Back in January 2016, I wrote about Toronto’s ambition to transform King into a “transit first” street across the downtown core. 

The King streetcar is the busiest surface transit route in the entire city (65,000 riders / day on average) and it was – and continues to be – my opinion that the route was broken. Something had to be done.

Well, that something is now happening. The “King Street Transit Pilot” officially started on Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 7am. Here are some of the key changes, many of which are also depicted in the above image:

- No more on-street parking in the pilot area.

- Cars can no longer turn left or drive through the intersections of the pilot area (except for taxis picking up drunk people from 10pm to 5am).

- Cars must now follow a right-in/right-out approach. They can turn right onto King, but then they have to turn right off of King at the next intersection.

- Most of the streetcar stops have been moved to the “far side” of each intersection. That is, after the lights. Passenger waiting areas are now in the curbside lane and protected by jersey barriers.

- Cyclists can go through the intersections of the pilot area. “Bike boxes” have been added to intersections where there are north-south bike lanes to help with turning left.

As to be expected, some people are upset about the above changes. There are also concerns that drivers aren’t going to obey the rules and continue to drive through the intersections in the streetcar lane. But this is a pilot project. It’s about learning and adjusting.

It’s also important to keep in mind that King has at least 3x more transit riders than cars. This pilot is about figuring out how to best optimize the street so that it moves the greatest number of people as efficiently as possible.

I’ll report back here on the blog once the pilot has settled in and there is a better understanding of its impact.

Anyone who has ridden Toronto’s King streetcar during rush hour can tell you that the service is broken. It’s unreliable. It’s overcrowded. And during peak times it can be faster to walk. Chart below.

Part of the problem is a misallocation of resources. Only 16% of the people who use the corridor are in cars. And yet 64% of the physical space is allocated to drivers.

Not surprisingly, this creates a bottleneck for the ~65,000 transit riders who use the service daily. (Busiest surface route in the region.) We are not optimizing for the right variable.

It’s for this reason that the city is working on a rethink of the corridor. I wrote about this initiative last year, but earlier this week it got a bit more real with the release of the following 3 pilot block options.

The plan is to launch a pilot sometime this fall (2017). This is good news. 

If you’d like to go through the full King Street Pilot Study Public Meeting presentation, you can do that by clicking here. The above images were taken from that presentation.

Yesterday was an exciting day for Toronto city building announcements. 

Firstly, Alex Bozikovic of the Globe and Mail published an exclusive preview of architect Bjarke Ingel’s plan for King Street West. Here’s a photo of the architectural model (it’s by Landon Speers):

My favorite quote from the article is this one from Bjarke:

“It would be sad if the most diverse city in the world had the most homogenous real estate.”

It’s true.

For those of you who emailed me about the details of his talk next week (there were a lot of you!), I believe I emailed you all back. But in case I missed some of you, you can click here for the event details. I should have included it in my original post about BIG, but I thought the event was already oversubscribed.

Secondly, a private company called Bullwheel International Cable Car Corp. has just proposed to build a $20 to $25 million gondola running from Danforth Avenue (near Broadview subway station) to the Evergreen Brickworks. The total length would be almost 1 km and it, allegedly, wouldn’t require any public money. Here is their website.

The timing of this proposal feels a bit serendipitous to me. When I was in Park City, Utah a few weeks ago, snowboarding right into the town and then taking their “town lifts” back up to traverse the mountain, I remember thinking to myself: what a wonderful form of transportation this is.

Of course, Park City has giant mountains and Toronto, unfortunately, does not. But we do have spectacular ravines and a spectacular institution known as the Evergreen Brickworks.

But one of the challenges with our ravines is that they can be a bit hidden – particularly for visitors to the city. Part of this is because we are trying to figure out the right balance between natural preservation and active use. But that’s one of the things that makes this proposal so intriguing. It’s a way to celebrate our ravines and natural landscape, without physically encroaching it.

Here’s a map of the proposed gondola path:

What do you think about these announcements?

Back in January 2016, I wrote about Toronto’s ambition to transform King into a “transit first” street across the downtown core. 

The King streetcar is the busiest surface transit route in the entire city (65,000 riders / day on average) and it was – and continues to be – my opinion that the route was broken. Something had to be done.

Well, that something is now happening. The “King Street Transit Pilot” officially started on Sunday, November 12, 2017 at 7am. Here are some of the key changes, many of which are also depicted in the above image:

- No more on-street parking in the pilot area.

- Cars can no longer turn left or drive through the intersections of the pilot area (except for taxis picking up drunk people from 10pm to 5am).

- Cars must now follow a right-in/right-out approach. They can turn right onto King, but then they have to turn right off of King at the next intersection.

- Most of the streetcar stops have been moved to the “far side” of each intersection. That is, after the lights. Passenger waiting areas are now in the curbside lane and protected by jersey barriers.

- Cyclists can go through the intersections of the pilot area. “Bike boxes” have been added to intersections where there are north-south bike lanes to help with turning left.

As to be expected, some people are upset about the above changes. There are also concerns that drivers aren’t going to obey the rules and continue to drive through the intersections in the streetcar lane. But this is a pilot project. It’s about learning and adjusting.

It’s also important to keep in mind that King has at least 3x more transit riders than cars. This pilot is about figuring out how to best optimize the street so that it moves the greatest number of people as efficiently as possible.

I’ll report back here on the blog once the pilot has settled in and there is a better understanding of its impact.

Anyone who has ridden Toronto’s King streetcar during rush hour can tell you that the service is broken. It’s unreliable. It’s overcrowded. And during peak times it can be faster to walk. Chart below.

Part of the problem is a misallocation of resources. Only 16% of the people who use the corridor are in cars. And yet 64% of the physical space is allocated to drivers.

Not surprisingly, this creates a bottleneck for the ~65,000 transit riders who use the service daily. (Busiest surface route in the region.) We are not optimizing for the right variable.

It’s for this reason that the city is working on a rethink of the corridor. I wrote about this initiative last year, but earlier this week it got a bit more real with the release of the following 3 pilot block options.

The plan is to launch a pilot sometime this fall (2017). This is good news. 

If you’d like to go through the full King Street Pilot Study Public Meeting presentation, you can do that by clicking here. The above images were taken from that presentation.

Yesterday was an exciting day for Toronto city building announcements. 

Firstly, Alex Bozikovic of the Globe and Mail published an exclusive preview of architect Bjarke Ingel’s plan for King Street West. Here’s a photo of the architectural model (it’s by Landon Speers):

My favorite quote from the article is this one from Bjarke:

“It would be sad if the most diverse city in the world had the most homogenous real estate.”

It’s true.

For those of you who emailed me about the details of his talk next week (there were a lot of you!), I believe I emailed you all back. But in case I missed some of you, you can click here for the event details. I should have included it in my original post about BIG, but I thought the event was already oversubscribed.

Secondly, a private company called Bullwheel International Cable Car Corp. has just proposed to build a $20 to $25 million gondola running from Danforth Avenue (near Broadview subway station) to the Evergreen Brickworks. The total length would be almost 1 km and it, allegedly, wouldn’t require any public money. Here is their website.

The timing of this proposal feels a bit serendipitous to me. When I was in Park City, Utah a few weeks ago, snowboarding right into the town and then taking their “town lifts” back up to traverse the mountain, I remember thinking to myself: what a wonderful form of transportation this is.

Of course, Park City has giant mountains and Toronto, unfortunately, does not. But we do have spectacular ravines and a spectacular institution known as the Evergreen Brickworks.

But one of the challenges with our ravines is that they can be a bit hidden – particularly for visitors to the city. Part of this is because we are trying to figure out the right balance between natural preservation and active use. But that’s one of the things that makes this proposal so intriguing. It’s a way to celebrate our ravines and natural landscape, without physically encroaching it.

Here’s a map of the proposed gondola path:

What do you think about these announcements?