King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

[MetroMan]

Keesmaat is playing coy.

She liked my Tweet calling for an option that gives streetcars a dedicated ROW and pedestrians a wider sidewalk. Only the Alternating Loops option does that. It was her preferred option.

I guess we're going to have to wait until May 18.

 

[MetroMan]

Unless the murals are meant to represent the extended sidewalk, which would be faster & cheaper than pouring new concrete since this is only a pilot? (Not that I don't share your cynicism w/r/t the City and transit.)

I think this could be it. Reading the tweet again, she said that murals will be used for the #KingStreetPilot. She didn't say that they'd be used in the final King Street transit mall.

It makes sense to use the murals as a representation of the future extended sidewalks.

 

[Johnny Au]

The safety murals could have been made in the form of trompe-l'œil.

That would be interesting.

 

[adHominem]

The safety murals could have been made in the form of trompe-l'œil.

That would be interesting.

Like a Wile-E-Coyote-style fake pit in the road? That's one way to discourage drivers!

 

[gweed123]

I think this could be it. Reading the tweet again, she said that murals will be used for the #KingStreetPilot. She didn't say that they'd be used in the final King Street transit mall.

It makes sense to use the murals as a representation of the future extended sidewalks.

Good deduction. That would certainly minimize the infrastructure requirements. I stand to be corrected, but when Ryerson did the pilot for closing part of Gould St, they in essence did the same thing, where they just put up big planters at either end but didn't actually touch the roadway or the sidewalks.

Hopefully the solution involves using the existing street as the sidewalk, and then allowing restaurants along the street to occupy the entire sidewalk instead of just part of it. That would be a great way to get them on board for a permanent solution (give them more patio space).

 

[MetroMan]

Good deduction. That would certainly minimize the infrastructure requirements. I stand to be corrected, but when Ryerson did the pilot for closing part of Gould St, they in essence did the same thing, where they just put up big planters at either end but didn't actually touch the roadway or the sidewalks.

Hopefully the solution involves using the existing street as the sidewalk, and then allowing restaurants along the street to occupy the entire sidewalk instead of just part of it. That would be a great way to get them on board for a permanent solution (give them more patio space).

If they choose the Alternating Loops option, it would make sense to ensure that one of the alternating sidewalk expansions occurred on the south side of King between Peter and John to give Restaurant Row restaurants full width patios that don't squeeze pedestrians off the sidewalk as they do now.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

To the contrary, Keesmaat is pushing for these so called "streetcar safety murals" as of last November. They will be installed directly on the road, and I assume will include other routes besides King.



View attachment 108020


Article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/streetcar-safety-murals-toronto-1.3870025

Does anyone know if they figured out what size vehicles they would make these for. Like would they be CLRV sized, AlRV Sized or the size of a Flex?

 

[MetroMan]

I really just want to see separated streetcar lanes with much better transit signaling priority. The problem all along has been the outrageous public transit travel times on King and the inability of the streetcar in its current form to respond to high ridership... I really don't care for any widening of the sidewalks if this is going put the streetcars in the same lanes with the cars. Let's just focus on the actual problem here, instead of throwing in a bunch of peripheral improvements. Sidewalks could be better but they are fine.

Streetcars being stuck behind cars is just one of the problems on King. Hundreds of thousands of people have moved and are moving into condos clustered around King. The narrow sidewalks that barely supported the daytime downtown office population now also have to support all those new residents. The sidewalks must be widened. It's not an either streetcars or pedestrians choice, it must be both.

The Alternating Loops option addresses both problems.

 

[salsa]

Oliver Moore scoop: first look at Toronto's plans for King St, to be formally unveiled on Wednesday.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...ive-up-to-itsname/article34976015/?cmpid=rss1

 

[rbt]

Oliver Moore scoop: first look at Toronto's plans for King St, to be formally unveiled on Wednesday.

Thanks.

After all this talk I still don't understand how they enforce the no-through traffic rule without a cop sitting at several intersections.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Perhaps physical barriers can be installed to prevent people from driving straight through

 

[Megaton327]

Perhaps physical barriers can be installed to prevent people from driving straight through

Where? Cars need to be able to enter and exit via right turns, so you can't put the barriers in the curb lane at the near or far side of the intersection. The only place you could put them is in the centreline of the intersection, in the curb lane, but then you're blocking pedestrians and cars can always use the centre (streetcar) lane to go straight instead.

 

[TheKingEast]

I take the King and Queen streetcar. It mistifies me how the city bends over for motorists at the expense of transit. Every day, there are cars on University, Yonge, Jarvis, basically any intersection during rush hour with cars blocking the bloody intersection and keeping the streetcars at a standstill. How is it not an utomatic ticket to block traffic? Such a simple solution and these fools can't even figure it out.

Time to make some meaningful changes. Enough with having streetcars sharing lanes with cars. Give the streetcars their own dedicated lane and if it means you have to ban cars along Queen and King during certain hours, then so be it. Murals? WTF?

 

[MetroMan]

EDIT: Upon closer inspection, this is Option 3: Transit Promenade:

It's the compromise option. Maybe city staff shopped the options around and found that they couldn't get council to agree to such a drastic move, so they chose the one that doesn't really fix the problem.

Streetcars will still be sharing a lane with cars who have to zigzag around sidewalk bumps and parked cars. Not allowing through traffic is going to be confusing as hell since there'll be an open lane straight ahead. If you thought Queens Quay was confusing...

I can see it now. There's going to be a whole lot of streetcars honking at cars waiting in the streetcar lane to go straight ahead or make an illegal left turn and there's going to be cars stuck in the intersection waiting to make a right turn into the single lane that might be occupied by a streetcar at the stop. This has confusion spelled all over it.

 

[MetroMan]

Where? Cars need to be able to enter and exit via right turns, so you can't put the barriers in the curb lane at the near or far side of the intersection. The only place you could put them is in the centreline of the intersection, in the curb lane, but then you're blocking pedestrians and cars can always use the centre (streetcar) lane to go straight instead.

The only way to discourage through traffic is to cap the end of each centre lane with material that only streetcars can traverse. Either a grass patch or a raised curb with cutouts for streetcar tracks. At the very least, they can make it rough cobblestone as a sensory notice. Painted lines won't do a thing.