News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 02, 2020
 8.8K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 40K     0 
News   GLOBAL  |  Apr 01, 2020
 5K     0 

If I had to guess, Jarvis in 2015 will look more or less like it does today but with some token street scape improvements. A few bicyclists will probably be happy but the other 99% of the city wouldn't be able to tell the difference. If I'm upset at anything its an unquestioned assumption that cars are always detrimental to urban life and that any project that doesn't involve bike lanes is retrograde. Its just Culture Wars: Municipal Edition and doesn't lead to much.
I agree. Jarvis doesn't seem to me to be the ideal street on which to do this experiment. These heritage homes located so far from the road are not going to be torn down (for good reason), and this street will remain a main vehicular thoroughfare, just slower.
 
Let's make a pact and meet back here in 6 years to see just what impact this all ends up having.

Its more or less symbolic, but sure. What do you think the street will look like? Really. Try to avoid using buzz words like "connected" and physically describe what the street will look like.

I'd add also that I think revitalization schemes like what is happening in Regent Park are more important to Jarvis than this face lift.
 
I agree. Jarvis doesn't seem to me to be the ideal street on which to do this experiment. These heritage homes located so far from the road are not going to be torn down (for good reason), and this street will remain a main vehicular thoroughfare, just slower.

This isn't an experiment. This is a plan (which has been approved) to improve the streetscape, improve public safety, encourage future development and make the road and environs friendlier to all who use it.
Some of the remaining mansions are setback perhaps 50 or so feet, others are quite close to the sidewalk. It's about 50-50.
 
This isn't an experiment. This is a plan (which has been approved) to improve the streetscape, improve public safety, encourage future development and make the road and environs friendlier to all who use it.
Some of the remaining mansions are setback perhaps 50 or so feet, others are quite close to the sidewalk. It's about 50-50.
Whatever. It's semantics.

I hope it succeeds, but I'm not confident it will. Like others, I also think it will remain a main thoroughfare in 2015, mainly because little has been done to address this issue.

The plan/experiment/whatever is that people will stop driving because of this, but I don't see it. I only see more gridlock, with token changes to the streetscape.
 
The plan/experiment/whatever is that people will stop driving because of this

Really? If that's the case, why wouldn't they just cement some cinder blocks onto the road all the way down the centre lane? I mean, if the plan is to make people stop driving why go through all the fuss of redesigning the road and tearing it up?
Because (for the 30th time in this thread), it's not about getting people out of cars, it's about making a more pleasant street. This will come at the price of marginally longer driving times up and down Jarvis, but the hope is that will be a small price to pay for the benefits.

Why do some insist on believing this is some fiendish plot against motorists?
 
Last edited:
Oh, really? If that's the case, why wouldn't they just put some cement some cinder blocks onto the road all the way down the centre lane? I mean, if the plan is to make people stop driving why go through all the fuss of redesigning the road and tearing it up?

Because (for the 30th time in this thread), it's not about getting people out of cars, it's about making a more pleasant street for people who aren't in cars. Why do some insist on believing this is some fiendish plot against motorists?
People keep saying this, but there's the little issue of removing a lane, effectively reducing the lanes from three to two in the rush hour direction.

Why do some insist on believing this isn't going to significantly affect motorists? Where is the alternative route on the east side?

P.S. I don't even use this route. I'm not just not overly impressed with this plan obviously.
 
Its more or less symbolic, but sure. What do you think the street will look like? Really. Try to avoid using buzz words like "connected" and physically describe what the street will look like.

I'd add also that I think revitalization schemes like what is happening in Regent Park are more important to Jarvis than this face lift.

I wouldn't disagree for a moment that what's happening in Regent Park is more important than Jarvis Street, it's not even a fair comparison. Regent Park will have a monumental impact on the quality of life for geared to income residents who return to live in the neighbourhood, for market renters and condo purchasers. It's a good central location that is well served by transit and should turn out to be a great place for all to live, shop and play.

Here is what I honestly envision, and hope for in about five years based on the "Jarvis Street Streetscape Improvement" proposal. I have no illusions that the whole plan will be implemented, but I am still an optimist at heart.

* I believe that the improvements will bring people back to the street and become more of a destination given the heritage homes/mansions and other important points of interest that can be found along here. Many who live in the community will choose to walk and cycle sections of the street more instead of avoiding it by using nearby streets due to it being safer, a visually appealing place to walk and a somewhat quieter street thanks to the trees that will be added which will hopefully be more matured by then. I expect that the rush-hour "expressway" mentality with only two lanes in each direction should calm the traffic speed too.

* The improved, wider sidewalk widths will be able to accommodate wheelchairs and motorized scooters at all points and improve safety for both the disabled and pedestrians along sections with narrow areas of sidewalk

* More trees added, poorly planted trees removed makes for a healthier and more attractive area

* Jarvis Street could actually become a great place to sit, enjoy a coffee or meet with friends in more attractive surroundings with improved lighting (by night) and street furniture - which hardly exists at all right now

* There are existing opportunities and future opportunities for more retail and perhaps more importantly, restaurants with patios. Sitting on the patio at The Red Lion at Jarvis & Maitland for brunch or dinner is nice, but is noisy as all hell due to traffic whipping by. Hopefully that will improve.

* Improving Allen Gardens relationship to Jarvis Street by making it friendlier to use (benches and landscaping); generally making it more inviting by beautifying that edge of the park which borders Jarvis Street

* The street will become a much more traveled N/S route for cyclists but I think it will take a season or two for people to find it and try it. Hopefully this along with many other added bike routes will continue to get more people onto bicycles in the years to come

* Folks who opposed the removal of the middle lane may be frustrated at their loss and at gaining 2 or 3 minutes of travel time but I believe that most will come around

* Although not exactly a tourist hot spot, out of towners/tourists will be rightly impressed should they find themselves scoping out the beautiful old mansions or taking walking tours with the added beautification.

* Reduced noise, dangerous traffic and pollution for the thousands of people who live on or near Jarvis Street. Hopefully reduced speed too during "rush-hours"

* Finally, added pedestrian crossings at points where there are long stretches in between traffic lights and improved pedestrian crossings (most notably where Jarvis splits at Charles Street and continues to Bloor and veers off on the right side to Mt. Pleasant Rd.

Off the top of my head, that's what comes to mind at the moment.
 
P.S. I don't even use this route. I'm not just not overly impressed with this plan obviously.

Fair enough. A lot of people aren't impressed, and it's probably not exactly what I would do, but I think it has merit.

Why do some insist on believing this isn't going to significantly affect motorists? Where is the alternative route on the east side?

Alternative route? Why not take...oh, I dunno...Jarvis (it's not being closed off to traffic), or Church, or Parliament, Sherborne, Bayview, the DVP...

They've done studies, and the engineers concluded that travel times the length of the street will increase by around 2 minutes or 3 minutes. No need for alternate routing, you'll get there.
This could be very beneficial for a lot of people and the city at large. Yes, it comes at a cost, but what doesn't?
 
Last edited:
Alternative route? Why not take...oh, I dunno...Jarvis (it's not being closed off to traffic), or Church, or Parliament, Sherborne, Bayview, the DVP...
Well, Bayview and the DVP aren't really via options. Church is too slow. (It's sometimes a parking lot in rush hour.) Parliament is quite a ways over, but is doable, and not quite as slow as Church. I may be mistaken but Sherbourne IIRC is pretty slow in rush hour already too.
 
Well, Bayview and the DVP aren't really via options. Church is too slow. (It's sometimes a parking lot in rush hour.) Parliament is quite a ways over, but is doable, and not quite as slow as Church. I may be mistaken but Sherbourne IIRC is pretty slow in rush hour already too.

I think the city is trying to tell you something. They don't want people trying to go north-south on local roads. If everyone is travelling east-west then traffic will flow better.
 
I will wade in...

The notion that dropping Jarvis from 5 lanes to 4 will really impact traffic flow seems far-fetched. For one thing, a street that wide in central Toronto is an anomaly--always has been--and bringing it to the same condition as most other arterials is hardly going to shepherd the apocalypse. Anyway, drivers from anywhere north of Rosedale can easily switch to the Bayview Extension and Richmond if they're really that concerned.

Try telling this to Londoners--they have to deal with the fact that Finchley Road, the main route out of the city to the north (which, by the way, is one of the principal routes to two airports) has at most two and at some points one lane for cars. Think about that. Imagine a city-region with double the GTA's population, but in which even major arterials inside the ring road are one- or at most two-lanes each way. Now that's unusual even in Europe, and given London's massive rail capacity in all directions not an easy comparison to Toronto. But it does give one a sense of how comparatively pampered Toronto's drivers are.

All of this said, I am not unreservedly supportive of the Jarvis bike lanes. My concern is that there and elsewhere in town the bike lane agenda is hijacking what should be an urban design, 'complete streets' agenda. Bike lanes are easy to install--you literally just need a can of paint. But they won't turn Jarvis or any other street into a more attractive, vibrant place to be. For that we need all the stuff that is so often neglected in Toronto: proper street trees, much wider and attractively paved sidewalks, buried hydro wires, sensibly placed benches and other street furniture, etc. etc. I don't think anyone would be surprised if, once the bike lanes go in on Jarvis, the vaunted streetscaping never appears.

That's the risk here, and it's why I was so disappointed that the Jarvis project suddenly turned from a streetscaping initiative to a bike-lanes one.

Same goes for University, which the cycling caucus are gearing up to make their next target. It's one of Toronto's great missed opportunities, and has the potential to be a spectacular urban boulevard. Bike lanes aren't going to do it.
 
Same goes for University, which the cycling caucus are gearing up to make their next target. It's one of Toronto's great missed opportunities, and has the potential to be a spectacular urban boulevard. Bike lanes aren't going to do it.

I walked University Ave. from top to bottom about a week ago, it was a fabulous walk. I would normally cycle that route which is very different from walking because there is less opportunity to take in the details while paying attention to the road. I enjoyed it so much I plan to photograph it from the bottom up. There are some missed opportunities no doubt so perhaps we can debate that in another thread.
 
That's the risk here, and it's why I was so disappointed that the Jarvis project suddenly turned from a streetscaping initiative to a bike-lanes one.

Same goes for University, which the cycling caucus are gearing up to make their next target. It's one of Toronto's great missed opportunities, and has the potential to be a spectacular urban boulevard. Bike lanes aren't going to do it.


You raise an interesting point about decision-making in Toronto. Very often the interests of a silent, albeit apathetic, majority get hijacked by the demands of better-mobilized minority interest groups. This is not to say there is anything wrong with self-interested minorities - from time to time we all have specific needs and wants - but I do expect more from our leaders than a squeaky-wheel-gets-oil approach to urban development, funding and public policy. At the end of the day the people of Toronto get the government they deserve, whether responsive to the will of the majority or not, but I am still amazed by this aspect of our local political culture for it is far more typical that politicians elsewhere tend to do the exact opposite in their pandering to the perceived needs of the majority...

The addition of bike lanes all over Toronto, no matter what the cost or consequence to congestion, will still not make the majority of commuters into and/or within the city ditch the car or metropass. That this has become such a high profile priority, even in a recession, is telling.
 

Back
Top