[interchange42]

We have the poor planners over at City Hall who allowed the condo project at Kipling and Aukland, and TTC bus bay reconstruction to proceed at the same time that critical road closures and reconstruction started for the Six Points project. I honestly wonder who plans out all this stuff because this is just extremely bad coordination, and it's leading to traffic from both Dundas, and Kipling funneling into a single channel (Aukland and St.Albans).

The planners have no control over timing, that can only be accomplished by the ward councillor convincing City Council to put some type of moratorium on a area, and they have little room to do that too, such as you cannot target one developer, it would have to be a whole area. Timing is tough to manage.

42

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

They have someone standing by a notice of public meeting for the situation at Kipling station entrance this morning.

AoD

 

[BjamesT]

I'm saying they should coordinate these projects better. In other words, dont close up one lane of traffic on a road (Aukland Rd and St.Albans Rd) where there are literally no alternatives to using that same said road, and all traffic from the surrounding 4 and 6 lane major arterial roads are forced to funnel through the 2-lane same pinch point.

You cant have 4 major projects on the go literally surrounding the same intersections (Dundas and Aukland) and expect anything to function remotely close to properly in an area where there are literally no alternatives and is car dependent area. 2 of the 4 projects on the go right now are very time sensitive (Kipling Mobility Hub and Six Point Reconstruction) while the other 2 could have been adjusted in some aspect to account for the lack of alternatives (Kipling bus bay reconstruction, and the condo project).

The issue is that they installed new lights at Auckland/Dundas. These new genius lights allowed advanced greens for WB Dundas traffic to turn onto Auckland while they ELIMINATED the advance for NB Auckland to WB Dundas. Incredibly stupid. Had an email exchange with the lisasion yesterday, the advance NB Auckland to WB Dundas has been restored, and traffic on St Albans is back to "normal". Twice in the past week my wife had to park in outdoor visitor parking because she simply could not reach the garage, and leaving in the morning, just to get from garage to SB Kipling (approx 100m) was nearly 25 minutes.

 

[Amare]

The planners have no control over timing, that can only be accomplished by the ward councillor convincing City Council to put some type of moratorium on a area, and they have little room to do that too, such as you cannot target one developer, it would have to be a whole area. Timing is tough to manage.

42

Looks like DiCiano dropped the ball yet again. I'm sure something could have been done to mitigate the madness in the area, if not a moratorium, then some kind special traffic signalling or restrictions on the drop-off locations within the Kipling Station vicinity (ie: not being allowed to enter Auckland and Subway Crescent to do drop offs). The status quo is simply poor traffic management by the city and it's dumbfounding how they didn't have the foresight to anticipate this.

The issue is that they installed new lights at Auckland/Dundas. These new genius lights allowed advanced greens for WB Dundas traffic to turn onto Auckland while they ELIMINATED the advance for NB Auckland to WB Dundas. Incredibly stupid. Had an email exchange with the lisasion yesterday, the advance NB Auckland to WB Dundas has been restored, and traffic on St Albans is back to "normal". Twice in the past week my wife had to park in outdoor visitor parking because she simply could not reach the garage, and leaving in the morning, just to get from garage to SB Kipling (approx 100m) was nearly 25 minutes.

Very idiotic move on Toronto Transportation Services part. Common sense would tell them that Auckland cant contain all of the capacity that would be dumped onto it with that kind of signal system, but yet they still went ahead and did that. This leads me to the question of where is the smart traffic light technology that John Tory likes to brag about all the time?

But I can definitely believe that it could take that long just to get out of that area. A couple days ago, it took my bus 15 mins just to get from the east end St.Albans over to the west end to enter into the Kipling bus bays.

 

[interchange42]

Wow. Well, I keep seeing tweets from Di Ciano talking about the traffic issues, so we'll see what happens: those kind of delays cannot persist long without political action: while Di Ciano isn't running again, Tory will want to be seen to be on top of this… or risk losing Etobivotes. Could Keesmaat come out calling for better coordination when areas find themselves bottlenecked by construction everywhere?

42

 

[Amare]

I'm just seeing DiCiano's tweets right now, I mean really is he kidding: "crisis averted"?

We'll see long this claim of "crisis averted" last for, especially with another ill-conceived plan by the city for a temporary PPUDO right at where the root of the problem is. Ironically it seems like they are willing to make this area a complete zoo as soon as school starts up for the year. Sometimes it's better to think before you tweet.

As for the traffic management file in the mayoral race, Keesmaat could make an absolute killing off of the issue if she comes out with a clear plan and highlights everything wrong with what Tory has been doing in the past 4 years. The only thing Tory has done to rectify traffic issues during his term is installing these "traffic wardens" to move traffic. The fact that anyone can even call that a solution is a joke in and of itself.

 

[darth_freeman]

You guys are nuts. The area is getting 3 new great infrastructure projects so of course there will be construction traffic impacts.

The signals at Dundas/Aukland were obviously a mistake by the contractor (these things happen).

Short term pain for long term gain.

 

[crs1026]

You guys are nuts. The area is getting 3 new great infrastructure projects so of course there will be construction traffic impacts.

The signals at Dundas/Aukland were obviously a mistake by the contractor (these things happen).

Short term pain for long term gain.

The projects are needed, so yeah there will be pain. But it does appear that Traffic Services isn't paying much attention to detail. Aukland/Dundas is probably the most acute traffic pinch point in all of Etobicoke's roads - second only to Queensway at Costco. And maybe Martin Grove/Eglinton. They should have been all over this from the beginning.

- Paul

 

[vic]

They should consider connecting some bus routes to Kipling Station so all those people wouldn't have to drive there.

 

[BjamesT]

Looks like DiCiano dropped the ball yet again. I'm sure something could have been done to mitigate the madness in the area, if not a moratorium, then some kind special traffic signalling or restrictions on the drop-off locations within the Kipling Station vicinity (ie: not being allowed to enter Auckland and Subway Crescent to do drop offs). The status quo is simply poor traffic management by the city and it's dumbfounding how they didn't have the foresight to anticipate this.




Very idiotic move on Toronto Transportation Services part. Common sense would tell them that Auckland cant contain all of the capacity that would be dumped onto it with that kind of signal system, but yet they still went ahead and did that. This leads me to the question of where is the smart traffic light technology that John Tory likes to brag about all the time?

But I can definitely believe that it could take that long just to get out of that area. A couple days ago, it took my bus 15 mins just to get from the east end St.Albans over to the west end to enter into the Kipling bus bays.

I was seeing people getting off and walking from basically the turnoff from SB Kipling and walking into station through the bus bays.

Oh, and another tidbit from my email exchange. The new roads (Partial Dundas on the E side, St Albans extension etc) will now open in December. The last update we had from the project was that they would open in June, ahead of the closure of the NB Kipling off ramp. It would have been nice to get an update on a 6-month change to the posted schedule.

 

[Amare]

You guys are nuts. The area is getting 3 new great infrastructure projects so of course there will be construction traffic impacts.

The signals at Dundas/Aukland were obviously a mistake by the contractor (these things happen).

Short term pain for long term gain.

Obviously there will be traffic impacts, but they shouldnt be nowhere near as bad as they are right now. You're taking the city off the hook way more than you should be for this.

The signals have nothing to do with the contractor, it was Toronto Transportation Services who couldnt get their act together (as per usual).

I was seeing people getting off and walking from basically the turnoff from SB Kipling and walking into station through the bus bays.

Oh, and another tidbit from my email exchange. The new roads (Partial Dundas on the E side, St Albans extension etc) will now open in December. The last update we had from the project was that they would open in June, ahead of the closure of the NB Kipling off ramp. It would have been nice to get an update on a 6-month change to the posted schedule.

At this point I feel like any delay in the project may just cascade downwards to other phases of the project, and the whole thing will become a lot messier than it already is.

 

[Dan416]

I'm confused by the closure of the North parking lot. So I won't be able to park there at all anymore? For how long? Seems like I'll have to move over to Islington?

 

[darth_freeman]

I'm confused by the closure of the North parking lot. So I won't be able to park there at all anymore? For how long? Seems like I'll have to move over to Islington?

Park at the new south lot and get some exercise!

 

[Dan416]

That new parking lot seems far and confusing. I think I'll switch to Islington instead.

 

[BjamesT]

Park at the new south lot and get some exercise!

Looks to be about 600m from the farthest spot to the GO tunnel. And about 700 from that spot to Islington station.