Please don't let us be like the Netherlands and wait until hundreds of children are being killed on the streets before we decide people are more important than cars. :/
I've been primarily pedestrian for almost 15 years now, but in the last two years suburban drivers in the core seem to have become increasingly more aggressive. There are a few corners near me — Jarvis/Ted Rogers Way (AKA, the Rosedale Parkway) & Charles as well as Church & Bloor—that are particularly bad for blatant ignorance of traffic signals. Great places to see how the selfishness of drivers is treated as acceptable.
For employees at Rogers South Building on Jarvis to (legally) cross to the pizza, coffee or convenience stores literally right on the other side of the street, four crosswalks in a question-mark shaped configuration have to be traversed, each with their own crossing signals. The last crosswalk (across Charles) gives you a mere 7 seconds to cross before the orange hand goes up, and that immediately follows an advance green that drivers love to over run. I've nearly been hit a dozen times by asshats who think that when the advance green arrow turns orange, that means bury the gas pedal. All of that on a street that's already 5/6 lanes of traffic, an obstructed view of oncoming traffic and where 70kph seems to be the agreed commuter speed. The several minutes it takes to cross Jarvis legally also means that plenty of Rogers employees take their lives into their hands and jaywalk. There are four schools and thousands of people (and more on the way) living within a handful of blocks, yet we've done nothing but keep Jarvis an easy route for the colostomy nozzles in their Beemers to get to the financial district 5 minutes faster.
Multiple changes are needed here.
But the first is comparatively easy, eliminate the south-to-north right hand turn channel from Mt. Pleasant to Ted Rogers Way.
This would reduce 2 crossings by 1 leg each.
The right hand turn would either be made illegal, or would be more conventionally shaped, forcing a car to come to a stop and then turn.
The second thing here is to regularize the intersection as a whole, as much as is practical and add an E-W crosswalk across the south side of the intersection.
Next, Ted Rogers Way should be narrowed by eliminated one of the southbound lanes, a small portion of the NB lane immediately north of Mt. Pleasant.
This would afford a shorter crossing distance and could do so without affecting traffic all that much.
Then we get into the stuff that will get some motorists back-up, but is still the right thing to do.
Narrow Jarvis, as a whole by eliminating the 5th lane all the way down. Option one, put the cycle tracks back; failing that, enhance the public realm by creating a median and/or much wider sidewalks.
Either way, the extra lane causes more confusion and trouble for motorists and pedestrians who have to be aware which direction on-coming traffic is coming from than whatever meager benefit in travel time is used to justify its existence.
I'm not sure how much, if anything the City still has set aside for Jarvis beautification, but there was something like $900,000 earmarked at one point. It got sidetracked by the whole bike lanes thing.
That money actually came, in large part from the last expansion round on the Rogers campus.
Lastly, cycle tracks needs to be extended up Mt. Pleasant, with that road narrowed to one-lane each way for cars plus dedicated turning lanes as required.
These actions taken together would also improve safety at Isabella by reducing the crossing distance of Jarvis and/or creating a median refuge, plus reducing traffic volume and complexity of movement.
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