Streetcars travelling slower on King Street than before the transit corridor pilot project

Traveling along King Street on a streetcar is as bad or worse than it was prior to the pilot that was intended to make transit a priority on the main downtown corridor.

The King Street pilot was made permanent in April of 2019 after a one-and-a-half year project that showed it increased daily weekly ridership by 16 per cent and at the time, it took 16 minutes to travel from Bathurst Street to Jarvis Street.

The pilot made it illegal so vehicles could not go through intersections and can only turn right. .

CityNews has learned that eastbound travel times from Bathurst to Jarvis during the evening rush hours averaged 19 to 26 minutes before the pilot program in 2017. The latest times show it is now worse with an average of 22 to 29 minutes.

TTC spokesperson Stuart Green said the new data is cause for concern for the 45,000 people they move through the area per day. “That’s a problem and transit really needs to be the priority down there. That’s the whole intent of it. That’s the name King Street, transit, priority corridor, not the detour corridor.”

He said there has been a lot more encroachment from vehicles in the area. “We’re certainly seeing a lot of illegal use of it. People going through intersections they should not go through and we’re seeing people using it as a detour to get around the construction downtown.”

“You can see it when you’re down there. The streetcars are trucks stuck in traffic and this is exactly what the King Street pilot was meant to eliminate,” said Matti Siemiatycki, a professor of Urban Infrastructure.

Toronto police have issued over 22,000 tickets, an average of 5,000 tickets per year to vehicles for drivers failing to obey the posted signage

Most of the charges were “proceed contrary to sign at intersection” and “disobey sign,” which was a catchall to disobeying posted signage, according to police.

“We have to also recognize that you need enforcement and you need ongoing maintenance of these assets or else they will deteriorate and ultimately could end up being just as bad, if not worse than it was before,” said Siemiatycki.

Last week, Councillors Chris Moise and Ausma Malik passed a motion at city council to study automated traffic enforcement to try and deter drivers from using King Street.

“The police are spent, in terms of people resources. And they cannot be at every street corner and forcing traffic. This is why I’m brought motion to the council last meeting to have automated enforcement so that people can respect the rules of the road,” said Moise.

City staff are also currently working on analyzing the King Street Transit Priority Corridor data set and it’s expected to be released by early 2024.