Toronto streetcars keep getting stuck in traffic. An obvious solution: making King St. car-free, at least during rush hours. This has infuriated the Mayor:
Mayor Rob Ford and his brother Councillor Doug Ford condemned the idea of closing downtown King St. to car traffic on their radio show Sunday.
“You cannot shut down King St. for streetcars. We need to phase out streetcars,” said Mayor Ford, who would replace them with buses.
Councillor Karen Stintz, who chairs the TTC board, is to move a motion there Monday, asking staff to look into the feasibility of banning cars from King St. in rush hour during the 2015 Pan Am Games.
Replace streetcars with buses?! Is he smoking crack?!
Yes. Yes he is.
Speaking of failure; WTF — is he really going to keep his job after smoking crack on video?
The King St corridor has been a congestion issue for long time. It is mainly congested by streetcars stopped at red lights and backed up behind other obstacles as the streetcars can’t change lanes. Left turns have been removed from the street for a long time. The streetcar traffic is congesting itself as the guideway is still shared by cross lights, and frequent stops.
The solution to this is the downtown relief line, or a King street subway-type solution.
Rob Ford campaigned with a transit plan based on subways using dedicated right of ways, fast travel times, and minimal surface footprint. The legacy transit council blocked his efforts after the election.
“It’s time for responsible government to implement a sensible transportation plan that reflects the needs of transit users, motorists, commercial vehicle operators, cyclists and pedestrians.”
The obvious solution to this problem was years ago.
Putting streetcars in exclusive ROW addresses the problem with traffic lights. That is because, with the cars out of the way, trams can run to a predictable schedule. When you know when your tram is expected to arrive at an intersection, traffic engineers can set the signal timing accordingly.
Wasn’t there a bit problem with Rob Ford’s transit plan, namely that there wasn’t any money to pay for all those subways? I have a hard time imagining how imaginary subways decades in the future are actually any better than real streetcars that exist right now, at least for someone who wants to go somewhere today, or maybe in a couple years.
Considering the headways (2-3 minutes) this is one place where bustitution really is impractical…