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King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

Campbell not the only suburban Councillor who doesn't use transit to get to work on a regular basis (except for photo-ops).

From link:

Deputy mayor pushes for clear targets on King St. pilot project that prioritizes streetcars

TTC board approves Denzil Minnan-Wong’s motion to spell out “benchmarks” for closely watched project that will give streetcars priority.

Toronto’s deputy mayor is pushing for the city to set clear targets for the pilot project that would prioritize streetcars over car traffic on King St., in order to prevent its supporters from “declaring victory” without any clear evidence.

As expected, the TTC board voted Thursday to move ahead with the pilot, which would restrict private car movement on King.

With daily ridership of 65,000 people, the 504 King streetcar is the TTC’s busiest surface transit route, but its movement through the downtown core is severely impeded by the 20,000 drivers that use the street every day.

The pilot, which would be installed between Bathurst and Jarvis Sts., will now go to Mayor John Tory’s executive committee next Monday, where it’s expected to be approved and sent to council next month for a final vote.

While endorsing the pilot, commissioners also approved a motion moved by board member Deputy Mayor Denzil Minnan-Wong that asked staff to develop “benchmarks for success” for the project and report to the board by the end of 2017.

Minnan-Wong voted in favour of the pilot. But he argued that, without clear measurements in place at its start, its supporters on council and in the city bureaucracy could simply deem it a success no matter what data comes back.

“You decide what a win looks like before you start. You don’t define the win based on the data that you get,” he said.

“The pilot project is supposed to achieve certain things . . . . Let’s set what those levels are going to be now, and then let’s do the pilot project and see if those things are achieved.”

The motion didn’t specify which benchmarks should be used or how specific the targets should be. Minnan-Wong said he would leave that up to city staff.

TTC chair Josh Colle said staff have already devised several metrics by which to gauge the project. They include its effect on economic activity, traffic, and the reliability of streetcar service.

But Colle said he didn’t object to more clearly laying out the criteria. He stated that he was confident the pilot will be a success, and that the primary measure should be whether transit service improves.

“We have to look at business continuity and safety and all those other things, but, to me, the whole point of all of this is to move those 65,000 people more quickly,” he said.

He rejected the idea that Minnan-Wong’s motion could turn out to be a poison pill that would give critics of the project a chance to sink it if it didn’t meet certain targets.

“If anything, I think the case is going to be so compelling, it will just give further validation to why this was so badly needed.”

The board also approved a motion tabled by Councillor Joe Mihevc that asked the city and TTC to consider extending the pilot project further along King and replicating it on “the central portion of other downtown major arterials” as part of the project evaluation.

Colle said that only made sense. “We should look at every one of our streetcar corridors this way. If we don’t use this data for that, we’ve kind of missed out.”

If approved by council, the $1.5-million pilot on King would be installed in late fall and run for at least one year.
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W. K. Lis said:
Campbell not the only suburban Councillor who doesn't use transit to get to work on a regular basis (except for photo-ops).

From link:

Deputy mayor pushes for clear targets on King St. pilot project that prioritizes streetcars

TTC board approves Denzil Minnan-Wong’s motion to spell out “benchmarks” for closely watched project that will give streetcars priority.
Click to expand...
Makes sense. Council always evaluates infrastructure projects using rigorous quantitative measures. That's why they voted for SSE and rebuilding Gardiner East.
 
ADRM said:
Well that's a first.
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The free parking perk is primarily for those members who are downtown. The $14k benefit results in a $7,000 income tax on the employee benefit. For those that live/work outside the downtown core the cost of paying for their own parking outweighs the cost of the taxable benefit.

And those that are downtown who have access to transit should not get this perk.

I agree...it's part of the spending culture of City Hall. Get rid of free parking for all counselors, management and employees of Toronto (including TTC, Hydro, etc). The majority of people who work downtown do not have this perk (anymore....over the past 15 years most companies have phased it out).
 
muller877 said:
And those that are downtown who have access to transit should not get this perk.
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An employer (i.e. the city) can't provide this sort of benefit to some employees but not others based on where they live. The free parking isn't a taxable benefit since it's something they use for their work. Part of the reason why they do this is because city councillors do sometimes need a car to zip around the city doing meetings and events, and it would cost more for them to take taxis for each trip than to park at the closest Green P lot.
 
amnesiajune said:
An employer (i.e. the city) can't provide this sort of benefit to some employees but not others based on where they live. The free parking isn't a taxable benefit since it's something they use for their work. Part of the reason why they do this is because city councillors do sometimes need a car to zip around the city doing meetings and events, and it would cost more for them to take taxis for each trip than to park at the closest Green P lot.
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It's only not a taxable benefit if they use it 100% for work. The only time it is NOT a taxable benefit is if the person uses their own car to go to multiple locations in one day.

So if someone drives into city hall and stays there for the full day it is a taxable benefit
If someone goes to city hall and then to a second location (using their own car) it is NOT a taxable benefit
If they use it at night to go to a restaurant it is a taxable benefit
If they drive to work and then walk or take a taxi to get to a meeting mid-day it is a taxable benefit

CRA would expect the individual to keep track of the number of times they park and if it is for work vs not for work. And then allocate a taxable benefit based on this. CRA expects them to compute the full face amount that a 3rd party would pay for the same right (the person that swiped their credit card at the same Green P lot).

And if you disagree with this you disagree with the CRA....these are directly from their website.
 
Avenue said:
I'm pretty underwhelmed by how this pilot is watering down the transit priority and that extending sidewalks onto the street is taking precedence over giving transit protected lanes.
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While numbers like 65,000 streetcar riders to 20,000 cars are being used as justification for this pilot, pedestrians outnumber both of them by a factor of 3 or 4 times cars and transit combined. Yet, despite being the overwhelming majority of users, pedestrians get something like 15% of the space.

King Street has outgrown its sidewalks and downtown growth is just getting started. In the coming decade, the daytime population of downtown Toronto is going to double. Most of those people get around on foot so the King Street redesign must take pedestrians into account. The narrow sidewalks have to be expanded.

I preferred the alternating loops proposal that allowed expanding alternating sidewalks and only allowing one lane for cars in one direction but the selected proposal widens sidewalks on both sides. I think that ultimately, the final built King Street redesign will discourage all but local traffic and opportunities will exist to close some blocks of King Street to all cars where no driveways exist.

While it's disappointing that cars aren't being banned outright from the start, one must consider politics. In order to get something like this passed, a majority of City Council must be considered and there's no way that a majority would ban cars outright. Pushing for a total ban would mean throwing out the entire proposal because it wouldn't get through.
 
MetroMan said:
...
While it's disappointing that cars aren't being banned outright from the start, one must consider politics. In order to get something like this passed, a majority of City Council must be considered and there's no way that a majority would ban cars outright. Pushing for a total ban would mean throwing out the entire proposal because it wouldn't get through.
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I wonder how many of the mostly suburban Councillors think that climate change is a hoax, which is why they refuse to get on board ways to help climate.
 
MetroMan said:
While numbers like 65,000 streetcar riders to 20,000 cars are being used as justification for this pilot, pedestrians outnumber both of them by a factor of 3 or 4 times cars and transit combined. Yet, despite being the overwhelming majority of users, pedestrians get something like 15% of the space.
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That may be an accurate claim, but if you have some reference I'd love to view that. What is curious for me beyond actual numbers is whether that ped traffic is static in nature, or actually in transit on foot, the difference could radically alter how those numbers are catered to in future incantations of the mall. I foresee an upper pedestrian deck in areas, not only facilitating pedestrian flow in the middle of blocks to either side by going above the tracks, but also as entrances to businesses with doors on the second floor to the street. King Street is very narrow, and much of the pedestrian flow can be done above it, leaving the streetcars a much clearer and speedier passage at ground level.
 
steveintoronto said:
That may be an accurate claim, but if you have some reference I'd love to view that.
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I got the number of pedestrians from city officials at the public meeting. I thought I had written it down but I can't find my notes. I remember that it was in the hundred of thousands per day. The population of residents on and around King Street is growing dramatically and it's going to keep growing with projects like BIG's King & Brant project, Frank Ghery's Mirvish towers and the Well, not to mention all the existing residential towers that are popping up right now.

These people walk everywhere. Why would they drive or even take public transit a block or two? The sidewalks today do not support the existing walking population safely. It's at crush capacity during rush hour when you mingle in commuters and just plain uncomfortable at any other time of the day. There's no choice: sidewalks must be widened sooner or later. With limited road space, that means pushing cars out. It will inevitably happen. The King Street pilot is anticipating that and chose to widen both north and south sidewalks to accommodate that growth.

I truly believe that Keesmaat is assembling a Trojan Horse here. She knows the politics. She knows how to ease this in and set it up for a much more transit and pedestrian friendly realm further down the line. Segments of King like from Peter to University for example, don't have any driveways and have a delivery alley in the back. They could be closed to cars, at first periodically during festivals and then routinely for rush hour to allow exclusive use for transit and then made permanent once driver habits change. We're at the very beginning of this conversion and it's not going to happen overnight.
 
MetroMan said:
I got the number of pedestrians from city officials at the public meeting....I remember that it was in the hundred of thousands per day.
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Fair enough. That makes digging for the actual figure(s) worthwhile.

MetroMan said:
These people walk everywhere.
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That's what I was after, establishing that they are *walking to a destination*, not just browsing. Not all of them, of course, but enough to cater to, and portend the change in habits that's going to have to happen.

MetroMan said:
I truly believe that Keesmaat is assembling a Trojan Horse here...She knows how to ease this in and set it up for a much more transit and pedestrian friendly realm further down the line.
Click to expand...
Keesmaat the idealist and Keesmaat holding onto her job as Head Planner are two different things, and she does have to kow-tow to 'the program'. If you are not right, and I believe you are, then I will feel cheated. She's the best breath of fresh air in City Hall for a while.

I'll see if I can find pics of how Hong Kong does the second level pedestrian thing. I believe that there is planning provision to allow private companies to build a deck/bridge across a thoroughfare in Toronto, I'll dig on that, there are a number of examples (Eatons, etc). This would allow two companies facing each other across King to build a bridge to connect them at the second floor, and steps down to the sidewalk, under which a loading/unloading bay from the single lane for traffic can be located.

I'll try and find pics/drawings to make the case. An upper pedestrian deck would multiply a building's commercial viability, as well as relieve pedestrian crush at ground level, and therefore maximizing the ground level for transit.
 
it is just ironic that the need of a transit mall along King or Queen even deserves to be discussed this extensively in Toronto, as if the proposal itself were dramatic, revolutionary and controversial enough, as if the pros and cons need to be carefully weighed and quantified.

It is really a matter of whether the city WANT to prioritize transit over cars or not. Even this "pilot project“ is ridiculous redundant. It is nothing but political.
 
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