We can’t give Toronto enough credit for showing how simple it can be to improve transit service with its
King Street project. The trick is to get cars out of the way.
The one-year pilot project made King Street, with its 65,000 streetcar trips, a much faster street for transit by limiting cars to local access only. Using inexpensive low-cost materials, the city was able to dramatically improve streetcar travel times for only $1.5 million.
Streetcar trips were maddeningly slow when transit riders were bogged down in private car traffic. But when the pilot launched a few weeks ago, it
immediately shaved five to 13 minutes off streetcar journeys along the 1.6-mile stretch. The reception from riders has been
overwhelmingly positive, and the Toronto Star has already
insisted the changes should be made permanent.