[44 North]

What I'd like to see is for this project to work 100% in tandem with Relief Line planning as if the two projects were part of the same package. And for an admission that without an RL the net gains of an improved 504 will be lost. Yes the street and pedestrian experience will be vastly improved. But it's no question that demand (existing, latent, future) will swamp an improved 504, and that service speed / capacity / reliability will be insufficient without a parallel subway. What's more is that since QQW we now know what happens when we combine trains and wandering people.

King transit mall is great, but needs to be a cohesive part of Queen subway planning.

 

[amnesiajune]

Right -- I'd be fine coming pretty close to betting my life that this council will never support a car-free King St.

I don't see why they wouldn't support it for some parts, since Richmond, Adelaide and Wellington are all streetcar-free streets that can accommodate more traffic. The problem is just west of Bathurst where King & Queen are the only roads for traffic to use. Dundas isn't parallel, Lakeshore is cut off by the Exhibition grounds and the Gardiner has no entrances/exits between Spadina and Jameson.

 

[gweed123]

What I'd like to see is for this project to work 100% in tandem with Relief Line planning as if the two projects were part of the same package. And for an admission that without an RL the net gains of an improved 504 will be lost. Yes the street and pedestrian experience will be vastly improved. But it's no question that demand (existing, latent, future) will swamp an improved 504, and that service speed / capacity / reliability will be insufficient without a parallel subway. What's more is that since QQW we now know what happens when we combine trains and wandering people.

King transit mall is great, but needs to be a cohesive part of Queen subway planning.

My hope is that this is a push to get these improvements implemented ASAP, since nothing beyond paint and signage is required. The objections are purely political, not fiscal.

Going forward, grouping a transit mall reconstruction of King St into a DRL package would almost look like a rounding error ($5.2 billion vs $5.3 billion, very few would care), and would be much easier to swallow politically. Time it so that the transit mall is open for operation immediately before the Queen streetcar needs to be rerouted because of DRL construction.

This is actually pretty similar to what Ottawa did with the Confederation Line and the 417 widening. The added lane in each direction is being used exclusively by OC Transpo during LRT construction, to be converted into an HOV lane afterwards. Nobody balked at all at the widening, since it was packaged in as 'necessary to complete the LRT'.

 

[crs1026]

It's just insane that we have such congestion problemson King/Queen and not make 504 an efficient operation. I'm good with dedicated streetcar lanes on both King and Queen.

We are going to lose Queen as an effective transit thoroughfare for a few years anyways when DRL construction begins - at that point open access vehicular traffic downtown will simply cease to be possible. If we don't recognise that now, and plan to make King a fast transit priority, we will end up with gridlock in all modes downtown.

Just do it.

- Paul

 

[BMO]

My hope is that this is a push to get these improvements implemented ASAP, since nothing beyond paint and signage is required. The objections are purely political, not fiscal.

Going forward, grouping a transit mall reconstruction of King St into a DRL package would almost look like a rounding error ($5.2 billion vs $5.3 billion, very few would care), and would be much easier to swallow politically. Time it so that the transit mall is open for operation immediately before the Queen streetcar needs to be rerouted because of DRL construction.

This is actually pretty similar to what Ottawa did with the Confederation Line and the 417 widening. The added lane in each direction is being used exclusively by OC Transpo during LRT construction, to be converted into an HOV lane afterwards. Nobody balked at all at the widening, since it was packaged in as 'necessary to complete the LRT'.

Is anyone hoping maybe some stop adjustments or improvements would be made as part of this? I still feel like requiring people to load from across a lane of traffic presents a number of issues that I personally would like to see addressed. Could we look at adding island stops at more locations like we have at Bathurst/King, Bathurst/Queen, College/Bay?

 

[DSC]

Is anyone hoping maybe some stop adjustments or improvements would be made as part of this? I still feel like requiring people to load from across a lane of traffic presents a number of issues that I personally would like to see addressed. Could we look at adding island stops at more locations like we have at Bathurst/King, Bathurst/Queen, College/Bay?

You need a very wide street to accommodate island platforms and King is certainly not wide enough.

 

[steveintoronto]

From CBC News:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/king-street-ttc-streetcar-dedicated-city-planning-1.3841304

AoD

From the article:
[...]
At the November meeting, the community council will consider two recommendations from the city's planning division: one is to have public consultation on the downtown plan; the other is to have Chief Planner Jennifer Keesmaat develop a secondary plan for downtown.

"TOcore is a response to the rapid growth and intensification of downtown that is placing pressure on finite physical and social infrastructure assets and that is occurring in a pattern and at an intensity that is beginning to threaten the liveability of the heart of the city," reads the item to be considered.

A secondary plan would update what the city calls its "downtown planning framework to shape future growth" and outline how infrastructure money will be needed to achieve the vision detailed in TOcore.

According to the King Street Visioning Study, a pilot project could create a dedicated right-of-way for streetcars on sections of King.

The city says about 10,000 new residents move into Toronto's downtown every year. That rate of growth means the city's downtown population could increase from 250,000 currently to 475,000 in 2041.
[...]

From reading many of the reader replies at the article, the bulk are for it, but some still insist on not seeing the reason behind the need to do this, and tout excuses like "Well what about deliveries?" Like the cities that have congestion charges, pedestrianized streets and transit only streets, deliveries are done at night, or via back alley access.

It's an odd thing, Toronto loves to claim it's a 'world class city', and yet refuses to act like one. Even US cities, bastion of cars, are implementing exactly these kinds of solutions. San Diego has had this for decades now, the Trolley (streetcar) is all that runs through some major downtown streets, and SD is one of *many* cities that do this. London, Paris, etc, etc.

14 July 2016 • 6:27am
Oxford Street will be pedestrianised by 2020, the Mayor of London's office has announced.

The central London shopping hub is one of the busiest in the capital and is visited by more than four million people a week, according to The Times.

The plan will be rolled out in two stages to reduce disruption on the 1.2-mile stretch.

Valerie Shawcross, London's deputy mayor for transport, told the London Assembly that the plan was to ban all vehicles from Tottenham Court Road to beyond Selfridges and the entrance to Bond Street Tube station.
[...]
One study two years ago named Oxford Street as the most polluted street in the world, mainly because it is used by about 270 buses a day, the newspaper reported.

The pedestrianisation will coincide with the opening of Crossrail - a new east-west train line - which is expected to boost the number of shoppers significantly.

Stations are scheduled to open at Tottenham Court Road and Bond Street in December 2018.

Cars are already banned on most of Oxford Street between 7am and 7pm on every day apart from Sunday, but it is a major thoroughfare for buses and taxis.

Siwan Puw, policy manager at the London Chamber of Commerce, said: “Doing the work in stages means trading will continue more easily. However, we need to ensure continuity of service in the area during the changes.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...car-free-by-2020-in-bid-to-tackle-air-pollut/

There are answers, and models to learn from.

 

[steveintoronto]

But it's no question that demand (existing, latent, future) will swamp an improved 504, and that service speed / capacity / reliability will be insufficient without a parallel subway.

Check out 4 mins in and on in this vid. I'll try and find more that detail the main streets that have become trolley only, and SD has never looked back. Tell me coupled new low-floor BBD streetcars can't be coupled together like this. There is no need for a "subway" to carry the load for King. Surface tram trains will do it.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Check out 4 mins in and on in this vid. I'll try and find more that detail the main streets that have become trolley only, and SD has never looked back. Tell me coupled new low-floor BBD streetcars can't be coupled together like this. There is no need for a "subway" to carry the load for King. Surface tram trains will do it.

The ones being built for the legacy streetcar network are not designed to be coupled together other than for towing/ pushing purposes.

 

[steveintoronto]

The ones being built for the legacy streetcar network are not designed to be coupled together other than for towing/ pushing purposes.

Do the math to buy some that can, then compare it to the alternatives, or add in sections to lengthen the ones that would run on a King RoW.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

Do the math to buy some that can, then compare it to the alternatives.

I don't think the TTC wants to do that with them as they would be too long on the road and in loops at 200 feet long. If they had wanted them to be able to be connected for EMU operation they would have when they ordered them.

 

[steveintoronto]

The present Outlooks can be ordered with more sections in them, or later versions can have multi capability added. The derivation the Outlooks come from are run in trains in many other places...

 

[crs1026]

If we increase the velocity of those Flexities, adding length won't be necessary.

- Paul

 

[steveintoronto]

If we increase the velocity of those Flexities, adding length won't be necessary.

- Paul

The present load carried by the King car, which is the highest of any surface route in Toronto, could only increase by more velocity, which could be further massaged by the latest signalling and control methods to prevent bunching and assist major intersection precedence.
The claim that a subway would be needed to handle the load should be the last thing to be considered, at least along that alignment.

 

[pstogios]

It's galling that the city is only discussing to study the problem of congestion on King. This street has been jammed for oh what, 10 years now? It's a total joke that this city is moving so slow on this.