Improving transit priority on King Street

TTCriders letter to Infrastructure and Environment Committee in support of public realm improvements and automated enforcement on King Street. 

Re: IE13.3. - King Street Transit Priority Corridor Update

 

Dear Infrastructure and Environment Committee, 

TTCriders is a membership-based transit advocacy organization. In November 2023, TTCriders and Gooderham & Worts Neighbourhood Association wrote letters1 in support of automated traffic enforcement on King Street. 

We are writing to express our support for staff recommendations regarding automatic traffic enforcement, mid-block curb extensions, public realm and green infrastructure improvements along the corridor, and the installation of modular raised transit platforms. 

Traffic Agents and Automated Enforcement

We sincerely appreciate the marked improvements in travel times resulting from the deployment of Traffic Agents.  However, a more sustainable, full time solution leveraging  automated enforcement is still needed, as service has been observed to rapidly degrade when agents finish their shifts and go home at the end of the typical office workday. 

Transit Platforms for Safety and Accessibility 

Rider safety and streetcar accessibility are ongoing concerns. We welcome plans for 5-7 additional modular platforms this fall and would like to see firmer commitment to completing the balance of the 20 planned transit stop platforms, which are still outstanding 7 years after the Transit Priority Corridor was established. The support of this Committee and Council to ensure funding for completing these basic works as soon as possible would be appreciated. 

Public Realm

We are concerned about the lack of clarity about the extent of public realm improvements in the medium term. We encourage you to accelerate and expand public realm improvements, and to produce a map of planned and existing improvements. While we can guess that there may be constraints related to Ontario Line construction and city infrastructure works projects, we believe there should be transparency from staff about what types of improvements need to continue to be deferred and which types could potentially be delivered before 2030. 

Traffic Signals 

We look forward to the publication of the dashboard and data about the effectiveness of these signal modifications. Anecdotally, they are confusing for drivers, especially due to exemptions for private transportation companies, which are difficult to distinguish from other traffic. Unfortunately, there is already video evidence circulating of drivers ignoring the new traffic signals at the King & Yonge intersection and driving across Yonge Street on King through the red lights. We strongly recommend consideration of a less-cluttered signal and signage design, and encourage further infrastructure and messaging improvements to keep the corridor functioning as it was designed. 

Photo: https://twitter.com/MetroManTO/status/1779624328268481010

Photo by Steve Munro: https://stevemunro.ca/2024/04/27/king-street-transit-priority-corridor-update-may-2024/ 

Timeline for medium term improvements

We believe that if Toronto is to host games for World Cup 2026, improvements to the King Street corridor should be in place and operational in time for the event. The purpose is twofold - both to smoothly move people through the corridor and to showcase the best side of our city to global television audiences, as well as in the minds of the 300,000+ estimated visitors2. Toronto should commit to having medium-term transit infrastructure and public realm improvements complete by June 2026 to allow a once-in-a-generation amount of people visiting the city to use these achievable improvements in action. This is especially necessary as work on the Ontario Line will not be complete until 2031,3 and GO Expansion will not be fully complete before the games, so any improvements to rapid transit that can be implemented before this very busy event must be prioritized.

Sincerely,

TTCriders

 

References: 

1. Letter from TTCriders:  https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mm/comm/communicationfile-173632.pdfLetter from Gooderham & Worts Neighbourhood Association: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/mm/comm/communicationfile-173596.pdf 

2. Presentation from the City Manager and the Executive Director, World Cup Hosting 2026 on FIFA World Cup 2026 Toronto: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2024/ex/bgrd/backgroundfile-243308.pdfhttps://globalnews.ca/news/10273372/world-cup-toronto-vancouver-tourism/amp/

3. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/te/bgrd/backgroundfile-235575.pdf

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