Toronto is now a week into the King Street Transit Pilot.
It’s still early days and transit guru Steve Munro hasn’t yet published any before and after route performance. He will. But already the sentiment seems to be clear: This shit is working. There are many recounts of people’s commute times being more than cut in half.
As somebody who walks this stretch of King every day, this isn’t surprising to me. There has been a dramatic reduction in the number of cars on the street.
What is perhaps surprising is that none of the surrounding streets seem to be any busier. I would like to see the data, but it feels as if most of the cars have simply disappeared. Are more people now taking transit? Has this been your impression?
Of course, the pilot isn’t perfect. What is not working are the signs that tell drivers they can’t drive through most of the intersections (only turn right). The circular green lights confuse them or they simply don’t care.
There have been suggestions for better signals, such as this one:
And if the pilot in its current incarnation does stick, I am sure there will be many additional improvements like this one made. But even at this early stage, Toronto is calling the pilot a “transit miracle.”
When City Council approved the pilot in the summer it had a preliminary cost estimate of $1.5 million. (Figure excludes the lost parking revenue associated with removing approximately 180 on-street parking spaces).
This is a relatively minuscule amount considering it has had an immediate impact, basically overnight, on the commute times of the 65,000 or so people who use this line every day.
And it feels even more minuscule when you consider that our Scarborough Subway extension is expected to cost $3.35+ billion to build and only service around 64,000 people a day when you look far into the future – 2031 to be exact.
The lesson here on King Street should be that light rail and surface transit routes can move lots of people very efficiently and cost effectively when you empower them to do precisely that.
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.
Uber is currently testing a feature in a few neighborhoods in Boston and San Francisco called Uber Express POOL.
Like the regular version of Uber POOL, this is a shared ride. But with Express POOL the app now automatically generates “smart spots” that are easy to drive to and close to the origin and destination of multiple passengers.
So instead of a direct pick-up and drop-off, you now need to walk a few blocks to one of these dynamically created “smart spots.” In exchange for the added inconvenience, you get 25% off your fare.
What’s immediately fascinating about this feature is that it further blurs the line between Uber and public transit. These “smart spots” are effectively low-volume and ephemeral transit stops that pop-up based on demand and then disappear.
It makes the notion of a fixed stop and transit schedule, particularly in low usage areas, seem inefficient. Now imagine if we created some sort of visual marker on the street every time a “smart spot” was emerging based on demand.
It is clear that Uber is trying to price these rides so that they are competitive with conventional public transit. And there’s no reason that this technology couldn’t also be applied to larger vehicles, such as buses.
I find this fascinating. And it’s a perfect example of what we talked about in yesterday’s post. This is software and networks being layered on top of the built environment.
Toronto is now a week into the King Street Transit Pilot.
It’s still early days and transit guru Steve Munro hasn’t yet published any before and after route performance. He will. But already the sentiment seems to be clear: This shit is working. There are many recounts of people’s commute times being more than cut in half.
As somebody who walks this stretch of King every day, this isn’t surprising to me. There has been a dramatic reduction in the number of cars on the street.
What is perhaps surprising is that none of the surrounding streets seem to be any busier. I would like to see the data, but it feels as if most of the cars have simply disappeared. Are more people now taking transit? Has this been your impression?
Of course, the pilot isn’t perfect. What is not working are the signs that tell drivers they can’t drive through most of the intersections (only turn right). The circular green lights confuse them or they simply don’t care.
There have been suggestions for better signals, such as this one:
And if the pilot in its current incarnation does stick, I am sure there will be many additional improvements like this one made. But even at this early stage, Toronto is calling the pilot a “transit miracle.”
When City Council approved the pilot in the summer it had a preliminary cost estimate of $1.5 million. (Figure excludes the lost parking revenue associated with removing approximately 180 on-street parking spaces).
This is a relatively minuscule amount considering it has had an immediate impact, basically overnight, on the commute times of the 65,000 or so people who use this line every day.
And it feels even more minuscule when you consider that our Scarborough Subway extension is expected to cost $3.35+ billion to build and only service around 64,000 people a day when you look far into the future – 2031 to be exact.
The lesson here on King Street should be that light rail and surface transit routes can move lots of people very efficiently and cost effectively when you empower them to do precisely that.
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.
Uber is currently testing a feature in a few neighborhoods in Boston and San Francisco called Uber Express POOL.
Like the regular version of Uber POOL, this is a shared ride. But with Express POOL the app now automatically generates “smart spots” that are easy to drive to and close to the origin and destination of multiple passengers.
So instead of a direct pick-up and drop-off, you now need to walk a few blocks to one of these dynamically created “smart spots.” In exchange for the added inconvenience, you get 25% off your fare.
What’s immediately fascinating about this feature is that it further blurs the line between Uber and public transit. These “smart spots” are effectively low-volume and ephemeral transit stops that pop-up based on demand and then disappear.
It makes the notion of a fixed stop and transit schedule, particularly in low usage areas, seem inefficient. Now imagine if we created some sort of visual marker on the street every time a “smart spot” was emerging based on demand.
It is clear that Uber is trying to price these rides so that they are competitive with conventional public transit. And there’s no reason that this technology couldn’t also be applied to larger vehicles, such as buses.
I find this fascinating. And it’s a perfect example of what we talked about in yesterday’s post. This is software and networks being layered on top of the built environment.
- 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.
- 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.
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