City
St. Clair Streetcar Gets Right-of Way
Spacing Wire has the scoop via this press release.
Mayor David Miller announced today that the Divisional Court of Ontario has ruled that the St. Clair Avenue West Transit Improvements project can proceed. In a decision released today, the Court concluded that the City of Toronto and the Toronto Transit Commission have the proper legal authority to carry out the work, clearing the way for the creation of a St. Clair Avenue West right-of way.
More details in the press release. Transit Toronto
Previously on blogTO.
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But, even if it does, I'll most likely continue to boycott the stores which supported the SOS. :P
Now lets do the same with Queen, College, and Bathurst!
College was also seemingly too curvy for the plan to work.
And imagine Queen St without parking.
There is plenty of room on Queen Street to put in a ROW, even without narrowing the wide sidewalks already present - so long as you can get away from the false nessecity of having four automobile lanes.
There is no reason for the city to encourage people to drive their cars downtown - and Queen St without parking is a beautiful thought.
Also, Queen's sidewalks are really only wide between Spadina and Peter.
Cars are not just for 905 tourists on a Saturday. They deliver goods and bring people through the city and to Queen Street. You should realise that not everyone makes their livelihood through electronic media and they require that human beings and items physically arrive and leave Queen.
I wouldn't harp on this so much if you weren't running for city council.
And no parking is not the answer. On St. Clair it means 2 lanes of traffic in which the ideal TTC assumes no truck or car will ever want to stop -- turning it into ONE lane of traffic.
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On Queen street, if you stop to park your car you usually end up stopping one lane of traffic and one lane of streetcar. Even if they found a way to change the plan and make it possible to put in a lane there, that would mean extremely narrow sidewalks in order to get 2 lanes of traffic -- in which again, if you have one parker, that's one-lane gridlock.<br>
Us cyclists will have to illegally take to the TTC lane not to get killed.
WAITAMINNIT... they would have to park on a side street!
i gasp disingenuously in mock sympathetic horror!
How will the car get around the stopped car to get to the side street on a one lane road? (4 lanes on Queen. 1 lane East, 1 lane west, two lanes ROW)
I agree, there are other parking options...but that's not the only issue.
I like the ROW on Spadina, Queen's Quay and even for St. Clair. But for Queen it doesn't make sense. Queen needs a subway.
Mews, are you suggesting that the people who stop (for what ever reason, blah blah blah) go park on a side street? And just making Queen a total no parking zone?
If so, consider my above post on the importance of deliveries to a city street. And Tanja's post on the importance of ample pedestrian space.
There is so much to consider, so many different users and uses of the space between the buildings. We can't just simply say, a ROW is good for St. Clair, therefore it is good for all the major roads in Toronto.
Secondly, Queen St is a street that thrives on people - it is not a thoroughfare, but rather a gathering place, an outdoor mall, and a place to be - overground traffic, with frequent stops is essential for this. If you move people underground, you take the life with it.
There are plenty of other options besides having cars rush through Queen St - yes they are a mode of transportation, but they are not the only one, nor should they be given priority. People should be encouraged to take less destructive methods of transportation, especially downtown.
As for parking, there are both side streets, and parking lots (which can be built both upwards and downwards, allowing for more off-strett parking) and deliveries can be banned during rush hour.
As for Queen being a "gathering place"...I think Bloor street and the Danforth are doing pretty well overground and underground. Those who need to go through, go under. Those who want to stop by, go over. It works well.
Ask your future constituents which they would rather have.
Both of these options, ROW and subway will never happen anyway.
..and to bike down queen st without getting doored would be a dream come true.
sidewalk indentations (like the kind outside a store in yorkdale recently featured in the star's "the fixer") could be made here and there along the main artery (i actually think the city might look at dundas before queen) and set aside explicitly for people with mobility issues.
cars are promising to choke this city, and we might as well get a head start on the creative solutions which will eventually be forced on us like it or not.
i wasn't aware there was a way to live <em>other than</em> letting my idealism get the best of me... what else am i going to give my best to?
Idealism is noble, I suppose, but realism and compromise will be what actually makes a difference.
The city does not own all the land in Toronto. Like it or not, property owners have a lot to say and will always have a lot to say in a capitalist society.
If you look at any western city (the ones that haven't been demo'd by war), the streets have evolved into what they look like today through a series of adjustments and compromises. That is the future of Toronto.
I've been reading a lot about "compromise" between peds and drivers. Where has there been compromise up to this point? There hasn't been. *Begin bad B movie voice over* The cars have taken over!
As someone upthread stated, cars are choking our city - I couldn't agree more. I would love to see Queen West become ped-only but I doubt that would ever happen. One idea in that direction, however, is something similar to what London, Eng. did. They charge people a toll to enter the downtown core during peak hours in their cars. We should implement that here. Not only would it lessen the number of cars downtown, but it'd be extra revenue for the city.