City Council voted 23-2 on Tuesday, April 16th to make the King Street Pilot permanent. This means that transit priority from Bathurst to Jarvis St. is going to continue into the foreseeable future, and the permanent changes to the street design will enable permanent public space improvements and patios along the stretch of King.
Members of the King for All Coalition submitted letters to the Executive Committee and TTC Board in support of this decision, many of which included recommendations from their community members about ways to improve King Street. We hope to see these improvements as the pilot is transformed into a permanent design.
TTCriders' key recommendations included:
1. Removing late-night exemptions
City staff noted that late evening travel times are 30% higher than in the early evening periods. During these off-peak times service is still frequent and over 2,400 passengers ride the streetcar daily after 10pm. City staff have stated that they will continue to monitor the taxi exemption because of its disruption to service. We hope to see exemptions shortened or eliminated to improve service during those hours and ensure that the busiest surface transit route in the city has full transit priority throughout the day.
2. Extending the length of the transit priority area
Provide transit priority on King well beyond the downtown core to the full length of the King 504 to further improve the reliability and travel times and better serve more riders, including neighbourhoods like Liberty Village, Corktown Commons, St. Lawrence, and Parkdale.
While the pilot has improved commutes for people well beyond the current boundaries, we have heard from many riders that streetcar service slows down significantly as soon as they travel outside the current priority area.We hope that city staff will look beyond the current boundaries of the pilot to investigate the potential of extending the measures beyond Bathurst and Jarvis.
3. Replicating this approach across the city
We see the King Street Pilot as a critical demonstration of low-cost solutions, at a total capital cost of about $3 million, to improve our transit network. To make the most of our resources, it is imperative that we make bold moves to prioritize transit s daily behind a string of single passenger vehicles.
Bus routes on Lawrence Ave. West, Dufferin, Weston Rd, Keel St., Wilson Ave. and many more need a suite of transit priority measures to address unreliable service due to traffic congestion. Transit priority is the most effective way to improve existing service and make every dollar go as far as possible and relieve the worst traffic congestion in Toronto by making transit better and easier option.
You can read our full submission here.
Now that the pilot is permanent, it also needs a new name! Some ideas include #KingStreetTransitway #KingStreetCrosstown and #KingStreetPlaza. Some have suggested that we can't call it "Crosstown" until transit priority measures are extended further along the 504 route, something that city staff have said they will study! Join the conversation on twitter to weigh in.
It's important to celebrate these successes. Transit priority on King Street will have a real positive impact for 84,000 daily passengers for years to come! These wins also give us the energy and hope we need to keep fighting for a public, affordable, world-class transit system for all.
If you're not already a member of TTCriders, join now!