News   Jul 12, 2024
 1.2K     0 
News   Jul 12, 2024
 1K     1 
News   Jul 12, 2024
 381     0 

King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

This my first post here and I'm curious to know your thoughts. Please be gentle.
It seems the city wants to accompany everyone, yet tick all off - equally.

Why cant the City make King and Queen one way streets only?

Use the right hand lane for bikes and streetcar stops. Cars can only use the right hand lane when turning right off K & Q or entering K & Q. Increase the frequency of running streetcars and allow the two left lanes for vehicle traffic. Abandon the unused rail line. If pressed, and only during off peak hours, the city could allow for parking along K & Q in the most left lane. Everyone wins!

Can you imagine how efficient this could be if you synchronize the traffic lights?

I get that pedestrians will need to go north or south to get to these routes, but buses on a short loop can address this.

Lets be realistic. The proposed pilot project will not fix anything and push congestion onto he already congested alternative routes.

Please share your thoughts.
Thanks
 
This my first post here and I'm curious to know your thoughts. Please be gentle.
It seems the city wants to accompany everyone, yet tick all off - equally.

Why cant the City make King and Queen one way streets only?

Use the right hand lane for bikes and streetcar stops. Cars can only use the right hand lane when turning right off K & Q or entering K & Q. Increase the frequency of running streetcars and allow the two left lanes for vehicle traffic. Abandon the unused rail line. If pressed, and only during off peak hours, the city could allow for parking along K & Q in the most left lane. Everyone wins!

Can you imagine how efficient this could be if you synchronize the traffic lights?

I get that pedestrians will need to go north or south to get to these routes, but buses on a short loop can address this.

Lets be realistic. The proposed pilot project will not fix anything and push congestion onto he already congested alternative routes.

Please share your thoughts.
Thanks
The problem with is idea is not logistics, truck deliveries, or money (maybe though). It's just too confusing for people in the city and people coming in. One way streets are great in other cities as well in some parts of downtown, but making two of the main east-west roads depend on one another can lead to confusion.
 
This my first post here and I'm curious to know your thoughts. Please be gentle.
It seems the city wants to accompany everyone, yet tick all off - equally.

Why cant the City make King and Queen one way streets only?

Use the right hand lane for bikes and streetcar stops. Cars can only use the right hand lane when turning right off K & Q or entering K & Q. Increase the frequency of running streetcars and allow the two left lanes for vehicle traffic. Abandon the unused rail line. If pressed, and only during off peak hours, the city could allow for parking along K & Q in the most left lane. Everyone wins!

Can you imagine how efficient this could be if you synchronize the traffic lights?

I get that pedestrians will need to go north or south to get to these routes, but buses on a short loop can address this.

Lets be realistic. The proposed pilot project will not fix anything and push congestion onto he already congested alternative routes.

Please share your thoughts.
Thanks
  1. You are expecting people who normally get service in both directions on King or Queen to walk 375m to the other street. The pro-taxi lobby deems it unacceptable to walk 100m to Adelaide or Wellington to get a taxi. This should be a showstopper but let's continue.
  2. One way streets tend to move faster and street life deadens. See Richmond/Adelaide, also Hamilton.
  3. Curb lanes are difficult because curve radius will limit available turns which are currently feasible from the centre lanes
  4. Not sure what your proposed "bikes and streetcar" curb lane would look like. It would be utterly unacceptable to force a shared lane or to put the bikes inside the streetcar. At the very least you would need curb|streetcar|protectedbikelane|trafficlane
  5. Massive construction disruption - even though only one lane would be worse than Queens Quay because of volume. Also, as full east-west routes the line would have to jog back to the center at some point - messy.
  6. "Can you imagine how efficient this could be if you synchronize the traffic lights" this will only happen if you privilege east-west traffic over north-south traffic. Since north-south traffic is people, many of them city councillors and bureaucrats, heading to the Gardiner, this might give you a sense of why it hasn't been done to any great extent previously.
 
One way streets tend to move faster and street life deadens. See Richmond/Adelaide, also Hamilton.

That has nothing to do with the streets being one-way. See New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, Montreal, Vancouver, Seattle, Chicago, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Valencia, Barcelona, Paris, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, and many many other examples.
 
That has nothing to do with the streets being one-way. See New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, Montreal, Vancouver, Seattle, Chicago, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Valencia, Barcelona, Paris, London, Brussels, Amsterdam, and many many other examples.
Without spinning this string off-topic:
RETURNING ONE-WAY STREETS TO THEIR TWO-WAY ROOTS

MAY 25, 2016
BY RACHEL QUEDNAU

A recent article out of South Bend, IN suggests that the movement toward two-way streets is growing. South Bend plans to convert many of its downtown streets back into two-ways by the end of 2016.

As an example from the neighboring state of Kentucky, the articleexplains how one multilane couplet (two parallel one-way streets that move traffic in opposite directions) was previously a high crime, low-property value area in : [....continues...]
https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/5/24/returning-one-way-streets-back-to-their-two-way-roots

I think perhaps there used to be a topic on this discussion at this site....whatever, if anything would promote taking streetcars off of King (beyond the pilot project) it would be making Adelaide and Richmond two way streets again, not making everything else one-way.
 
A rust belt city with 100,000 residents that's been shrinking for more than half a century has absolutely no bearing on Toronto.
 
It's also worth mentioning that Toronto - City, not Metro - was going to make Yonge and Bay one-way streets for a pilot project in 1988. A judge blocked the proposal right before it would've gone into effect on the basis that the city needed provincial approval to make this change, and the city never ended up pursuing it.
 
A rust belt city with 100,000 residents that's been shrinking for more than half a century has absolutely no bearing on Toronto.
Gosh...do you think it might be more than just one city?
I suggest doing some reading here:
http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/threads/the-case-against-one-way-streets.19478/

And the very first post:
The Case Against One-Way Streets
Jan 31, 2013
By Eric Jaffe
logo.gif

Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2013/01/case-against-one-way-streets/4549/

PDF Study: http://www.uctc.net/access/41/access41-2way.pdf

.....

Cities have long been home to one-way streets because transportation engineers believe they move cars better than two-way streets do. That's largely the case because one-way streets eliminate tough left turns through oncoming traffic. Any way around conflicting lefts, on two-way streets, creates congestion: left-turn lanes take up space, and guarded signals take up time. Vikash Gayah, a civil engineer at Penn State University, isn't so sure about that conventional wisdom. In addition to the aforementioned reasons to convert one-way streets, Gayah believes congestion will improve as well. [...]
 

Back
Top