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King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

44 North said:
I clicked the link from yesterday but only saw docs from the summer. In a nutshell, what exactly is the pilot project for King? Edit. That was kind of a vague question. I more meant do they have a short, short-list of their options yet and are ready to implement? Or are we pretty much at square one?
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The Public Meeting will likely shed some light on that. Every other project keeps its material under wraps until the PIC meetings, why would this initiative be any different?

The documents in the Resource Tab are global policy, yes, but they show updates as recent as December. There is a lot of meat in the general planning strategy for the downtown. I expect they have been pretty busy putting that forward, and the King segment clearly fits within that. Looks like a lot of orderly planning thought.

It's tempting to cry "Just get on with it" - but it may be a lot easier to get through Council especially the suburban councillors if it is shielded by this general vision, which makes it clear that we aren't serving a few strip malls and a Metro store with all this. Assuming the report back to Council stays on track, I think it's progressing well. Can't wait for the 13th.

- Paul
 
Thanks guys. I thought there was some recent document I wasn't of more or less showing a #1 choice, and it was simply a matter of voting->implementing. And with this being a "pilot" it'd be a simple low-cost solution (e.g painting zebra pattern on the tracks and posting more aggressive signage).
 
ADRM said:
Just a really stupid, ignorant comment that doesn't really warrant further discussion on this thread.
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https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...-redesign-king-street-and-quickly-keenan.html

I would love someone to do a FOI request on how much money has been spent. It's been over a year where they have hired 4 firms (3 global ones that would cost a lot of money) to do the heavy lifting. She promised spring of 2017. She failed to meet her deadline. She now suggests a 12 month project will be 9 months late and questioning her execution skills are ignorant? I would be fired from my job if I deliver that late.

How much has been spent? How much longer until we are at another election cycle where this idea is shelved and reopened?

We deserve a city hall that delivers on their promises. Not a city hall about talk and not about action. What we get is one that studies it for 3 years, elections start and then 1 year later another study starts again.

Get the King St transit study going. It's not a difficult decision. Financial core with no traffic and the outer edges 1 lane each way to allow access to driveways/parking lots. Remove some parking along Queen/Front/Adelaide/Richmond to allow for more traffic. Then we can tweak it as it goes.

It'll be like 2013 all over again when nothing happened.
 
muller877 said:
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...-redesign-king-street-and-quickly-keenan.html

I would love someone to do a FOI request on how much money has been spent. It's been over a year where they have hired 4 firms (3 global ones that would cost a lot of money) to do the heavy lifting. She promised spring of 2017. She failed to meet her deadline. She now suggests a 12 month project will be 9 months late and questioning her execution skills are ignorant? I would be fired from my job if I deliver that late.

How much has been spent? How much longer until we are at another election cycle where this idea is shelved and reopened?

We deserve a city hall that delivers on their promises. Not a city hall about talk and not about action. What we get is one that studies it for 3 years, elections start and then 1 year later another study starts again.

Get the King St transit study going. It's not a difficult decision. Financial core with no traffic and the outer edges 1 lane each way to allow access to driveways/parking lots. Remove some parking along Queen/Front/Adelaide/Richmond to allow for more traffic. Then we can tweak it as it goes.

It'll be like 2013 all over again when nothing happened.
Click to expand...

The Planning department, and Keesmaat herself, are bureaucrats. They take their direction and receive their funding from Council and from the mayor's office. If you don't like the speed at which they're able to conduct their business, or their sense of prioritization, start by questioning their bosses whom you've elected rather than blithely assuming they're incompetent and demanding their firing.
 
ADRM said:
The Planning department, and Keesmaat herself, are bureaucrats. They take their direction and receive their funding from Council and from the mayor's office. If you don't like the speed at which they're able to conduct their business, or their sense of prioritization, start by questioning their bosses whom you've elected rather than blithely assuming they're incompetent and demanding their firing.
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This reminds me of a Council member who was whining on Twitter about a 115 year old heritage building getting torn down, because City Planning didn't move quickly enough to stop it. People then pointed out out to her that she voted against providing more staff to City Planning, even though it somehow would've come at no cost taxpayers. Her response: City Planning should've diverted resources from other projects to deal with this.

You get what you pay for.
 
ADRM said:
Planning has a range of options that they will be presenting/unveiling at the public meeting at Metro Hall on February 13th. Keesmaat confirmed that at least one of those options will include zero vehicular traffic on at least a portion of King St.

But, as a general reminder, any decision here has to be approved by Council and anything that can be even tangentially considered to be impinging upon the perceived supremacy of the single-occupancy vehicle driver will be fairly close to dead on arrival with this lot.

The Pembina Institute put forth a list of options (below) that presumably will look not entirely different from the range of options Planning has assembled and will present. My prediction, given our mayor and this Council, is that we wind up only with something that looks like the "traffic restrictions" option below, and maybe one that looks like the "transit only lanes" option if the mayor throws his support behind it (and thus brings with him the cadre of councillors who consistently vote with him).

The best option ("no cars"), I believe, doesn't stand a chance with this Council, which is a crying shame. I'd of course loved to be proved wrong on that, though.

View attachment 97100
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Tory loves easy wins. I am willing to bet we will probably get Transit Only lanes with side parking removed for parts of King St - my bet is between Bathurst to Jarvis or Sherbourne. I too do not see a complete transit mall with no cars, but we sort of already have a Transit Only lane for King during rush hour - just that no one cares. Removing side parking, better signage, and better enforcement is all very do-able within a short period of time.
 
nhui06 said:
Tory loves easy wins. I am willing to bet we will probably get Transit Only lanes with side parking removed for parts of King St - my bet is between Bathurst to Jarvis or Sherbourne. I too do not see a complete transit mall with no cars, but we sort of already have a Transit Only lane for King during rush hour - just that no one cares. Removing side parking, better signage, and better enforcement is all very do-able within a short period of time.
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I don't really know what to expect. Every once in a while, Tory does surprise us, with Rail Deck Park and road tolls.

Anyways, if the streetcars get cameras to photograph cars illegally in the lane, I believe this could be effective.
 
salsa said:
The car idiots are making noise already. Seriously, you gotta see this.

"City Hall may bar cars from King St. and turn that critical downtown artery over to lumbering streetcars and the bicycult."

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/01/26/banning-cars-from-king-street-in-toronto-would-be-a-real-drag
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That article predictably included a very Sun-esque bit of misogyny: "She won my Hotties of City Hall contest (Rob Ford won the men’s division) a couple of years back, but it’s been all downhill since."

The whole thing is pretty much straight out of the Luddite handbook, which is basically Strobel's style guide.
 
I love

"Imagine trying to drive home to your loving family with yet another east-west escape route gone"

No, I can't imagine doing that. There are already too many cars trying to do that. With one person in each vehicle.

- Paul
 
salsa said:
The car idiots are making noise already. Seriously, you gotta see this.

"City Hall may bar cars from King St. and turn that critical downtown artery over to lumbering streetcars and the bicycult."

http://www.torontosun.com/2017/01/26/banning-cars-from-king-street-in-toronto-would-be-a-real-drag
Click to expand...

"She won my Hotties of City Hall contest (Rob Ford won the men’s division) a couple of years back, but it’s been all downhill since."
Click to expand...

What a piece of shit. Don't care if I get a warning over my poor language. It's warranted
 
jameskoole said:
Why don't they start by enforcing the HOV rules that are already signed along King St.? Streetcars and taxis only during rush hour. Even some of the street HOV diamonds are still there.
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They haven't returned to using cobblestones between the streetcar tracks because of the auto-addicted single-occupant 905ers.

streetcar-tracks-and-cobblestones-picture-id520449548


If they did, that would nudge the motor vehicles of the streetcar tracks, especially if they are supposed to be high-occupancy lanes. A single-occupant is not high (allegedly).
 
Reecemartin said:
I find it incredible that media can pump out lies like this in our current political situation globally. It really amazes me how they can be so openly anti-reason.
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It's a very tongue-in-cheek column and supposed to be taken with a grain of salt. All his writing is like that. Strobel actually lives downtown (which he writes about), so his supposed anti-urban rhetoric is more like gentle joshing. And TBH it's a lot more tolerable than some of that site's former columnists.
 
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