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King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

turbanplanner said:
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.
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The question was about street parking, not spots in garages
 
evandyk said:
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.
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how many cities are in Canada where you have strong property rights?
 
Countless Western countries (Australia, Spain, UK) with strong property rights seem able to re-design major streets transit/pedestrians only yet in Toronto some people seem to come up with an endless list of reasons why we can't. This is very doable but requires creativity and being pedestrian focused.

We talk about pedestrianizing but when it comes to implementation we're still in the mindset of accommodating both people and cars. On Bloor Street we could have a fantastic public realm with a generous sidewalk but miss the mark by bowing to auto-centric people who demand on-street parking; on a street with a subway line no less. It's endlessly frustrating.

Most of our 4 lane roads downtown will have to be re-worked as 2 lane roads with much wider sidewalks OR no cars at all. Given how auto-centric the culture is in Canada, I suspect we'll all be long dead and buried before we realize our urban potential.
 
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turbanplanner said:
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.
Click to expand...
Respectfully, I think you are inventing a problem that wouldn't exist for the city. Land parcels are defined by area and not by parking spaces. You can refer to your local land survey for reference.
Perhaps you are thinking of Torontonians with "parking pads", however they are leasing part of the public boulevard from the city for iirc $296/year, so the city would simply no longer charge these people.
Parking spots in condos are also treated as land parcels. Regardless, I do not think these people would have a claim against the city as there would be no reduction in their land area nor easement/expropriation required on the city's part to convert a public boulevard.

turbanplanner said:
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?
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Source for this take? I lived in Sydney for years and never noticed any kind of dramatic discrepancy in property rights there, again not that they would "owe" anyone for their land that they happened to be using for parking anyway.
 
isaidso said:
Countless Western countries (Australia, Spain, UK) with strong property rights seem able to re-design major streets transit/pedestrians only yet in Toronto some people seem to come up with an endless list of reasons why we can't. This is very doable but requires creativity and being pedestrian focused.

We talk about pedestrianizing but when it comes to implementation we're still in the mindset of accommodating both people and cars. On Bloor Street we could have a fantastic public realm with a generous sidewalk but miss the mark by bowing to auto-centric people who demand on-street parking; on a street with a subway line no less. It's endlessly frustrating.

Most of our 4 lane roads downtown will have to be re-worked as 2 lane roads with much wider sidewalks OR no cars at all. Given how auto-centric the culture is in Canada, I suspect we'll all be long dead and buried before we realize our urban potential.
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Australians have much less freedoms than Canada, same with the UK. I can't speak for Spain though.
Bloor is one of only a few streets that passes through all of downtown and extends past the core
 
felix123 said:
Respectfully, I think you are inventing a problem that wouldn't exist for the city. Land parcels are defined by area and not by parking spaces. You can refer to your local land survey for reference.
Perhaps you are thinking of Torontonians with "parking pads", however they are leasing part of the public boulevard from the city for iirc $296/year, so the city would simply no longer charge these people.
Parking spots in condos are also treated as land parcels. Regardless, I do not think these people would have a claim against the city as there would be no reduction in their land area nor easement/expropriation required on the city's part to convert a public boulevard.



Source for this take? I lived in Sydney for years and never noticed any kind of dramatic discrepancy in property rights there, again not that they would "owe" anyone for their land that they happened to be using for parking anyway.
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You really think those land parcels (the spots) becoming useless would not bring a court case? Look at the metrolinx case where a mechanics shop is heavily polluted and they wanted to expropriate it for $0.
 
Amazing trend I'm seeing growing on King Street, and was wondering if others have noticed this: drive around the stopped bus car/streetcar on the wrong side of the road.

I've definitely seen it happen on some very rare occasions in the past many years, but now it seems way more common. I've seen it three times this week, including on my commute home just now when two cars decided to go around the bus on the left while stopped at Jarvis St to pass it. I saw it happen once last week too.
 
evandyk said:
It has been common in Toronto for a while now to go around obstructions in your lane by driving in the opposing lane. The police don't care about that any more than they care about running red lights or gridlocking intersections.
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The lack of police enforcement is a problem - and only encourages the attitude that it's okay to do stuff.

Though driving on the wrong side of the road I haven't seen happening (except perhaps were appropriate - i.e. very slowly with little traffic around, and a broken down streetcar). The last time I encountered someone trying it (decided to overtake everyone on Coxwell, to get to a corner store driveway), they managed to get pinned in by the oncoming traffic when the light changed, with lots of honking, and the police were pulling up seconds later ... though that was a few years ago, and the police car was one of those who'd been blocked. I've certainly seen less regard for one-way streets - which just blows my mind. Or for no left turn signs ... and a massive sense of entitlement when you call someone out for ignoring no turn signs.

For overtaking on King ... that would be 3 demerit points - so that will get expensive quick if there's ever any enforcement. I don't understand why the city and police can't create a seperate police unit for traffic enforcement, like they do with parking enforcement. No one has ever accused the Toronto Police of failing to enforce paying at parking meters!
 
nfitz said:
For overtaking on King ... that would be 3 demerit points - so that will get expensive quick if there's ever any enforcement. I don't understand why the city and police can't create a seperate police unit for traffic enforcement, like they do with parking enforcement. No one has ever accused the Toronto Police of failing to enforce paying at parking meters!
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To be honest, even parking enforcement is pretty lax these days. On the few occasions I drive I sometimes forget to pay because I'm trying to hustle a three year old out of my car to some destination and I've gotten one ticket in the last few years. I would say it's somewhat at the point where never paying for parking and just accepting the occasional ticket probably makes financial sense (though I'm a law abiding citizen and think parking should be way more expensive, so try to remember to pay).
 
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