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King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

gweed123 said:
Personally, I would have rather preferred that Queen get this treatment, but I think this is a great idea. I wonder if they can rejig the streetcar system to send half of the 501s from South Etobicoke onto King instead of Queen, since it's likely that King will end up being significantly faster.
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From a practical point of view they can certainly route streetcars straight through from Lake Shore to King at Ronces (if that already messy junction can cope with more turns) but whether it would be good to reduce the number of streetcars on Queen and increase the number on King is not so clear to me. (Though if streetcars on King are speeded up and get priority then at least some of the cars coming from Long Branch & Humber might be better routed via King to downtown.)
 
Napoleon said:
This is exactly what Market Street in San Francisco did. Through-traffic is not allowed except for buses/streetcars/taxis. They built some great dedicated bike infrastructure as well. There's a parallel street (Mission) that's far better for through automobile traffic. They've also added some beautiful bus lanes coupled with TSP that get buses to/from Market Street.
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Good example. I was there last summer, and yes I was surprised at how well Market St moved. We were hopping on the F streetcars to get to the Fisherman's Wharf area after getting off BART.

DSC said:
From a practical point of view they can certainly route streetcars straight through from Lake Shore to King at Ronces (if that already messy junction can cope with more turns) but whether it would be good to reduce the number of streetcars on Queen and increase the number on King is not so clear to me. (Though if streetcars on King are speeded up and get priority then at least some of the cars coming from Long Branch & Humber might be better routed via King to downtown.)
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I suppose to offset you can add Queen cars to the central portion of the line, and short turn them at Roncesvalles and Broadview. Also, I think you'd see a ridership shift from Queen to King, since "walk from Queen to King + King streetcar" would still likely be faster than "stay on Queen + Queen streetcar".

The other option would be to introduce a new streetcar route that would run from Long Branch in the west to Kingston Rd in the east, and simply layer it overtop of the existing service. Theoretically by speeding up King, you'd either boost capacity or make streetcars available for other routes.
 
I can't see how this happens when they didn't have the guts to say no to more on-street parking on King St. East.
 
LNahid2000 said:
No. Please see page 13 of the below study.

http://www1.toronto.ca/City Of Toronto/Policy, Planning, Finance & Administration/Public Consultation Unit/Studies/Transportation/Richmond-Adelaide Cycle Tracks/PDFs/Richmond_Adelaide_Preliminary_Evaluation_Draf_ June_5.pdf
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The quote in question: "The motor vehicle travel time data collected to date suggests that travel times along both Richmond Street and Adelaide Street have generally improved during most time periods."

5 of the 6 samples taken at all different times of the day showed a reduction in travel time. The one increase was very minor.

So in short, andrewpmk is wrong.
 
My prognostication says that SmrtTrack + whatever this plan is = this century's Relief Line. It'd be nice if the City can at least finish its RL study before it joins the dust-covered annals of unbuilt transit plans. But I guess that's wishful thinking.
 
44 North said:
My prognostication says that SmrtTrack + whatever this plan is = this century's Relief Line. It'd be nice if the City can at least finish its RL study before it joins the dust-covered annals of unbuilt transit plans. But I guess that's wishful thinking.
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I see this plan as an interim solution until a relief line can be built under King/Wellington. That's at least a decade away, and the area needs relief now. I see the phasing like this:

1) Transit mall along King (+1 year)
2) 905 & 416 RER into Union (+6 years)
3) 416 RER diverted into Central Tunnel (DRL) (+11 years)
 
The plan will finish, there is less than a year left of the process right now.. I don't see why they would dump the study halfway through, especially given the support for the line.

Whether the study moves along to an actual subway line, we will never know.
 
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