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King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

Steve X said:
He has further power than that, he could just ban streetcar in mix traffic or all together on Ontario streets simply by amending the HTA.
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That'll back fire.

King and possibly other streets would be converted to a streetcar only and the province would be blamed for taking the preferred option off the table; either that or a large chunk of press showing how the province increased TTC operating costs by ~$20M/year.
 
aquateam said:
Kind of like how the province reduced TTC revenue by millions due to the botched Presto rollout?
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Indeed, except city leadership was kinda onboard with that move. Council, including the mayor, voted in favour of Presto on a number of occasions so they're not going to make a whole lot of noise about how they approved a crappy contract.

The province restricting how Toronto's streets are built, resulting in increased property taxes, would result in quite a bit more noise unless accompanied by a gag order (unheard of in Canada outside military and court applications).

Ford ran effectively on a low tax campaign. He won't get very far if municipalities crying about forced increased taxes overtake his message.
 
rbt said:
Indeed, except city leadership was kinda onboard with that move. Council, including the mayor, voted in favour of Presto on a number of occasions so they're not going to make a whole lot of noise about how they approved a crappy contract.
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The Province forced the TTC into it by threatening to withdraw funding if the TTC didn't adopt Presto. Originally, the TTC was going to go with a debit/credit payment system.

rbt said:
The province restricting how Toronto's streets are built, resulting in increased property taxes, would result in quite a bit more noise unless accompanied by a gag order (unheard of in Canada outside military and court applications).

Ford ran effectively on a low tax campaign. He won't get very far if municipalities crying about forced increased taxes overtake his message.
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Technically, the King street pilot has *cost* the city $1.5 million, which they've spent on planning, enforcement, art, etc. The King street pilot is a positive step forward in making a prominent downtown street more liveable and functional, but its existence isn't some kind of major cost saving efficiency for the city.

The province has micromanaged the city like this before: Yonge street used to be a pedestrian mall between Gerard and Wellington during the summer but the city couldn't get permission from the province to continue it.
 
MetroMan said:
My understanding of Ford's opposition is that he was trying to build an issue to run against Tory in the municipal election that would gain both some downtown and outer city support. I don't know if he'll leave it alone but it's not as big a thing on his radar as some might think.

The Province would have to take away the city's ability to plan and build local streets. The pilot is almost complete and it's clear that it worked. Whether it's Tory or Keesmaat, the city would be rebuilding the street, not running a pilot. Is Doug going to take away the city's ability to decide where to allow or disallow parking? Is he doing to remove our city's ability to plan traffic flow with left/right turns and street direction?
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he wouldn't have to directly remove city control of all city streets - he could simply pass legislation making it illegal to configure king street specifically as it is in the pilot.

I doubt he would do that however - that would be an unprecedented level of provincial meddling in municipal affairs. High level structure of municipal government has a long history of provincial control - but the province has never as far as I know passed legislation specifically meddling in road configurations of municipal streets. He does have the ability to do it though..

Doug also risks appearing too Toronto-focused if he keeps fiddling with municipal affairs. The media could soon start to portray it as "doug ford lost the mayor's run, so became premier to do the mayors job anyway". The last thing that a conservative government wants to appear is Toronto-focused.. It's entire base despises the city and always claimed that the liberals did nothing but focus on the city for the last 15 years (while that was obviously far from the case).
 
aquateam said:
The Province forced the TTC into it by threatening to withdraw funding if the TTC didn't adopt Presto. Originally, the TTC was going to go with a debit/credit payment system.
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Yeah, a proposition put forward by a Liberal government who campaigned, effectively, on more transit at any cost. There was no political backlash to be had.

Technically, the King street pilot has *cost* the city $1.5 million, which they've spent on planning, enforcement, art, etc. The King street pilot is a positive step forward in making a prominent downtown street more liveable and functional, but its existence isn't some kind of major cost saving efficiency for the city.
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That's the cost of implementing King pilot.

This is what Leo Chan put forward as a thought:
Why stop there? Ban streetcars and on street rail vehicles entirely and make the dedicated lanes car express lanes.
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The cost of ripping out King by force of provincial legislation and providing all downtown service via buses instead is what I'm discussing; and is a substantially larger number with noticeable property tax implications.

A minimum of $20M/year in operations and likely $1B in capital (bus purchase, conversion of streetcar yards to bus yards + maintenance facilities).

Doing it via threats of cutting off funding also doesn't play well to those who voted in the lower tax/small government guy. Liberals who did use that tactic did not run on low tax/small government.
 
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innsertnamehere said:
he wouldn't have to directly remove city control of all city streets - he could simply pass legislation making it illegal to configure king street specifically as it is in the pilot.
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That definitely wouldn't work; the city would ban vehicles from King entirely in order to comply, possibly going as far as using railway arms at intersections depending on the legislation.

The city would publish their original intended plan to the public and one that complies with new provincial legislation which they intend to follow through on; almost nobody in Toronto will lose votes making Doug look unreasonable.
 
It could be a law that says "king street shall remain open to all vehicles during all hours with not straight through restrictions, largely as existing in 2016" or something like that.

Doug could also have his municipal affairs minister nullify any by-laws that the city tries to pass that alters king street, without passing any new explicit legislation.
 
innsertnamehere said:
It could be a law that says "king street shall remain open to all vehicles during all hours with not straight through restrictions, largely as existing in 2016" or something like that.
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True. That'll save King, but not Queen (pilot starts within weeks of King legislation passing).

Make specific orders on all existing tracks (King, Queen, Dundas, College) and Adelaide/Front/Fort York Blvd becomes the new target. Cost of running basic track on an otherwise unmodified street would only be around $100M to the city (fed transit slush fund will cover the rest). Of course, that's not going to be a pilot; this will be permanent.

He could order all roadway changes south of Bloor need to go through the province, and he'll find himself needing to assign a Minister to manage run of the mill planning department changes for downtown development applications. Developers will make noise if their applications or permits get delayed by this kind of thing.

It also pretty much ensures Doug will spend some of the 2022 (and perhaps 2026) election defending his decision to micromanage city planning; then when he loses the city will follow through, likely in a much grander way, after the restriction is lifted by the next non-OCP government.


The only way to politically favourable way to kill King is the same way the province killed the York U BRT. Let it happen, and demand it get reversed after DRL east+west is done BUT unless the DRL is actually finished while Ford is still in office even that requirement probably wouldn't be enforced as nobody else will care.

He needs to talk Tory into killing it for him and that seems unlikely given Tory's very strong lead in the municipal election.

I expect King to happen as planned. Heck, giving Tory some "strong mayor" capabiltiies is actually a bit of an endorsement of the Tory King plan as it takes authority away from those like Mammoliti who oppose it.
 
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One thing I've noticed since the start of the Pilot is the drastic improvement of noise levels along the street, especially east of Yonge. Prior to the start of the pilot, I would have walked away from King Street while I'm on the phone to get to a quieter place, but nowadays I actually walk toward it.


I've also noticed an increase in the number of emergency vehicles using King, which makes sense given how much faster it has become for them. From what I've seen, streetcar operators do an excellent job at stopping their streetcars so as to create a clear path for the approaching emergency vehicle. I wonder if emergency response times would be another worthwhile variable to measure for the pilot, in addition to the usual stuff like streetcar ridership, streetcar speed, car traffic etc.
 
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pstogios said:
p.s. you use the phrase “mash up” a lot which I have never heard before. I think it means “mess up” or “messed up” but could you please clarify and also comment on its origins?
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It depends on the context, but yeah, in the context of a highway, messed up is right. As in, jammed. Not functioning as designed. Useless. Parking lot.

It could also mean: dead, beat up, smashed, broken, injured, crippled, full of people, and so and so.

Origins: Jamaica, I'm pretty sure. Or England. Or Jamaicans in England. Not really sure.
 
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