King Street Pilot carried fewer commuters than before
Is Toronto's King Street Pilot Project a huge success? The answer is more nuanced than most believe.
In a bold move to transform urban mobility in November 2017, Toronto's planning authorities launched the King Street Pilot Project, a strategic initiative focusing on the bustling King Street corridor in the heart of downtown. This project significantly altered the street's dynamics, primarily by restricting through traffic for private vehicles, left-turn lanes, and altering curbside parking rules.
The Pilot project is no longer an experiment but part of the transport policy in the City of Toronto that focuses on discouraging travel by cars and encouraging mobility by public transit and non-motorized modes. On its sixth anniversary, let's revisit the project to see what it achieved and where it didn't deliver.
No one metric will suffice in evaluating the multi-faceted utility of this project. However, one must start somewhere. For me, the starting point is the throughput volumes. Given the promise of higher public transit capacity for streetcars and the boasted gains in travel times during the Pilot, the King Street Pilot Project should have carried far more passengers on all modes combined than before. That is, however, not the case. Of the four scenarios for which data are available from the City of Toronto for the Spadina Avenue screenline, three scenarios revealed that traffic volumes were lower during the Pilot than before.
Of the four scenarios for which data are available from the City of Toronto, three scenarios revealed that traffic volumes were lower during the Pilot than before.
The travel mode restrictions markedly reduced private automobile traffic along the affected stretch – a direct and intended outcome. Furthermore, there was a noticeable uptick in public transit ridership, aligning with the project's objectives. However, the impact on traffic speed presented mixed results: improvement in one direction but not necessarily in the other.
The King Street Pilot Project has been lauded in many urban planning circles as a sterling example of an effective urban transportation strategy. However, as a longtime observer and analyst of such initiatives, I've maintained a degree of skepticism about its overall efficacy since its inception. The lower throughput volumes are one such concern.
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Motivated by these concerns and massive disruptions to traffic due to construction in downtown Toronto, I recently wrote the following in the Toronto Sun:
In light of the ongoing construction on key arterial routes like Queen St., which is projected to last for at least 4.5 years, it’s imperative to re-examine our approach to downtown Toronto’s limited road infrastructure. Temporary modifications could ease the congestion resulting from these disruptions. I propose to provisionally lift some restrictions on King St., allowing for automobile passage through intersections, which has been restricted for a few years.
While maintaining existing left-turn and curbside parking restrictions to prioritize public transit, re-permitting cars on King could alleviate the strain caused by the interrupted traffic flow on Queen and other roads. This adaptive strategy would offer an immediate yet reversible solution to mitigate congestion in the downtown core.
The city’s infrastructure ought to be as dynamic and responsive as the needs of its residents. A temporary realignment could provide the flexibility needed to navigate current challenges while we await long-term improvements.
To deepen our understanding and gauge professional opinions, I invite fellow transport planning professionals, real estate experts, and informed citizens to contribute their insights. If you think the King Street Pilot Project is a success, I would like to know the specific metrics and benchmarks that shaped your perspective. Also, I am interested in the alternatives you looked at.
Should this project be deemed successful, would you advocate for its replication along other major arterial routes within downtown Toronto?
I would like you to share your expert opinions in the comment section below, detailing the metrics and rationale behind your viewpoints, whether supporting or against the project's success. This is a valuable opportunity for us to collectively analyze and understand the multifaceted impacts of such urban mobility initiatives.
David F. Crowley & Associates Ltd.
11 个月Murtaza, I had two additional paragraphs which I had to delete This included a suggestion that you study the Buffalo subway history which might be worth some attention as we used to compete with Buffalo back in the 1960, when it was a cool place to go. My discussions with local pols suggests that they all are assuming the continued growth is inevitable which means that whatever the developers want, in terms of increased density, is a good thing (and they assume that transit will carry the load and auto use will decline, despite the evidence from 30 years of TTS data that there is no evidence to support this idea). I fear for the future of Downtown Toronto and the Region. No city can thrive if essential workers can't afford to live there and I am told that it is increasingly hard to attract talent to TO.
David F. Crowley & Associates Ltd.
11 个月During the pilot auto drivers had excellent routing options to avoid using King (the Richmond-Adelaide one-way pair) which allowed the priority measures that made it possible for the King Street car to achieve substantial trip time savings and this resulted in substantial increases in King Streetcar ridership (and route capacity). I had regular reports on King Streetcar ops from family members who commuted daily from Bathurst and King to the Core. For those of us who had experience with planning streetcar operations (I was with TTC Service Planning from 1982 to 1988) it was a great success made feasible because auto drivers had attractive routing options which no longer exist due to construction related reductions in road capacity in the Corridor. I suspect that auto use in the broader corridor did not decline - there were no modal shifts from auto to transit just more transit users taking advantage of better service on King Street.
Power BI Developer Engineer and Microsoft Fabric Weaver
11 个月The ultimate cars ?? off the road plan is running ??♂? marathons.
From my economic research desk, 100 m from King St. east: As a resident, economist, and lifelong student and practitioner in public administration/public policy, I have my own lens to this: Silo blinkers decision making. Within three short blocks of King/Yonge/Church is the Queen St. blockage, and many active and planned 2024 construction, that will close lanes on Yonge St. & Colborne and Wellington to the South. Many more West of University. The impact of the King lane restriction must account for the traffic lane flow availability on the East/West flow to the north and south. What lane restrictions were accounted for in the City evaluation of the pilot? Metrolinx closure of Queen? Adelaide rail track repair? Wellington has one fewer lane since 2017. Many retailers on King East of Yonge and west of university are losing customers because cars have no alternate routes due to construction, as much as the restrictions to King St itself. Preservation of bike lanes over broken roadways and street car construction reduce traffic flow, & add to traffic and pedestrian deaths. The scope and detail of your cost-benefit analysis is key. Key factors left in different policy silos make real evidence-based solutions impossible.
Consultant at InterGroup Consultants
11 个月I keep hearing that cars are blocking streetcars on a variety of routes in downtown Toronto. This is flagged as happening during rush hour, which is dramatically slowing down their movement. (I wonder if this is happening to buses as well?) Other systemic issues may be cutting throughput on this particular route even if no cars are blocking this street car route. Has anyone had a chance to check into network throughput issues? If the streetcar system is slow, then people are likely avoiding taking the system (which I keep hearing as well). Perhaps other helpful metrics: 1. passenger throughput per hour. 2. See how long the streetcars are taking to do a circuit of their route, by the hour. 3. How often are streetcars late, by the hour.