King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

[MetroMan]

I'm not sold on this option speeding up streetcars. Too many cars are still allowed on King, except now they're forced to use the same lane as the streetcar. My hope is that this will be a Trojan horse to eventually start closing parts of King to cars under the guise of "testing options during the pilot".

When the initial findings of the pilot are that cars are still using King and impeding streetcars, they can ban cars on certain congested segments without any parking garages during rush hour to speed up the ride for tens of thousands of commuters and eventually make them permanent.

 

[nfitz]

Absent other facts I can't understand why the Ottawa ticket was voided UNLESS the City used Quebec signs (green circle with directional arrow) rather than the mandatory direction ones in the Ontario Drivers Handbook https://www.ontario.ca/document/official-mto-drivers-handbook/signs#section-0

I don't see anything like the old Ottawa signs (though it's been a few years), nor do I see what you refer to. Can you paste in an image?

 

[drum118]

I'm not sold on this option speeding up streetcars. Too many cars are still allowed on King, except now they're forced to use the same lane as the streetcar. My hope is that this will be a Trojan horse to eventually start closing parts of King to cars under the guise of "testing options during the pilot".

When the initial findings of the pilot are that cars are still using King and impeding streetcars, they can ban cars on certain congested segments without any parking garages during rush hour to speed up the ride for tens of thousands of commuters and eventually make them permanent.

This plan will not speed up streetcar service as the right hand turns will backup traffic since only about 1-3 cars will be able to make a turn per light because of pedestrian traffic.

I can see cars stopping to let people out for various place as well being pickup on the tracks with taxis being the biggest problem.

If I remember correctly, there is only underground driveway in this test area at City Hall and at Bathurst-Peter St. The area between Bay and University would be the only area open for Tour Buses and food trucks, while the rest of King is close to traffic 100%. Some one way streets would have to come 2 way for one block on either side of King St. If there is a underground driveway in a block, only that block will see one way local traffic.

 

[amnesiajune]

This plan will not speed up streetcar service as the right hand turns will backup traffic since only about 1-3 cars will be able to make a turn per light because of pedestrian traffic.

The curb lane is still being maintained for right turns, so that streetcars can pass cars waiting to turn.

I can see cars stopping to let people out for various place as well being pickup on the tracks with taxis being the biggest problem.

I'm not sure how the city's going to enforce it, but there are designated pickup and dropoff zones for taxis, Uber/Lyft, couriers, etc.

 

[drum118]

The curb lane is still being maintained for right turns, so that streetcars can pass cars waiting to turn.

I'm not sure how the city's going to enforce it, but there are designated pickup and dropoff zones for taxis, Uber/Lyft, couriers, etc.

Yes the right lane is for turning, but how many vehicles will it hold until they backup onto the track and waiting to get into the curb lane?? A major problem.

Like the QQ that has designated area for drop off and pickup, you will see more vehicles stopping on King St than QQ for drop off and pickup on the tracks while blocking the streetcars. Enforcement will be a joke like it is today.

 

[MetroMan]

This plan relies way too critically on enforcement. That's a major problem in this city. Are we going to have cops permanently stationed at every intersection? An intuitive design that naturally forces traffic to follow the rules because their path forward is blocked, would have worked well here. The proposed alternating loops did this.

Good thing this is a pilot. They're going to discover pretty quickly that many drivers will not be following the new rules whether maliciously or through confusion. They'll have to flip their plan soon after first implementation.

 

[nfitz]

Yes the right lane is for turning, but how many vehicles will it hold until they backup onto the track and waiting to get into the curb lane?? A major problem.

Probably not - given you can't really get anywhere on King, how much through traffic would there be? It's not like you see nearby Mercer or Colborne Streets carrying that much traffic - so not sure why King would be much different.

 

[amnesiajune]

An intuitive design that naturally forces traffic to follow the rules because their path forward is blocked, would have worked well here. The proposed alternating loops did this.

If need be, I'm sure that they can install curbs to force traffic to turn right. I don't think it'll be necessary though. 95% of people follow the rules here. The only reason why the King streetcar-only lanes don't work is because it's not a practical rule to have - there are too many legal pickups/dropoffs and left turns for the lanes to work.

 

[LNahid2000]

95% of people follow the rules here.

lol really? Almost every time I look out my window onto the Bloor-Yonge intersection, I see people not obeying the turn restrictions or running a red light.

 

[steveintoronto]

Good thing this is a pilot. They're going to discover pretty quickly that many drivers will not be following the new rules whether maliciously or through confusion. They'll have to flip their plan soon after first implementation.

This is an interesting point, and I'm not so sure that the City is going to be reactive to the needs of fine-tuning what must be done.

Case in point?

The Bloor bike lanes, incredibly dangerous in some spots, and just a terrible lay-out through-out. The only fix I've seen applied to them is the addition of pathetic little rubber curb pieces between the pylons. It's like using a sheet of paper to stop the wind.

I fully agree, just by intuition, that drivers *must* be forced to turn where necessary by infrastructure, not signage. One only has to watch major intersections (Dundas West at Bloor a prime example) where drivers turn left illegally in droves, even though doing so across the street car tracks is only permitted on Sundays and outside of rush-hour, and is clearly posted as being banned.

 

[dowlingm]

almost every day I pass King and Bay at 5.15, someone is blocking the pedestrian crossing of Bay because they crept into the intersection as the light change. Have even seen a TTC bus do it. This disregard does not make me sanguine about the success of the pilot because I don't trust TPS to support it adequately - look at how they are giving free passes on some parking offences tomorrow.

 

[MetroMan]

If need be, I'm sure that they can install curbs to force traffic to turn right. I don't think it'll be necessary though. 95% of people follow the rules here. The only reason why the King streetcar-only lanes don't work is because it's not a practical rule to have - there are too many legal pickups/dropoffs and left turns for the lanes to work.

They can't install curbs because the streetcars still have to go through. Maybe they can cut deep rumble strips along with bright yellow paint like they did on Queens Quay to encourage cars to change to the right lane at intersections. But this is a pilot. I don't think they'll be making any permanent changes, only line paintings, planters and signs.

 

[dowlingm]

I don't know what the fine for ignoring a directional sign is, but if King St is a community safety zone then with the premium it could be quite stiff indeed.

Maybe instead of a curb there should just be a BIG sign at driver eye level in the curb lane "All traffic except TTC turn right - fine $300 if you pass this sign". Might concentrate minds.

 

[dowlingm]

On another point - one other issue with the pilot and with all "lets put out some planters" temporary schemes is GPS. Look at how that Uber blundered into the York ramp demolition - probably following GPS rather than paying attention to surroundings.

With older generation SD card systems relying on manual updates, I suspect much more of the same during the pilot.

 

[Megaton327]

On another point - one other issue with the pilot and with all "lets put out some planters" temporary schemes is GPS. Look at how that Uber blundered into the York ramp demolition - probably following GPS rather than paying attention to surroundings.

With older generation SD card systems relying on manual updates, I suspect much more of the same during the pilot.

Even modern systems like Google Maps are slow to update. Google used to have a great tool called Google Map Maker which let anyone make edits to Google Maps' roads, subject to review by other editors leading to a sort of wikipedia-style system; however, they retired it recently, and it took several days for them to acknowledge my complaint and mark the York offramp closed, and even then they didn't pay attention to what I said which was that it was being permanently demolished (I included a source on the city's official website saying so!) and just marked it temporarily closed for construction rather than deleting it; they also took a good week to add the 407 extension and 412 and had tons of errors (sudden gaps in road) when they finally did. And Apple Maps is a lost cause...didn't have the 407 extension/412 for months, and it's hard to tell but it looks like it says the bay/yonge portion of the York offramp is still open.