Toronto Transportation Idiosyncracies

[valkoholic]

What a fun thread idea!

- All major public transit programs will be planned in the mayors office. TTC staff shall work backwards from the answer, determine the problem, and announce the mayor's idea is the ideal solution.

- Escalators in TTC stations shall not be permitted to actually move. Ironically, escalator-safety messages shall be blared incessantly at all subway stations.

- Any road mentioned twice in the same month by any citizen shall be deemed a critical bicycle lane route. Bike lanes shall be installed instantly, without debate, in order to save the lives of the thousands of cyclists killed each day on that particular road.

 

[drum118]

That is the truest. For sure.

#8 Thou shalt not give reliable signal priority to your streetcars.

#9 Thou shalt not consider changing the order of traffic signals to favour transit vehicles

Not true.

I have a video of 2, 2 westbound streetcars getting green lights at 2 different times at York St before traffic got their first green. Look at time 3:15 to 5 to see this.

 

[spider]

Pedestrians on one way streets

More than one pundit has announced that one way streets are unfriendly to pedestrians as if this belief were a biblical truth beyond challenge. I am just a simple guy, too simple to figure this out, please explain in some detail. How is a street on which all traffic is going in the same direction a negative for pedestrians? Maybe Queen and King should be one way streets, maybe bike lanes should be restricted to one way streets only.

Suburban arterials obviously should not even be considered in this discussion for obvious reasons one of which was mentioned.

Even if this theory is true, who cares. Streets are meant to move people and goods not provide gawking opportunities for pedestrians.

 

[Glen]

What a fun thread idea!

- All major public transit programs will be planned in the mayors office. TTC staff shall work backwards from the answer, determine the problem, and announce the mayor's idea is the ideal solution.

- Escalators in TTC stations shall not be permitted to actually move. Ironically, escalator-safety messages shall be blared incessantly at all subway stations.

- Any road mentioned twice in the same month by any citizen shall be deemed a critical bicycle lane route. Bike lanes shall be installed instantly, without debate, in order to save the lives of the thousands of cyclists killed each day on that particular road.

I would move those up the list to numbers 1,2 and 3. Brilliant!

 

[Whoaccio]

13.) Thou shalt have the highest farebox recovery ratio in North America.

I don't think that is an idiosyncrasy. There is nothing weird or unusual about expecting a company to at least try to have its revenue match its costs. Or at least earn back 3 quarters on every dollar spent.

However, as commercially viable, pedestrian friendly environments, they're dead. And the same is basically true of most one-way streets that I've seen: they become pedestrian unfriendly environments, and the value of businesses along the route decreases. Kitchener used to have complementary one-way streets around its downtown with Charles and Duke, and these streets were never ones for good pedestrian growth. In the end, council spent close to a million dollars restoring two-way operation on these streets. The downtown did not come grinding to a halt. Pedestrian use increased on these streets, and we're seeing a mild commercial upswing on parts of both.

I can't speak for Kitchener, but the idea of one way streets as being less pedestrian friendly is a bit of an idiosyncrasy elsewhere. I know Buenos Aires is based largely on avenues of six lanes or more with one way traffic and optimized traffic flows, yet they are busier (pedestrian wise) and more 'urban' than just about anything in Toronto. The same could be said of dozens of other streets. Point being, it doesn't follow that because a few streets here are one way, and aren't nice, therefore one way streets kill traffic. I could just as easily point out the lack of public transit along Richmond/Adelaide, or the fact that most buildings 'back' onto them, or the abundance of garage entrances. Or, on the other hand, I could take a street like Marlee or Sherbourne and use their general unpleasantness as 'proof' of bidirectional traffic's despoiling effect on street activity.

EDIT: Just on this topic, I don't think I am alone in finding it easier to jaywalk oneway streets because traffic only moves in, duh, one direction.

 

[CDL.TO]

Ste-Catherine and St-Laurent in Montreal are exceedingly vibrant and are one-way.

I stick with what I said before, it's the built form of the street that is the most important (are there retail units to begin with?), and the width of the street that is the second most important factor (six lanes of two-way traffic is certainly less urban than three lanes of one-way traffic).

All the streets in Kensington are one-way, after all. As are the internal streets of Yorkville.

 

[jamesbow]

Regarding one way streets: there is certainly a factor in how a one-way street is designed. From what I've seen of Buenos Aires, the avenues are wide, and the sidewalks are wide. There are buffer zones between the fast moving vehicles and the pedestrians, which allows a good pedestrian zone to thrive.

In the Canadian (or North American) experience, most one-way streets are taken from streets which are two-way. They are converted with the purpose of moving car traffic faster, and the pedestrian is automatically considered to be second best in this arrangement. The cars go faster; they're louder, more intrusive, and in order to get as many lanes as possible (three lanes in the case of Duke/Charles; three to four lanes in the case of Richmond/Adelaide), the roadway goes right up to a narrowed sidewalk, often with no parking or anything to provide a buffer zone between car and pedestrian.

It also tends to orient the signage of the streets to the direction the cars are travelling from. Pedestrians walking the "wrong way", have less of the street addressed to them, so to speak.

It's probably quite possible to build one-way streets that offer good pedestrian space, but it's more likely to happen when the street is designed from the start with both cars and pedestrians in mind. By converting two-way streets into one-way streets, you're making a judgment that values cars ahead of pedestrians. And pedestrian space tends to suffer as a result.

...James

 

[UD2]

Let's all whine when we don't get exactly what we want.

Articulated busses. Toronto have hills. The modern articulated busses have rear wheel drive. Go google what happens to Ottawa's articulated busses during winter.

And to the comment on communist Hungary.... sigh... anyways.


For all you who posted a "thou shall not'... Run for mayor and prove to me that you can do all that's mentioned and still
1. get elected
2. get the notions passed in city hall
3. not bankrupt the city

 

[Whoaccio]

Regarding one way streets: there is certainly a factor in how a one-way street is designed. From what I've seen of Buenos Aires, the avenues are wide, and the sidewalks are wide. There are buffer zones between the fast moving vehicles and the pedestrians, which allows a good pedestrian zone to thrive

There isn't really any difference in the street's operations from Richmond or Adelaide, unless things have changed since the last time I was there. In Buenos Aires they just don't operate on idiosyncrasies about pedestrians caring more about traffic direction than architecture or quality street life through a good combination of retail and commercial uses.

It's probably quite possible to build one-way streets that offer good pedestrian space, but it's more likely to happen when the street is designed from the start with both cars and pedestrians in mind. By converting two-way streets into one-way streets, you're making a judgment that values cars ahead of pedestrians. And pedestrian space tends to suffer as a result.

There is no more or less attention paid to pedestrian activities due to one way traffic flows, though. The idea that one way traffic conversions 'values cars ahead of pedestrians' is simply not true. Zoning decisions which promote garage accesses, discourage entertainment uses on local streets and such value cars over pedestrians.

...James[/QUOTE]

 

[MisterF]

IMO, besides things like density, mixed uses and short blocks, there are 3 major factors that affect how pedestrian freindly streets tend to be:
1 - built form
2 - speed of traffic
3 - landscaping/buffering

Built form is essential. High speed traffic is undesirable, but can be mitigated by landscaping or buffering. University Avenue, for example, has fairly high speed traffic but it has wide sidewalks and parallel parking for buffering. Its problem is the built form. For Richmond and Adelaide, all 3 factors are working against them. Princess Street in Kingston, a successful one way street, has slow traffic, great built form and landscaping, and parallel parking for buffering.

One way streets can certainly be successful if they have the right elements. The problem is that the more lanes you have in one direction, the more "comfortable" it is for drivers and the faster they tend to go. A street with 4 lanes going the same way will tend to have faster traffic than one with 2 lanes in each direction.

 

[Hipster Duck]

Let's all whine when we don't get exactly what we want.

Articulated busses. Toronto have hills. The modern articulated busses have rear wheel drive. Go google what happens to Ottawa's articulated busses during winter.
And to the comment on communist Hungary.... sigh... anyways.

Speaking of "Thou shalts", "Thou shalt use snow as an excuse to not try out a proven technology" should be up there. So, the mighty hills of Toronto preclude the use of artics? Somehow this never stopped San Francisco or Vancouver. Snow isn't enough of a factor for OC Transpo or MT or YRT to abandon this technology, so why the TTC other than, as Whoaccio correctly points out, a one-time experience with lemons from almost 20 years ago.

For all you who posted a "thou shall not'... Run for mayor and prove to me that you can do all that's mentioned and still
1. get elected
2. get the notions passed in city hall
3. not bankrupt the city

1 and 2 generally don't determine the city's transportation idiosyncracies. David Miller didn't get elected by 8% of eligible voters on a pledge to never use articulated buses or to convert one-way streets. As for #3, the point of this thread is to highlight that this city has a stubborn attitude toward doing things that other cities can manage perfectly well, often at significant cost and time savings. Why do you necessarily think that building a streetcar ROW on an existing median, or subcontracting garbage service to a third party, or using the number of bus bays that is warranted by demand would bankrupt the city?

 

[doady]

There are more snowy and hilly cities in Canada that seem to use articulated buses just fine.

Also, if I am not mistaken, the articulated Van Hool buses that YRT uses use front-wheel drive, rather than rear-wheel drive.

 

[Whoaccio]

Articulated busses. Toronto have hills. The modern articulated busses have rear wheel drive. Go google what happens to Ottawa's articulated busses during winter.

Hills? Stop the presses people: Toronto, the one city on earth flatter than Kate Moss, can't run the same buses as municipalities immediately adjacent to it.

I would add another idiosyncrasy: 'though shalt dismiss any challenges to the status quo as apostasy and argue, with the utmost of certainty, the case for Toronto's transit exceptionalism.' People run articulated buses inside Toronto already, yet it doesn't seem to stop people from behaving as though articulated buses are roughly equivalent to flying saucers. Snow? Good god the humanity. I'm sure Toronto is the only city where that happens. I hear in Winnipeg, they don't even have a word for 'snow.'

And to the comment on communist Hungary.... sigh... anyways.

What, do you have evidence to support that buying buses from a communist country on the verge of collapse didn't have any effect on them being lemons? Are we to believe that the economic system that brought us, among other marvels of modern industry, The Lada, The Trabant, the Yugo and basically never advanced beyond WW2 era consumer technology somehow delivered us the pinnacle in automotive engineering?

 

[spider]

In the Canadian (or North American) experience, most one-way streets are taken from streets which are two-way. They are converted with the purpose of moving car traffic faster, and the pedestrian is automatically considered to be second best in this arrangement.

Precisely, that is why they are called roads or streets, not sidewalks

It also tends to orient the signage of the streets to the direction the cars are travelling from. Pedestrians walking the "wrong way", have less of the street addressed to them, so to speak.

You mean signs like: No parking, 50 KMH max, No left turn. All important information for pedestrians.

It's probably quite possible to build one-way streets that offer good pedestrian space, but it's more likely to happen when the street is designed from the start with both cars and pedestrians in mind. By converting two-way streets into one-way streets, you're making a judgment that values cars ahead of pedestrians. And pedestrian space tends to suffer as a result.

Reduntant generalizations, your opinons are unsupportable piffle.

 

[adma]

Hills? Stop the presses people: Toronto, the one city on earth flatter than Kate Moss, can't run the same buses as municipalities immediately adjacent to it.

*ahem* ravines *ahem* Lake Iroquois

Is Winnipeg hillier?