Joe Mihevc thinks a magic report would get everyone to shut up about the St. Clair right-of-way
Joe Mihevc is tired of people talking smack about his neighbourhood, and he wants the TTC to commission a study of the avenue’s right-of-way to shut them up. While the streetcar project’s boosters believe it spurred development, with condos and fancy restaurants now popping up on the strip, Rob Ford and his allies see the right-of-way as an expensive, traffic-snarling nightmare (they’ve made “St. Clair–ize” a verb to describing the horrors that befall neighbourhoods with above-ground transit). Mihevc insists the public relations exercise study would solve the area’s identity crisis once and for all. Except, probably not: putting together a new report, Councillor Josh Colle points out, would likely just drag out the entire debate for yet another few months. Read the entire story [National Post] »
Why is no one talking about the Toronto TTC decision on choosing light-rail/street cars over subways and the negative impact proprietary raised street car corridors have on the speed at which Fire and Ambulance services can be delivered.
By cutting the roadway into 3 sections with the centre one being raised to side walk height, truck and auto traffic is reduced to 2 lanes in either direction. This creates long 2-lane lines of congested traffic during rush hours. If an Ambulance or Fire truck are trying to get through this congestion there is no place for the cars and trucks to go. This greatly reduces the response times for our emergency services and will ultimately impact our safety or cost lives.
Recently on St. Clair West a section west of Vaughan Rd. was closed to traffic to measure the street car right-of-way curb height for officials to see the negative impact on our Fire trucks ability to service the community. In most cities in Europe street car tracks are are on the same roadway level as vehicular traffic.
I have personally observed many times from my 11th floor balcony at St. Clair near Spadina Rd. emergency vehicles being held up by the congested 2 lanes of vehicles unable to move to the right or left and make way without climbing the sidewalk or dangerously moving into intersections.
Quick response time save lives. The myopic view of many city councillors opting for more proprietary raised street cars rights-of-way will cost lives. Please expose this short sighted policy and help protect the efficiency of our Emergency services.
I agree. Any future dedicated streetcar/lrt lanes should not be raised. There should just be bollards so as not to impede pedestrian flow. Pedestrians do not cross at designated intersections if it means having to walk half-a-block over. They will get from point A to B by the most quickest route. As for emergency services, I’ve observed countless police/fire/ambulance vehicules using the dedicated streetcar tracks on Spadina when responding to a situation. I would assume the same would apply on St. Clair.
Everyone seems to forget that the new LRT lines will have roadway widening and that no lanes will be lost in the process.
The fire department says the exact opposite. Emergency vehicles regularly use the right of way lanes unimpeded by traffic.
The last frivolous citizen-injunction filed during construction was this same subject. Local fire chiefs rejected it saying they had been consulted and approved of the exclusive ROW lanes and access to them.
The median right of way was designed for emergency vehicles to use them – otherwise, the tracks could be built without concrete encasement for about $20 million per kilometre less cost.
One improvement for emergency vehicles would be to not use centre poles for the overhead wiring – side poles would allow for more “wiggle room” for emergency vehicles, though some might have an issue with the look of twice as many poles.
We have to raise the track otherwise self centered motorists would drive in and out as it served them. They would be the same people who don’t signal, bud in line out of right hand turn only lanes and run red lights. Our police service can’t be everywhere to monitor it so hence the raised platform.
Went to Home Depot at Stockyards today. Came north on Weston. Waited 4 lights to make a right turn on St. Clair – and there were only about 10 cars in line. The problem was that there is only one lane between Weston and Keele. In that one lane, cars and bikes are sharing the space while to the immediate right of me, there were two huge dedicated lanes for the Streetcars. In the 15 minutes (!) it took me to get West of Keele, no streetcar passed me in either direction, nor could I see a streetcar as far as I looked to the East or West.
Public transit is great but this stretch of road would be much better served by having the streetcar lane shared by cars and streetcars. A better option would have been to make a separated lane for the bikes who are riding 3 inches from the cars.