King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

[Northern Light]

Once again, the King and Spadina was a disaster on late Saturday night. Cars constantly driving through the intersection and blocking it. Cars and taxis constantly turning left from northbound Spadina and blocking the intersection.

I have never seen such flagrant flouting of the rules of the road even in a third-world country.
That interaction is a total zoo.

Do we live in a civilized society or not? Do we have rules that should be obeyed or not? Why doesn’t anyone care about this and why isn’t anything being done about this?

Station a pair of cops there any weekend night and they’d make thousands of dollars in tickets.

I emailed 311, the King Street Pilot email, Joe Cressy and John Tory today.

Who else can I contact?

The Media.

Generating even one story that gets significant play in a major daily or a six o'clock newscast will do more to spur political action that the most thoughtful email to a politician (typically).

By all means keep writing to the pols, it can't hurt, but media are a proven attention-getter.

Also, a word here, when writing, consider arguments that are upside for politicians or bureaucrats.

You're doing so when you talk about making money, but how about including a conservative estimate of how much money?

ie., looking at this story... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...istics-drivers-violations-five-days-1.4423233

This suggests a modest investment in officers grosses 140 tickets a day @ $110 per ticket.

That's a gross take of $15,400 per day.

The story doesn't detail the costs of the officers but my guess in the vicinity of $4,000 per day.

Conservatively, that's a net of $10,000 a day; or $100,000 every 2 weeks.

Don't forget to tell a politician what that could buy! At six months of steady enforcement that's $2,600,000 or enough to bring Sunday service to every library in the City
w/money leftover.

Also do write to bureaucrats directly, not all care, but many do, and if you give them good arguments to marshall resources, they just might use them.

Barbara Gray is general manager of the city's Transportation Services.

Look for the project leads for TTC and urban planning as well.

 

[steveintoronto]

Drivers regularly ignoring new traffic rules on King

A survey done by the Star suggests drivers could be violating streetcar project’s through-traffic prohibitions hundreds of times a day.

 

[steveintoronto]

That’s good to know. Toronto should hire a fleet of these special constables to patrol our streets since the police aren’t. Instruct the police to stick to criminal matters and adjust their budget as necessary.

From the Star article linked prior post:

According to Const. Clint Stibbe of traffic services, police have no current plans to step up enforcement. “The pilot is still early, for now the service will continue to monitor and enforce the rules on King Street at the current levels,” he said in an email.

He said police enforce the pilot rules “when officers are available” and that deployment to the project area varies based on calls for service. He noted that the majority of drivers on King do obey the rules.

Something's got to give. From the inception, this string was alerted to the fact that TPS have been stating all along that they don't have a budget for this. The chair of the TPS Board is on record of making a point on that to the press and Council.

 

[aquateam]

Once again, the King and Spadina was a disaster on late Saturday night. Cars constantly driving through the intersection and blocking it. Cars and taxis constantly turning left from northbound Spadina and blocking the intersection.

I have never seen such flagrant flouting of the rules of the road even in a third-world country.
That interaction is a total zoo.

Do we live in a civilized society or not? Do we have rules that should be obeyed or not? Why doesn’t anyone care about this and why isn’t anything being done about this?

Station a pair of cops there any weekend night and they’d make thousands of dollars in tickets.

I emailed 311, the King Street Pilot email, Joe Cressy and John Tory today.

Who else can I contact?

In light of all of this, there was actually some enforcement on King during the weekend. Two officers on bikes were stationed at King & Spadina and ticketed at least 3 drivers in the span of 5 minutes that I was there. Some cars even made a U-turn in the middle of the intersection to avoid them. Why they didn't get ticketed for impeding the flow of traffics I don't know.

I was driving south on Spadina around 3 AM last Saturday night... traffic was not moving at all between Queen and King because of all the taxis going west on King blocking the intersection. I don't think I've ever been in a traffic jam at that hour.
I should have taken a picture to show you guys but I figured there were enough drivers flouting the rules of the road.

 

[pstogios]

The Media.

...

Barbara Gray is general manager of the city's Transportation Services.

Look for the project leads for TTC and urban planning as well.

Thanks for the advice.

I’m going to take some video next time I see this zoo and send it to a bunch of reporters that cover transportation issues.

I’ll also contact some people at Transportation Services.

Is it worth contacting the Police? It’s clear they don’t care much about enforcement.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Drivers regularly ignoring new traffic rules on King

A survey done by the Star suggests drivers could be violating streetcar project’s through-traffic prohibitions hundreds of times a day.

Where the hell are our traffic wardens to help on this

Also:

According to the latest statistics published by the city, car volume on King has plummeted since the start of the pilot. The number of eastbound drivers at Bathurst between 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. has fallen from 1,450 to just 100. There has been minimal effect on traffic on adjacent streets, with travel time on most of the routes varying by less than a minute, and drive time on some streets actually improving.
​

Ahhh, the inverse if induced demand. Isn't it wonderful. The traffic just evaporated once we removed the road. I wonder if this lesson can be applied to other roads?

 

[steveintoronto]

Where the hell are our traffic wardens to help on this

Had a researched post composed, and evil goblins ate it. I'm not happy with latest version Chromium's browser tabs. Toggling is a nightmare. Very few browsers now-days are set-up to allow easy toggling to compose messages. Clicking on the tabs when you're busy is just as likely to close them as open them.

Synopsis of what I had is this: Toronto Police Services, Chief Saunders, published a letter of request last August and discussed in a public forum to appoint more Special Constables for public housing. The letter referenced the TTC Constables as well, their powers, and limitations within their legal mandate.

Long story short, I connected it to the HTA Pilot Project section (last section in the latest HTA version).

With caveats: Tory can request the Transport Minister to declare the King Pilot as having standing under the HTA, and not only with the established powers Special Constables can have, but with new ones. (Edit to clarify further: "New Powers" in terms of present powers under the Police Act *applied in new and unique ways* to the Pilot)

Rather than surmise, I'll try and find my reference and detail later.

Bottom line: The present situation is not only fugged up, *apparently* it can be addressed as per enforcement in very simple ways legally. And all it would take is an official request from Tory (it might take a motion of Council, looking into that) to request Powers (as used for Automated Vehicles, for instance, an addendum to the HTA) being applied to the King Pilot Project. (Edit: This would last for ten years under the terms laid out in the HTA, and God help us, the City will have gotten its act together within that time for permanent status)

The only reason I can find to not do this is the small cost of hiring those constables. How freakin' cheap is this city? (I may have missed some legal caveats, will detail more later)

Addendum: References, will tie these together later:

PART XVI

PILOT PROJECTS

Pilot projects
228 (1) The Lieutenant Governor in Council may by regulation authorize or establish a project for research into or the testing or evaluation of any matter governed by this Act or relevant to highway traffic. 2005, c. 26, Sched. A, s. 33 (1).

https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90h08

Saunders' letter:

Background / Purpose: Under Section 53 of the Police Services Act of Ontario, the Board is authorized to appoint and re-appoint special constables, subject to the approval of the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services. Pursuant to this authority, the Board now has agreements with the University of Toronto (U of T), Toronto Community Housing Corporation (T.C.H.C.) and Toronto Transit Commission (T.T.C.) governing the administration of special constables (Min. Nos. P571/94, P41/98 and P154/14 refer).

http://www.tpsb.ca/images/agenda_Public_August24.pdf

For purpose of comparison as to the latitude available under the HTA by "regulation of the Lieutenant Governor" (effectively, the Transport Minister)

O. Reg. 306/15: PILOT PROJECT - AUTOMATED VEHICLES
under Highway Traffic Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8
https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/150306

And then there's the "Red Light Camera" legislation, already linked and discussed prior in this string. The City's status is already well-established legally to using that. And under the legislation, the municipality keeps most of the fine. But I digress...it makes too much sense to appeal to the City.

 

[MetroMan]

 

[W. K. Lis]

Enough with the "warnings". Ticket and fine them, already! Better to put in the intersection cameras, except it would upset the suburban councillors and suburban MPP's.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

I wonder what proportion of drivers are disobeying the rules (as opposed to an absolute number)

 

[MetroMan]

Enough with the "warnings". Ticket and fine them, already! Better to put in the intersection cameras, except it would upset the suburban councillors and suburban MPP's.

Cameras cannot be used to issue infractions with the notable exception of red light cameras.

I wonder what proportion of drivers are disobeying the rules (as opposed to an absolute number)

Anecdotally, it's very high. You can stand at an intersection like Portland or Peter at any time of the day and see a majority of cars going through. At major intersections like University or Yonge, it's pretty easy to spot cars going through illegally and if one goes, all the others follow.

 

[DSC]

Cameras cannot be used to issue infractions with the notable exception of red light cameras.



Anecdotally, it's very high. You can stand at an intersection like Portland or Peter at any time of the day and see a majority of cars going through. At major intersections like University or Yonge, it's pretty easy to spot cars going through illegally and if one goes, all the others follow.

Yes, cars ARE going through on King but it is only a small % of the cars CURRENTLY driving on King and a TINY % of the cars that USED to drive on King. Of course, I am in favour of much clearer signage and more enforcement but let's not exaggerate the scale of the problem.

 

[BMO]

So, I agree that there are cars that are not complying with the signage....however I'm struggling to understand how any of those vehicles fundamentally slowed down transit at any of the intersections. The purpose of this pilot is to increase transit speed. I just don't see how some vehicles going straight are slowing transit down at all. It's different if all these vehicles were making left-turns. I'm not arguing that people should not follow the rules, but at the end of the day are these drivers inhibiting the pilot form achieving its goals? Is a cyclist who blows through a stop sign inhibiting the intersection's ability to stop cars? If the video was taken on a Weekend night when Taxis are exempt and ACTUALLY cause issues I'd be way more on-board with that being the focus. I just don't see how these few bad apples are fundamentally causing an issue during the peak hours.

 

[steveintoronto]

So, I agree that there are cars that are not complying with the signage....however I'm struggling to understand how any of those vehicles fundamentally slowed down transit at any of the intersections. [...]

Strategic objectives besides, which is a glaring issue I'll allow others to address (I will if they won't) I thought about exactly your point yesterday, and here's the dilemma it presents:

Why should law-abiding and rule observant citizens have to take the shitty end of the sacrifice stick when ignorant, selfish morons totally ignore what is being paid for by others to do as they like? Gee, I won't pay my taxes. Nation won't suffer...

Let me rephrase it this way: Would you allow a significant minority to push into the front of your line-up for food or service because "it's not slowing down the line"? (Which it is, btw).

I'd answer very carefully, as Toronto the Good has long ago started to disappear. Are we now at the point of 'just overlooking' cheating? Btw: For the record, as an avid cyclist myself, it's a tactical error to allow cyclists to use the Pilot in any way more than cars are allowed. There are sections that must be *streetcar-only*. And yes, that means no-pedestrian zones on the tracks between marked crosswalks with signals. And cyclists and pedestrians don't mix, unless the cyclist dismounts, which many don't because they too are ignorant self-serving morons. King street just doesn't have the width to cater to all.

If this project is to work as planned, *enforcement* is the only way to do it. That being said, the time improvement now claimed is suspect, and the hype as to how "successful" this is works to destroy this effort. It needs a LOT more work and investment. And compliance with what will help get it there isn't optional. It's required.

 

[TOareaFan]

This morning I was driving northbound on Portland...a couple of cars behind a TPS suv type vehicle......at King, the TPS vehicle turned left onto King and pulled over just in the westbound lane just in before the Kingly construction site.

The car between me and the TPS vehicle made it through the light and continued north on Portland....I was stopped at the light so got to see why TPS pulled over.....they waited there until a car went straight through the intersection west bound....flashing lights went on and offender was pursued and pulled over.

So, enforcement is not "zero" but maybe needs to be ramped up.