Better transit will ease traffic: Letter to Councillors about "Congestion Management Plan"

TTCriders wrote a letter to the Infrastructure and Environment Committee about how the "Congestion Management Plan" could be strengthened with automatic cameras and better transit signal priority.

Re: IE7.2 Congestion Management Plan 2023-2026

Dear Chair McKelvie, Vice Chair Colle, and Infrastructure and Environment Committee, 

TTCriders is a membership-based organization of transit users in Toronto. As you consider the Congestion Management Plan 2023-2026 and how to improve the King Street Transit Priority Corridor, we encourage you to take the two following additional steps to strengthen the plan and associated elements to improve and speed-up transit:  

1. Use automated cameras to enforce rules for transit priority corridors

External cameras on TTC streetcars, buses, and Wheel-Trans vehicles have been activated since January 2019. In September 2019, the TTC adopted a motion to request the Minister of Transportation to enact amendments to the Highway Traffic Act, 1990 to permit the operation of streetcar enforcement cameras to monitor and enforce traffic violations, as well as restate the TTC's previous requests about auto-ticketing in transit priority lanes.  

In 2021, the provincial government’s Moving Ontarians More Safely Act introduced an automated camera enforcement framework to allow photo evidence of vehicles that illegally pass streetcars on the left or streetcars with the doors open to pick up or drop off passengers.

A Washington report found that camera enforcement was the most efficient way to enforce transit priority. San Francisco, New York, and London use automated camera enforcement, with New York using a mix of on-bus cameras and stationary cameras on streets. Enforcement of bus lanes with cameras in New York resulted in increased bus speeds and ridership. 

Toronto’s Alliance for Safe & Active Streets has called for investment in equitable methods to manage traffic enforcement by reallocating resources away from on-the-ground police enforcement. 

2. Install Transit Signal Priority along all rapid transit and transit priority corridors 

The map of Traffic Signal Priority locations in Toronto (Appendix 3) has some glaring omissions, especially on Eglinton. We are concerned that after years of construction and disruption, multi-billion dollar rapid transit infrastructure like the Eglinton Crosstown LRT will not be able to maximize its potential. Hundreds of transit users could get stuck waiting behind a few single-occupancy vehicles turning left, in particular along the on-street section east of Laird. 

Transit priority corridors such as the red bus lanes on Eglinton East, Kingston ,and Morningside, as well as the Line 3 replacement bus corridor on Kennedy, Midland and Ellesmere would also benefit from transit signal priority and automated camera enforcement.  

Together, transit signal priority measures and the use of automated cameras for enforcement of transit priority corridors will make the TTC more reliable, attract more ridership and increase the speeds of buses and streetcars. More riders on faster, more reliable transit is a key way to reduce congestion and meet our climate goals through TransformTO.

Sincerely,

TTCriders

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