Voltz
Senior Member
Those cops are paid for by the sporting event or construction site where they are working, they would otherwise not be working, the school crossings are most often covered by crossing guards, not cops.
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Those cops are paid for by the sporting event or construction site where they are working, they would otherwise not be working, the school crossings are most often covered by crossing guards, not cops.
steveintoronto
Superstar
Exactly right. Paid duty. What's needed are *traffic wardens* or TTC constables deputized to direct and ticket traffic. This is just one more reason that there should be *no exceptions* to the rules of the King Street Corridor. Cameras would help, actual bodies on the ground able to issue tickets will be far better. *This must be policed*! Anyone who lives near an intersection with "No left turn" signs knows how rampant the abuse is, to the point that other drivers, blocked by the left turning miscreants, honk their horns in chorus. I hear it constantly during the day at Dundas and Bloor. The "No Left Turn" signs are there to...wait for it...stop streetcars having their way blocked. Half of the honking and clanging is from streetcars. Cameras are only for red lights, not illegal turns.
This project isn't going to work unless it is almost absolute in policing. And when the police, TTC, planners and others state it, there has to be substance behind it.
And it should apply to cyclists too. If they wish to continue on King past major intersections, they should dismount, cross as a pedestrian through the intersection, and remount the other side. Or take Adelaide or Richmond. (And that's my prime mode of transport, has been for decades in this jurisdiction). Cyclists are the worst miscreants when it comes to traffic law. Fortunately the damage they do is mostly to themselves, but the terms must apply to all, save for pedestrians, and even there, where the sidewalks are pushed out to the tracks, steps must be taken to keep them off the tracks.
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ADRM
Senior Member
This is a pretty tidy encapsulation of how we get watered down dreck like this pilot instead of fully grade-separated transit priority.
Not to beat a dead horse, but pox on the Fords (past and current) for continuing to poison the streetcar waters and perpetuating this stuff.
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
Did you mean dedicated right-of-way? Or did you actually mean a full underground (or elevated) subway or underground streetcar?
ADRM
Senior Member
Yeah, dedicated ROW -- "grade-separated" is imprecise and incorrect in this sense. I'd love for Toronto's next transit-friendly Mayor (whenever that may come) to come in and say "we're going to vastly improve and expand Toronto's streetcar network, city-wide."
All the busiest routes get dedicated ROWs, elimination of turning priority of single-occupant motor vehicles, better all-weather protection, a reduction in the number of stops in some cases, and a whole bunch of other badly needed speed and reliability improvements.
This should be so easy, but, alas, we have people like Michael Ford (and, really, a majority of Toronto Council) and John Tory running the show.
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Leo_Chan
Senior Member
Does left turn car signal priority even help when there is no dedicated left turn lane? Also, are left turning arrows or left turning signals (no turning during normal green) better in terms of traffic throughput?
amnesiajune
Senior Member
But all the busiest routes only have four lanes. With two lanes removed, you have to ban left turns. And unless you want to ban pedestrian crossings when cars have the green light, you also have to ban right turns. So what is the road useful for?
The only dedicated ROW that will ever work for those streetcars is (A) the one-way roads with contraflow streetcar lanes that I mentioned earlier (pairing King/Queen, College/Dundas and Queen/Gerrard), or (B) a tunnelled/elevated streetcar ROW.
MM1964
New Member
Regarding the Toronto Transit file - its not fair to shift blame on the Fords. They were consistent and clear on wanting subways, but failed to convince others. We can all agree that great cities deserve subways.
Where do we start the blame game for our transit woes?
Where do we start the blame game for our transit woes?
- Every Federal and Provincial politician for the past 40 years, who passed the buck?
- Poor city planning - Queens Quay confusion anyone?
- Ward Councillor interference on where transit stops should be
- Lame enforcement - how many transit cops do we have?
- Greedy developers - asking to borrow entire lanes of traffic and city complying
- Toronto procurement process - Bombardier failure
- TTC in general taking way too long to finish anything
- Car drivers and cyclists - fighting for too few space and each disobeying the laws in the process.
- Finally, don't get me started on ignorant pedestrians who don't understand that a flashing hand at a intersection means do not enter.
ADRM
Senior Member
We cannot all agree on that, at least not uniformly. In some cases, subways are right, and in others, surface transit is. Great cities realize that rather than applying a blanket preference of one over the other.
Leo_Chan
Senior Member
Although I know what the right thing to do is (and others may also), but the majority of pedestrians do no follow this rule (unless countdown is 5 seconds) since we're all in a hurry and want to get where we want to as quickly as possible.
The only way I think can solve this is not have the flashing phase at all (or have it earlier) so that there is a period of time dedicated for cars turning right (or left). Of course people will still break the rules, but only the boldest of rule breakers will do it.
Well, subways are the best (ignoring costs) if there were 4+ levels of subways. One type that stops at every light, another that uses Line 1/2 spacing, another that is express at only major intersections, and one more that connects specific destinations (not following a corridor).
ADRM
Senior Member
I think, ceteris paribus, the goal of at least some of our roads should prioritize the movement of the highest number of people most efficiently. I don't think it's a crazy idea at all to ban left turns on some sections of some of our roads.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Not some. All. The city would also have to create and enforce real pedestrian scrambles (and large areas for pedestrians to wait) at each intersection, where right-turning cars get priority over pedestrians and pedestrians can only cross when all traffic has a red light.
ADRM
Senior Member
Right, I get what you mean -- what I was envisioning (without sufficient detail) was an instance where a dedicated ROW extended only through a portion of a particular route; i.e. Route X would be grade separated between cross-streets Y and Z but not for the entire length of the route, and thus lefts wouldn't need to be banned along the entire route.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Long-term, I think the only good solution will be to tunnel under Queen Street, make Queen a dedicated road for car use, and then extend the King Street closures all the way from Queen to Roncesvalles (and reroute the 501 onto King)
steveintoronto
Superstar
I agree, but that is really long term. It's my preference that the tunnel under Queen be GO RER connected through each end to extant GO lines (Georgetown Corridor and Lakeshore West one end, Don Valley (Bala Sub) and Lakeshore East the other.
Here's something disturbing not direct to King, but direct to the obliviousness of pedestrians and the problem it's going to be on the King Corridor if those streetcars are to move at the speed they need to:
[...]Aikins said it has been a tough week for GO officials, with three other confirmed fatalities on the GO tracks.[...]
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...service-on-lakeshore-west-line-suspended.html