King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

[nfitz]

By banning straight through traffic how do you do deliveries to those business'?

Straight through traffic has been banned for years - and yet it's caused little issue. You just take Richmond/Adelaide/Wellington and turn onto the particular block of King.

This is just about improved signalling - not changing the layout.

 

[drum118]

By banning straight through traffic how do you do deliveries to those business'?

Drive around the block.

Having better signals and red marking as above will go a long way stopping illegally through traffic, but not all of it..

Have seen a few streetcar drivers lay on the horn for drivers trying to illegally go through the intersection in front of them or illegally making a left turn.

 

[Leo_Chan]

It's a monorail! /s

 

[lenaitch]

Could be implemented with the proper use of sensors to switch from flashing or steady red arrows.

And the requisite changes to the HTA/Regulations.

 

[evandyk]

Better snow clearing at the stops would go a long way...

 

[jmi22]

Straight through traffic has been banned for years - and yet it's caused little issue. You just take Richmond/Adelaide/Wellington and turn onto the particular block of King.

This is just about improved signalling - not changing the layout.

yep, and even if vehicle traffic was banned all together to make King a truly pedestrian/transit space (which should be the goal), laneways and back streets exist north and south of King. I've done produce delivery for grocers/restaurants and half the time we would pull into the loading bay behind the building anyways. This 'delivery dilemma' has not been an issue in the UK, Australia, France, Spain etc.

 

[Rainforest]

yep, and even if vehicle traffic was banned all together to make King a truly pedestrian/transit space (which should be the goal), laneways and back streets exist north and south of King. I've done produce delivery for grocers/restaurants and half the time we would pull into the loading bay behind the building anyways. This 'delivery dilemma' has not been an issue in the UK, Australia, France, Spain etc.

Yes, old European cities with limited space often have pedestrian malls in the centre. No regular car traffic present, but delivery vehicles can enter the mall at certain hours to make the delivery. This is not a blocker there, and shouldn't be a blocker here.

 

[Bordercollie]

Straight through traffic has been banned for years - and yet it's caused little issue. You just take Richmond/Adelaide/Wellington and turn onto the particular block of King.

This is just about improved signalling - not changing the layout.

I thought you can only travel for two blocks and then you need to turn?

 

[nfitz]

I thought you can only travel for two blocks and then you need to turn?

Pretty much. Sometimes 2-3 blocks. Sometime one.

 

[turbanplanner]

Yes, old European cities with limited space often have pedestrian malls in the centre. No regular car traffic present, but delivery vehicles can enter the mall at certain hours to make the delivery. This is not a blocker there, and shouldn't be a blocker here.

They don't have the same sorts of property rights we do. Where would the city come up with $150k or more per parking spot?

 

[W. K. Lis]

They don't have the same sorts of property rights we do. Where would the city come up with $150k or more per parking spot?

A Single Parking Space in Hong Kong Sells for $1.3 Million​

See link.

Every few years, the "most expensive parking spot" record topples because another, more absurd price has been agreed to somewhere. In 2012, the reported first million-dollar parking spot was part of some luxury condominiums in lower Manhattan, for example. The record that the Hong Kong spot just beat out was another spot in that city, which sold for just under a million dollars, $980,000, in 2019, according to Bloomberg.

Hong Kong has seen its parking costs rise like mad over the last decade. Back in 2012, Bloomberg noted that prices to buy parking spaces in Hong Kong—average residential parking spaces, not just at luxury developments—had climbed to $82,600 as the government put the brakes on home buying and rich people needed a place to put their money. Back then, the headline number for "this is the world's most expensive parking spot," was $387,000.

Parking spaces can be expensive all over the globe. In 2016, the Los Angeles Times noted that an "extra-exclusive private garage" called The Vault at the Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Springs, California. charged $110,000 for membership and $6500 a year to park there, plus a $250,000 fee to join the club and play golf there. In 2017, The Sun reported on a 400,000-pound ($566,000) underground parking space, but at least it could fit three cars and was located next to the Royal Albert Hall in London.

 

[afransen]

They don't have the same sorts of property rights we do. Where would the city come up with $150k or more per parking spot?

Who has a property right to street parking?

 

[W. K. Lis]

Who has a property right to street parking?

I don't want to park on a street when there is a driveway or garage. One could get a parking ticket, or worse.

From link.

 

[turbanplanner]

Who has a property right to street parking?

If you make the areas pedestrian only the people who own spots in garages would lose a ton of value from their parking spots becoming useless and effectively not being able to own a car (not everyone stays in the ttc boundaries)

You'd have to give them fair market value if you close the street off to cars, plus whatever not being able to own a vehicle (effectively) is worth in the eyes of a court.

 

[evandyk]

Lots of those cities ban all cars except those of residents who live there. Most of whom, if they do have a car, don't drive it all that often. In most downtowns, it's not residents who are jamming up the streets with their cars, it's people who live in the suburbs.