[nfitz]

... parked outside and then ate (and drove home drunk).

That's an interesting point I hadn't pondered.

But yeah, that's actually the reason I was thrilled to move to Toronto, is that I could actually go out easier and not have just one drink. It's like all the call to move sports stadiums to the suburbs in the USA with huge parking lots. Who the heck wants to go to a soccer or football match - or even baseball - and have to worry about driving home?

It probably would've been easier to buy vehicles that could go forward and backwards when the time came where all the legacy vehicles were eliminated, and then rebuild loops with crossover tracks to avoid needing spacious loops.

You'd still need the same legacy cars (though perhaps with 2 cabs) as it's the tight curves on the network and the hills that are the big issues. Once you've dealt with that, it can already do all the loops. And ultimately you have capacity issues with crossovers.

I never have trouble finding either underground or on-street metered parking downtown.

Nor have I really, in areas I know. Most everywhere has good places if you know where they are. I used to love the far end of Adelaide between Spadina and Bathurst. Didn't fail me once - but haven't tried for a while.

... and it's almost always cheaper to drive my family downtown and pay for parking (since I already must own and operate the car) than taking the TTC.

Kids are free (well mine still are), I've got the pass to get to work downtown. So at most we are at a $6 fare. That'd drop to $3 if you start back within 2 hours, when the 2-hour transfer hits in August. Even before I used transit every day, the day pass is only $12.50 for the entire family on the weekend.

What's the new hourly parking rate right downtown? $5 an hour I think on the street. So probably $10 to $15. Hopefully don't go two different places (which I do all the time, as the kids are so fussy, once you find something that works, you go back).

I thought family passes were only on Sundays and holidays, not Saturdays, good to know.

They were, but they changed the policy - back when your 14-year old was still in diapers!

Of course if the system was smart it would let my family use our four presto cards and apply the family rate.

No indication on how it will be implemented yet - though I suspect it will be one person taps, and everyone goes through wheelchair entrance - though I have no idea how it'll know to charge $12.50 instead of $3 - there'd have to be some override button or something. Perhaps staff would have to activate it somehow - which won't work well on buses.

Everyone tapping is an idea. But what if your nephew and niece come along too one day? But perhaps that could be configured online the day before or something - but doesn't seem simple of flexible.

If I were them, I'd do it as a form of paper ticket, like students, seniors, and adults. But it would be family. Let people purchase in advance, and the first time you tap with it, then it's active for 24-hours - instead of a 2-hour transfer. And walk through the accessibility gates. Though how the bus driver would know when you tap, I don't know ... I guess you could make them a distinct colour or something.

Should be interesting!

 

[TheTigerMaster]

Some King Street transit ridership fact checking: The most commonly cited ridership number for King is 65,000 people per day. But this figure is outdated, and does not include the 514 Cherry. The combined daily ridership for 504 and 514 (pre-pilot) is 72,190.

https://twitter.com/BenSpurr/status/953273628371668992

 

[drum118]

Why the King St. transit changes are here to stay

 

[deep6ing]

I'm frustrated by the #KingStreetPilot. Can someone remind me why we didn't just do streetcar right of way in the left lane and cars in the right? Let them drive the length of King if they want. All that will do is slow down car traffic. Much more efficient. All these forced right turns are non-sensical. I'm really hoping we don't lose a great restaurant like Buca over this... King Street is a destination for many so if you make it more difficult to get there, you will invariably decrease the amount of people going.

 

[Leo_Chan]

I'm frustrated by the #KingStreetPilot. Can someone remind me why we didn't just do streetcar right of way in the left lane and cars in the right? Let them drive the length of King if they want. All that will do is slow down car traffic. Much more efficient. All these forced right turns are non-sensical. I'm really hoping we don't lose a great restaurant like Buca over this... King Street is a destination for many so if you make it more difficult to get there, you will invariably decrease the amount of people going.

The point was to improve transit and the transit experience. With continuous car lane in the curb lanes mean riders will still have to wait on the sidewalk for the streetcar. With this (not ideal) solution of far side stops and forced right turns, there is some improvement to the waiting experience.

I, like many others on the forum, think that the "alternating loops" proposal is much better than the current and the dedicated streetcar ROW and cars in curb lane configurations. It improves the pedestrian experience on one side of the street (alternating), cars will be able to go a full block so deliveries can be made, (in one direction), streetcars get their own ROW and don't need to share with cars, and many more benefits that "Separated Lanes" and "Transit Promenade" do not have.

I like B, we got C, and you want A

 

[DSC]

I'm frustrated by the #KingStreetPilot. Can someone remind me why we didn't just do streetcar right of way in the left lane and cars in the right? Let them drive the length of King if they want. All that will do is slow down car traffic. Much more efficient. All these forced right turns are non-sensical. I'm really hoping we don't lose a great restaurant like Buca over this... King Street is a destination for many so if you make it more difficult to get there, you will invariably decrease the amount of people going.

Because there need to be cab ranks and drop off areas so the curb lane is often blocked. Also, the sidewalks on many blocks of King are far too narrow. The pilot will allow for wider pedestrian areas and if/when the pilot becomes permanent the City will make permanent changes. The pilot actually makes it FAR EASIER and FASTER for most people to get there (by transit) and makes it (slightly) more complicated for those driving.(Particularly those who seem unable to make right turns!

 

[rbt]

Particularly those who seem unable to make right turns!

Rights are tricky. Even Nascar prefers to make left turns.

 

[BMO]

We need to get out of the mindset of constantly criticizing these vocal businesses for being so dependent on customers that need to park. This is simply because of the point that has been made numerous times here: any business model that relies so heavily on parking immediately outside their location is totally flawed, so no long-time business owner on King can be so stupid.

There must be other factors at play here. I’ve listed some in an earlier message but I thought of another.

Perhaps a contributing factor to the (actually still unproven) drop in business on King is the inability of vehicles that drop off passengers on King but don’t park (taxis, Uber and friends/family) to have straight-line access through King. Perhaps people are avoiding King because getting there by car without actually parking is more difficult. Difficult enough to have an effect.

Should this be true, extending the exception for taxis and Ubers to earlier hours of the day would alleviate this and this would be worth testing out.

I'm going to screen-capture your post and post it all over twitter to get people riled up to prove you wrong. /s

I can see how some restaurants on King Street would be feeling the burn if they relied heavily on Uber eats to compliment foot traffic.

 

[deep6ing]

Because there need to be cab ranks and drop off areas so the curb lane is often blocked. Also, the sidewalks on many blocks of King are far too narrow. The pilot will allow for wider pedestrian areas and if/when the pilot becomes permanent the City will make permanent changes. The pilot actually makes it FAR EASIER and FASTER for most people to get there (by transit) and makes it (slightly) more complicated for those driving.(Particularly those who seem unable to make right turns!

Whether or not you can drive the distance or not, we are still down to one lane.

 

[deep6ing]

I like B, we got C, and you want A

I like A because it reaches the goal with minimum disruption. I'm sorry but people are more than capable of walking ten feet to board the streetcar. I also think economically it makes sense for people to drive straight down King... it lets people window shop for restaurants and bars maybe they didn't know about and want to try next. If you Buca decides to move or Rodney's decides that it can be a more accessible destination somewhere else in the city, there will be a lot of egg on people's faces. I think we need to balance our goals with a healthy amount of respect for the businesses that helped make this area popular. There's nothing wrong with moving conservatively. I keep hearing that King was broken coming from a bunch of politicians that don't live anywhere near here... I live at King and Spadina and have for three and a half years. It wasn't broken. Could streetcar travel be sped up during rush hour... absolutely. But I think the best solution to dramatically decreasing that would have just been giving the streetcar the left lane. Keep it simple.

 

[Leo_Chan]

I like A because it reaches the goal with minimum disruption. I'm sorry but people are more than capable of walking ten feet to board the streetcar. I also think economically it makes sense for people to drive straight down King... it lets people window shop for restaurants and bars maybe they didn't know about and want to try next. If you Buca decides to move or Rodney's decides that it can be a more accessible destination somewhere else in the city, there will be a lot of egg on people's faces. I think we need to balance our goals with a healthy amount of respect for the businesses that helped make this area popular. There's nothing wrong with moving conservatively. I keep hearing that King was broken coming from a bunch of politicians that don't live anywhere near here... I live at King and Spadina and have for three and a half years. It wasn't broken. Could streetcar travel be sped up during rush hour... absolutely. But I think the best solution to dramatically decreasing that would have just been giving the streetcar the left lane. Keep it simple.

I completely understand where you are coming from. In an isolated world where there’s only streetcars and cars, then Seperated Lanes would be perfectly acceptable. However, we don’t live in such a world as there are taxis, trucks, bicycles, illegal stopping, and horses. If Seperated Lanes did go forward as the choice for the pilot, there still would be people complaining as you wouldn’t be allowed to stop, there will be no on-street parking, drop offs would be moved to farther places, and cars will have “the same” priority as street cars. The main restriction with King St is the width of the right of way, if it was 6m or more wider, then yes, cars, streetcars, bicycles, and pedestrians can have the same priority, but since it is restricted, transit is give priority, even though cars lining up the turn right slow it down. Even if King St was only as wide as St Clair, such a solution would be perfect, but it’s not.

 

[deep6ing]

I think you hit it on the head though... this is like an intellectual exercise for a lot people. For anyone that lives in and around King, they will tell you it's been emptied out. You will see businesses start to close at some point in the not too distant future. That's too high a price to pay for saving 4-5 minutes going from Bathurst to Jarvis.

I would opt for left lanes for streetcars but not physically separated so that if there was an obstruction then cars could go around it. But I would put cameras in to police it. And make a special 30km/h speed limit for safety. Sensible solutions... I'm not upset at my city for taking a stab at this I'm just shocked they haven't adjusted drastically seeing the negative effects it is having.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

For anyone that lives in and around King, they will tell you it's been emptied out. You will see businesses start to close at some point in the not too distant future. That's too high a price to pay for saving 4-5 minutes going from Bathurst to Jarvis.

Delaying 75,000 daily commuters, harming businesses around the city, is too high a price to pay to maintain a handful of businesses on King Street.

 

[deep6ing]

Delaying 75,000 daily commuters, harming businesses around the city, is too high a price to pay to maintain a handful of businesses on King Street.

Nobody was arguing for King Street pre-pilot. You can achieve the gains minus the costs.

 

[jys]

I like A because it reaches the goal with minimum disruption. I'm sorry but people are more than capable of walking ten feet to board the streetcar. I also think economically it makes sense for people to drive straight down King... it lets people window shop for restaurants and bars maybe they didn't know about and want to try next. If you Buca decides to move or Rodney's decides that it can be a more accessible destination somewhere else in the city, there will be a lot of egg on people's faces. I think we need to balance our goals with a healthy amount of respect for the businesses that helped make this area popular.

The only reason that you feel like the street is empty because all the cars are gone. As some other people have posted, cars don't shop, people do. In a environment like King Street in downtown Toronto, you either walk to visit different businesses or you don't visit them, it's impractical to use a car. So all the cars that are gone are actually just passing by. They don't contribute to the businesses. People who drive to these business will still drive there. As for cars passing by, people driving cars (hopefully) concentrate on the road and not the businesses that they are passing. On the other hand, streetcar riders more frequently look out the windows and see these businesses. They also have the flexibility of getting off wherever they want to check them out. If anything, the King Street Pilot Project is better for businesses along the route. Go there, check it out, and you will see. You are welcome to bring up names of specific businesses that you have personally seen get less customers because of this pilot project.