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King Street (Streetcar Transit Priority)

Ontario doesn't a flashing nor a non-flashing RED arrow, officially. Nor a flashing green arrow. Nor transit signal other than the vertical white bar, Ontario is behind the times.

See link.

It will likely change with Doug, and I imagine he'll probably get rid of Transit priority signals because "they're slowing down automobile traffic and confusing us into thinking they're for us"
 
But we already have advance green arrows along the ROW. There was a learning curve but pedestrians have largely gotten used to them. When I drove along King and turn right I usually do it without incident.

As for cyclists having their own phase, yes that is a good idea when coupled with separate lights for cyclists, as is fine in many locations in the city. The cyclist phase can be the same as the streetcar phase.

So the phases should be:
  1. Streetcar + cyclists (red for cars, white vertical bar for streetcars, green cycle signal, pedestrian countdown on)
  2. Cars right (red for cars+green right arrow, white vertical bar for streetcars, RED cycle signal, STOP sign for pedestrians).
  3. Red for all.

But you just described separate phases, you aren't giving the pedestrians the WALK at the same time as the cars are getting their green arrow. Right now with the simple green, it overlaps with the WALK in a single phase.
 
But you just described separate phases, you aren't giving the pedestrians the WALK at the same time as the cars are getting their green arrow. Right now with the simple green, it overlaps with the WALK in a single phase.

No, it is not that way currently. See the attached video at King/Bathurst. No cars were turning right at that moment but anyway it illustrates that the green arrow comes before the walk sign. It’s actually the pedestrians that typically don’t obey this set up and just walk through on the advance green.

 
It’s actually the pedestrians that typically don’t obey this set up and just walk through on the advance green.
They were right at the end of the advance green, with no more cars coming. It was green before they were very far into the road. Pedestrians can be an issue - particularly at the end of the cycle. But I don't think this in particular is problematic.
 
No, it is not that way currently. See the attached video at King/Bathurst. No cars were turning right at that moment but anyway it illustrates that the green arrow comes before the walk sign. It’s actually the pedestrians that typically don’t obey this set up and just walk through on the advance green.


Okay, we were talking about two different things. I thought the conversation was about replacing the basic green on a 3-lamp traffic light with a green arrow in order to make people obey the pilot, and that's where I was saying it wouldn't work without an extra phase as you can't combine a green arrow with a WALK. You're showing an intersection that already had a green arrow with it's own phase separate from the basic green + WALK.
 
They were right at the end of the advance green, with no more cars coming. It was green before they were very far into the road. Pedestrians can be an issue - particularly at the end of the cycle. But I don't think this in particular is problematic.

Just spend some time at King and University, take a video, post it here, then tell us again that pedestrians only disobey the advance green right/no walk only at the end of the advance green. My video wasn’t the best example to illustrate this, being taken around 9 am on a Sunday, but it served its purpose to reply to KevinT in that it showed that the advance green and walk signs do not overlap.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
One line has been removed from @pstogios' post above which was a personal attack. The actual argument is still in the post, because that's what discussion is all about, but personal attacks are not, so someone may be going on holiday for a couple of days.

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Experience waiting for the King Streetcar at University just now:
Over the six minute wait at least 25 cars travelled through the intersection (I stopped bothering to count).
Two of those cars pulled in to the streetcar waiting area on the curb lane to pick/up drop off people
One more attempted to do so and honked their horn at and slowly edged closer and closer to me as I ignored them, eventually moving off to the far side of the stop and pulling in there and just sitting there with the four way lights flashing.

EDIT: I note I have seen a lot more cars sitting in the waiting areas since all the yellow strips were ripped up and not replaced by snow plows.
 
I was told there is a report going to TTC Commissioners in April and council in May on this project, but don't hold me to this time frame since its a moving target.
 
Experience waiting for the King Streetcar at University just now:
Over the six minute wait at least 25 cars travelled through the intersection (I stopped bothering to count).
Two of those cars pulled in to the streetcar waiting area on the curb lane to pick/up drop off people
One more attempted to do so and honked their horn at and slowly edged closer and closer to me as I ignored them, eventually moving off to the far side of the stop and pulling in there and just sitting there with the four way lights flashing.

EDIT: I note I have seen a lot more cars sitting in the waiting areas since all the yellow strips were ripped up and not replaced by snow plows.
I was just down there a few hours ago at Spadina and King. Large orange construction warning type sign up at one of the intersections (I can't recollect which, my mind was pre-occupied, I should have taken pic) that made it unmistakable that through car traffic was banned. And cars were just streaming through.
 
Two of those cars pulled in to the streetcar waiting area on the curb lane to pick/up drop off people
One more attempted to do so and honked their horn at and slowly edged closer and closer to me as I ignored them, eventually moving off to the far side of the stop and pulling in there and just sitting there with the four way lights flashing.

EDIT: I note I have seen a lot more cars sitting in the waiting areas since all the yellow strips were ripped up and not replaced by snow plows.

Last night at King and John was the same. My guess was that a show let out at the POW and the Ubers/Lyfts were camping out.
 
Last night at King and John was the same. My guess was that a show let out at the POW and the Ubers/Lyfts were camping out.
The Uber and Lyft drivers have chat groups now on apps like Slack where they share info about things like if and where police are monitoring the King Pilot zone. They all know when they are not there and can totally ignore the rules.
 

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