weather and rain, there was a great attendance and participation of people from
a diversity of neighbourhoods spanning the 504 route. Community members
were eager to talk about the pilot project and how it has impacted them. Some
participants even used their social media platforms to amplify the success of
this discourse:
David Kuperman from the City of Toronto’s Surface Transit Priority team kicked
off the evening by sharing the
latest available data
dashboard collected during the pilot project. The
September and October dashboard
was released following the event, and the City is preparing a report on the
pilot project’s results that will include the full year's worth of results.
Representatives from several businesses gave feedback about the city data: they
were looking for more info about the sales data information that the City
obtained from Moneris, as their personal experience doesn’t line up with the
overall trend in sales in the area. We hope that they are able to find the
answers they are seeking. We then moved into a series of five discussions
focused on different aspects of the King Street Pilot, including the impact its
had on traveling and shopping on King Street and the broader community
atmosphere. There was a lot of passion in the room for making sure King Street
works for everyone, and each group had very constructive conversations about how
they believe that can be accomplished.
Some of the recommendations that came out of the evening included:
-
Strategies for delivery drivers, as they are getting ticketed while on the
job.
- Improved signage for motorists and pedestrians
-
Enhanced use of the curb lane, including allowing more commercial activity,
pick-up and drop-off zones, and space for cyclists.
Additionally we heard from Adam Cohoon, chair of the TTCriders Accessibility
Committee, who emphasized the need for more accessible stops along the pilot
area, including more space for transit riders at busy stops like King and
Parliament and more thought to how ramps from street to streetcar function.
CityNews covered the event and asked one table how they would score the project
on scale of 1 to 10. The pilot received the following marks from the five
gentlemen in the group: one 5, one 7.5, two 8’s and one 11 out of 10. This range
of scores is pretty representative of what we heard throughout the night.
Overwhelmingly, people see the pilot project as a major improvement for transit
riders traveling along King Street. But there’s also a recognition that in order
to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population in the area, with thousands of
residential units under or approved for construction along the King corridor,
this should only mark the beginning of efforts to improve transit and
connectivity in the area.
Source:
https://toronto.citynews.ca/video/2018/11/26/king-street-residents-review-pilot-project/
Participants have experienced the change to public spaces in a variety of ways.
Some feel the street is safer, more vibrant, and busier than before the pilot,
while others see the curb lane space where public installations were installed
as underutilized. To close out the discussion, we asked participants to share
their personal vision for the future of King Street.
We heard calls for the pilot to:
- Be extended beyond its current boundaries of Jarvis and Bathurst St.,
-
Include more streetcars during peak hours to address overcrowding that is
being experienced due to the increased transit demand on King St thanks to
improved reliability and speed of the streetcars.
- Include exemptions for off-peak hours along King Street
-
Re-design the street for people, making more room for cyclists and
pedestrians
-
Animating the street through the winter (which the City of Toronto is already working on!)
There were many hopeful voices that see the potential for King Street to become
a vibrant, world-class destination that attracts residents and tourists alike.
TTCriders represents transit riders across the city who want reliable, rapid,
and affordable transit. In that regard, we see the King Street Pilot as a big
success that the TTC and City of Toronto need to build on. Looking to the
future, we want to see the King Street Pilot made permanent, extended to
Corktown and Roncesvalles, improved upon, and its concept applied to other busy
surface routes that are in dire need of transit priority measures to improve
service for transit riders. Later today a
vote to extend the pilot's
traffic rules until July 31 2019 is on City Council's agenda. This extension is
intended to ensure that City Staff have the time they need to capture, analyze,
and report on a full year's worth of data and for City Council to consider the
findings before making a decision on its permanence.
Want to see the pilot extended? Email your Councillor and ask them to support
extending the pilot period until July. And make sure to sign the "We Love
King" pledge here.