King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

[steveintoronto]

If so many drivers are already ignoring the rules with police watching, I have little hope that we’re going to continue to enjoy fast streetcar times once the police are gone.

If the City wants this to work, then it's going to have to be Red Light Cameras.

I found biking through the Bathurst intersection somewhat difficult with cars trying to make lefts and rights from behind me, and the streetcar interchange in front of me.

And you're an adept cyclist. I worry for those who aren't serious cyclists. For those not able to assert themselves, Bathurst and Spadina both present serious hazards. The City is encouraging cyclists along King, yet doing nothing to ensure their safety.

 

[44 North]

Police enforcement will be winding down on King Street this week:

https://twitter.com/to_transport/status/933783523512733696

Free-flowing King transit might have only lasted a week, but we’ll have fond memories of this time forever!

Wait, wut. Why would they announce this publicly? Maybe the City should also tweet out hourly speedtrap locations while they're at it.

Seems like typical enforcement to me. No wonder traffic is so bad in this city.

Enforcement here does seem pretty lax overall. Go to Mtl and it's apparent pretty quick that traffic cops don't joke around. Even with a work-to-rule, you'll have guys/gals in pink fatigues yelling or blowing their whistles. Don't see much of that here.

 

[steveintoronto]

Wait, wut. Why would they announce this publicly? Maybe the City should also tweet out hourly speedtrap locations while they're at it.

This has always been the plan. I can't find it by Googling now, but the then head of the Toronto Police Services Board made a public statement of alarm that this would happen, and that Council had best appropriate a budget for the cost of policing this. I posted it in this string, so if someone knows how to do a site search on this string, it's here.

As to why this has taken so many by surprise is alarming in itself. Yes, we're reaching a crisis point, and then you get the naysayers telling some of us how alarmist we are.

It's classic! And as one of the other posters here continually points out, the proof of this happening is that King has had no left turns or parking for years now, and it was never enforced.

So figure it out folks! Self control and compliance never happened before, how in the world do you think it will happen now?

Get used to this magic incantation, as it's the only way to make this work: Red Light Cameras. Cops ain't comin' back, City's too cheap and self absorbed to realize what's going to happen. For the sake of a couple of Million $ the City is willing to let this golden opportunity crash and burn. Penny wise, and just fugging stupid...

 

[micheal_can]

Doesn't the city collect money from those tickets?

 

[MetroMan]

This pilot has really laid bare how bad Toronto drivers are — either deliberately or through sheer incompetence.

Passengers in my car sometimes ask me why I slow down at intersections, even if I have a green light. Voila.

 

[steveintoronto]

This pilot has really laid bare how bad Toronto drivers are — either deliberately or through sheer incompetence.

It actually has a degree of recklessness. Of all the societies to note this about Toronto drivers it's odd the Ozzies do, as they're not risk averse, by any means, yet almost every Aussie I've met has commented on "speeding". In Oz, evidently, a society of jocks and honchos, it's just not acceptable to drive recklessly or speed.

Red Light Cameras aren't just an option on King. They're a necessity.

 

[steveintoronto]

Doesn't the city collect money from those tickets?

Which ones? Parking? Unless it's under the HTA, yes. Munis pass and enforce parking bylaws. (Edit: Even though these are heard in a Provincial Court, the municipality pays for that! So the actual surplus can be minimal if one at all) If an offence is under the HTA, (a "driving" offence) the Province gets the intake, *unless*...like Red Light Cameras, the legislation states that the muni gets a share or the entirety. All been linked and discussed here in the last few pages.

Q

Where do the fines go?
A $260.00 goes to the City of Toronto and the Province of Ontario collects $60.00 as a Victim Fine Surcharge and $5.00 in court costs.

https://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/...nnel=17324074781e1410VgnVCM10000071d60f89RCRD

Due to this, by necessity, being an ownership fine, demerits aren't deducted with a Red Light Camera conviction. But the owners get whacked financially, and the City gets most of that.

All the more reason for Red Light Cameras. King needs them at major intersections, pilot or not, so why doesn't the City just do this right to begin with? This very same section I've linked states:

Q

What is the cost of a red light camera?
A A red light camera system costs approximately $100,000.

Do the math...that would be one of the best investments on King the City could make. But that would require the City knowing what it's doing...bit of a stretch.

 

[salsa]

Police enforcement will be winding down on King Street this week:

https://twitter.com/to_transport/status/933783523512733696

Free-flowing King transit might have only lasted a week, but we’ll have fond memories of this time forever!

Wait, wut. Why would they announce this publicly? Maybe the City should also tweet out hourly speedtrap locations while they're at it.

It's almost as if someone wants this pilot to fail.

 

[steveintoronto]

It's almost as if someone wants this pilot to fail.

Wow. Thanks for that, as I start second-guessing my comments on this, and those of others who are alarmed. Munro is as close to being an objective observer as anyone. All well and good to state: "Give it time" as it slowly slips over the cliff...

Munro sees almost exactly the same as many of us do.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

I really hate being right sometimes. When the chosen design was announced, I said right away that it depended too heavily on drivers obeying the rules and that many wouldn’t. Bingo. I said that police enforcement would last 2 weeks and the they’d just go back to ignoring rule breakers. Bingo. I really hope I’m not right about this last one: once the threat of enforcement is gone, drivers will go back to the old layout, regardless of posted signs.

If so many drivers are already ignoring the rules with police watching, I have little hope that we’re going to continue to enjoy fast streetcar times once the police are gone.

It would be fairly easy to mount a public protest to ensure drivers follow the rules again.

AoD

 

[MetroMan]

It would be fairly easy to mount a public protest to ensure drivers follow the rules again.

AoD

You might be on to something. It could be framed along the lines of escalating deaths by drivers and how Toronto police aren’t enforcing the rules. Toronto cops are the highest paid in the world and in a city of low crime with such low police visibility, it’s outrageous that they can’t find it in themselves to enforce the rules of the road.

I got video of cops driving behind cars going illegally through the intersection without stopping them and it’s (unfortunately) very easy to sit at any intersection and get cars driving through reds, making illegal left turns, etc. The media would eat this up if we mounted a serious effort to protest the police to change the culture of ignoring the rules.

 

[DSC]

It would be fairly easy to mount a public protest to ensure drivers follow the rules again.

AoD

Enforcement of rules (traffic, transit etc) does not usually mean that you get caught EVERY time you break them. Each situation is different but one wants to make people think that they will PROBABLY be caught and to police themselves. I do not think that the police will never enforce the new traffic rules on KING, only that they will not be there 24/7. The problem on King is, I think, not that (most) people are consciously breaking the rules but that most do not see the (very poor and easy to miss) signage! Improve the signage (as is apparently underway) and much of the problem will disappear.

 

[darth_freeman]

The weekend should be interesting, both from a business and traffic standpoint.

With out of towners not knowing the rules and locals avoiding king it could turn into a ghost town.

All to save weekday commuters 3 minutes!

 

[TOareaFan]

Enforcement of rules (traffic, transit etc) does not usually mean that you get caught EVERY time you break them. Each situation is different but one wants to make people think that they will PROBABLY be caught and to police themselves.

I view this through the eyes of someone that measures risk a lot.......when someone lends money they are measuring the likelihood of default and and the probability of loss (financial cost) in the event of default.

I think you an apply that to situations like King....if you are not going to enforce regularly, increase the penatlty of getting caught.....so drivers will be measuring the risk (likelihood) of getting caught....and the financial penalty of getting caught.

Even if the chance of getting caught breaking the rules is low.....if the cost for breaking them is very high you will get a different result.

 

[crs1026]

If I were the mayor of a major city and I had invested political capital in something controversial, the inability of various civic agencies to get on board and support the thing and work as an integrated team towards it would be a red flag.
And if the most obvious source of resistance were the upper levels of an overresourced and entitled police force whose nose was already out of joint because there was growing public questioning of their huge budget, and their meagre support for my project amounted to a bureaucratic work-to-rule.....it would get ugly.
But I’m not mayor, and John Tory is. He may be able to backpedal his way out of this (“I’m sorry, I tried”) but the message sent about his lack of backbone may well be the beginning of the end for his hold on the mayoralty.
Doug Ford might not support a transit mall, but if he supported some other project that required a dozen or two police officers, and the police brass blew him off.....there would be a showdown. And Doug would win.

- Paul