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News Roundup for July 15, 2024
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Roads: Six Points Interchange Reconfiguration (City of Toronto, UC)

I really dislike these piecemeal right turn on red provisions - it should be all across the city. And I say this as someone who was fined for turning right on a red at an intersection where it was prohibited way, way back in the day.
 
^ Once all the pylons disappeared and the final street layout became useful, it has exceeded my expectations by miles. Final tweaking may make it even better.

The real test will come as construction begins to develop the area. There will be on street lane closures, and more cars making turns into the new sidestreets - and then car volumes will rise further. Not many pedestrians or cyclists as yet.

These are the “good old days”.

- Paul
 
Want to go from westbound Dundas Street West to westbound Bloor Street West? "Waze" says to use Jerry Howarth Drive. Wonder how long that will last?

1608845076487.png

From link.
 
I generally only drive through the area at the moment, but what surprises me is how wide the new streets are. Dundas is 6 lanes wide. As is Kipling. Bloor is 4-6 lanes wide. As a driver, it feels surprisingly cushy like driving in the far suburbs rather than a city centre. I haven't walked in the area yet, but huge expanses of roadway like at this intersection don't look that inviting.

With that said, at least we now have space for cars, pedestrians, bike lanes, and landscaping. In the future, lanes of traffic could be turned into nicely designed linear public spaces and/or incorporated into a transit ROW.
 
crs1026 said:
^ Once all the pylons disappeared and the final street layout became useful, it has exceeded my expectations by miles. Final tweaking may make it even better.

The real test will come as construction begins to develop the area. There will be on street lane closures, and more cars making turns into the new sidestreets - and then car volumes will rise further. Not many pedestrians or cyclists as yet.

These are the “good old days”.

- Paul
Click to expand...
I assume owing to the wide-open nature of the building sites here that no lane closures will be needed in this area in the future.

42
 
Drove from Aukland to Islington Terminal by Dundas/Bloor yesterday and it reinforce my view that the traffic planners are out to lunch for this change.

Dundas should have become 4 lanes in place of 6 east of Aukland or Kipling when traffic speed is 40 km east of Kipling. I prefer it happen at Aukland. Other than that, I have no issue with the new design, other than too wide.

40 km is a good speed limit, but 70 km was more the norm since I was past more time than enough in that short section.

There maybe a lane or 2 that can be close off for Bloor and Dundas once development starts. The new side streets have a greater chance of been close off for Construction/
 
junctionist said:
I generally only drive through the area at the moment, but what surprises me is how wide the new streets are. Dundas is 6 lanes wide. As is Kipling. Bloor is 4-6 lanes wide. As a driver, it feels surprisingly cushy like driving in the far suburbs rather than a city centre. I haven't walked in the area yet, but huge expanses of roadway like at this intersection don't look that inviting.
Click to expand...

100% agree; I think this project is a pretty substantial failure. The promise was to urbanize a ghastly suburban condition, and the scale of the change meant almost anything was possible, but what we have instead feels entirely suburban, just not as horribly so.

The lanes are too wide and in places there are too many of them; the crossing distances are awfully long; the curb radii are much too wide; every street should have substantially more greening, including showpiece sustainable stormwater management in places; there's no intimacy anywhere, including on the interior streets, and so on. It's just still wholly suburban and it will, I fear, remain fairly sterile and uninteresting even when it's fully built out. To me, this is emblematic of City departments that have read all the design manuals but don't actually know what they're doing -- they have many of the discrete elements of good neighbourhood-building, but they obviously had no idea how to actually knit it together.

Is it an improvement over what was there before? Yes, of course -- a substantial one, even. But does it fall short of its goal of becoming a place that one day might actually be as desirable as neighbourhoods that this could have been? Absolutely.
 
ADRM said:
To me, this is emblematic of City departments that have read all the design manuals but don't actually know what they're doing -- they have many of the discrete elements of good neighbourhood-building, but they obviously had no idea how to actually knit it together.
Click to expand...
If the goal was to urbanize the area I have to agree: it’s 100% a failure. I’m really curious what the goal of the city departments and planners involved was, and whether they consider it a success or a failure. Sadly we will never know.

Personally this redevelopment makes me sad, because it institutionalizes suburbanization in another part of Toronto, and locks it in for a generation, maybe longer.

EDIT: I wonder how much of the “number of lanes” and “lane width” was locked in because these are arterials, and without Councillor support it’s tough to change city standards. I had the same reaction on seeing Waterfront TO’s redesign for Lake Shore E: sooooo many lanes, and so wide, because of the road classification.
 
I was uploading a photo to my account that I shot at Islington yesterday and it shows someone in Traffic is out of touch for Six Point.

The photo shows the speed limit on Bloor St in front of TTC bus terminal and the sign said 60 km begins. How is Bloor allow to have 60 km while Dundas is to have 40 km east of Kipling when it supposed to be 50 km on Bloor west of the new Dundas?
 
junctionist said:
It's a minimum of 4 lanes, plus turning lanes at intersections and a concrete median. That's the narrowest street.
Click to expand...

Are there pedestrian signal buttons on the concrete median, for pedestrians who get caught in the middle of the intersection, and unable to finish crossing the intersection when the light change? (Normal for Toronto?)

We need a refugee island for pedestrians at ALL big intersections, with pedestrian buttons.
 
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