with the pedestrian light.....and taxi's (who by and large have figured out the rules, and aren't the most numerous offenders) educating them with their horns. And the odd suit just ignoring everything and jaywalking, as always.

I found that several times I instinctively started into the intersection when the light changed.... and I was there with my camera trying to catch others messing up. It's not an easy habit to break. So I'm not willing to criticise quite yet. It's a learning process.....

- Paul

I too have caught myself, and observed many others, taking a step or two into the intersection, thinking the walk signal will immediately come on, and then walking back into the sidewalk.

What I observed was different. I should have taken a video. I literally saw maybe 30 people crossing University on the north side of King during the right advance signal without a care in the world. They did not step out too early and then step back.

This has to stop.