On October 3, New York City did something very similar to what Toronto did on King Street. It restricted through traffic on 14th Street to only trucks and buses, and turned the street into the city's first "busway."

Under the new rules, cars, vans, and taxis are restricted every day of the week from 6am to 10pm, unless they're dropping off or picking someone up, or entering into a parking garage (i.e. local traffic only). But after this, they need to make the first available right and turn off the street. Again, it's pretty similar to the way things work here on King.

On the first day of the 18-month pilot program, the buses actually had to slow down in order to keep to their schedule. They were moving too quickly. Previously one of the slowest routes in the city, the M14 bus is now expected to increase its average speed by about 25%.

Not surprisingly, a number of people were concerned that this new busway would hurt businesses along the route. This same concern has been an issue in Toronto. But this is New York. We're talking about the US city with the highest percentage of households without a vehicle.

The reality is that we need to get better at moving people around our cities without a car. This is one way to do it and we know it works. My prediction is that the 14th Street pilot will prove to be a success. It will then get replicated in other parts of Manhattan. Probably on other crosstown streets.

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.