drum118
Superstar
So much for enforcement at Spadina. Watch a car drive east illegally and it was follow by 2 police cars who never stop the car to give them a ticket. Not the first time I have seen this.
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DSC
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We all know that the enforcement is 'spotty' (at best) but the bottom line is that the VAST majority of drivers DO obey the law and that the pilot was a huge success. Now the 'pilot' has been made permanent let's hope the City looks carefully at the street design and the signage and improve them to help drivers who really do not know the rules breaking them. Enough of these "I saw a car drive down King" reports.
pstogios
Senior Member
Obviously you don’t spend that much time on King. I estimate there are illegal drive-throughs at every second light cycle.
Do you think an adherence rate of 50% (or less) means a law is working well?
Also, if you spend time on King you would also witness, this time on nearly every light cycle, left-turning cars (going onto King) blocking the intersection because they get stuck behind loading streetcars. This also endangers pedestrians who are forced to maneuver around cars stopped in the crosswalk.
Do you think blocked intersections and pedestrians in danger at nearly every cycle is an acceptable outcome?
Some of us don’t accept a crappy system and expect better from our government.
DSC
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I suggest you read the detailed reports and see the HUGE reduction in number of vehicles on King. Also look at the streetcar times and statistics; there are certainly (illegal) cars on King but the pilot was a huge success and removing ALL illegal cars is probably not really worth the effort. There is (some) enforcement. Could there be more? Of course.
I agree with you that having streets blocked because turning vehicles get stuck by streetcars loading & unloading is a problem but a far larger one is drivers who get 'stuck' in the middle of an intersection because they break the law by entering an intersection they cannot exit. THAT is a problem all over the city and I am sorry that the government does not allow the red-light cameras to be used to police this.
nfitz
Superstar
There's certainly some minor problems, but there's far less cars on King than there was.
Yeah, if I stand for 10 minutes at a no entry, sooner or later someone will drive through it. But that's less cars than are turning, and far less than the ones that never even got on King.
Better signage and design would improve things, but the project has been a huge success. We should be focusing on that success and expanding it to other streets, rather than focusing on a small nunber of noncompliant drivers who are no longer significantly impeding streetcars.
Yeah, if I stand for 10 minutes at a no entry, sooner or later someone will drive through it. But that's less cars than are turning, and far less than the ones that never even got on King.
Better signage and design would improve things, but the project has been a huge success. We should be focusing on that success and expanding it to other streets, rather than focusing on a small nunber of noncompliant drivers who are no longer significantly impeding streetcars.
pstogios
Senior Member
Always the contrarian. Without exception. Its tiresome.
Extending the logic you espouse in your last paragraph, since we live in largely a peaceful and lawful city, we should accept lawlessness if and when it happens. “Oh everything is going great so let’s just focus on that.”
Newsflash - we don’t. We have police for a reason and we expect them to do their jobs. But they aren’t. There are too many examples described in this thread, most recently Drum‘s comment yesterday.
The bottom line is far too many illegal acts are still occurring on King Street and that rate is way higher than the “background” level of lawlessness on the roads. The city and police need to recognize that and act accordingly.
nfitz
Superstar
Well I'm glad you recognize it - now only if you'd stop! Almost everyone agrees that the King Street pilot is a huge success.
Perhaps you could stop waving at clouds, pointing out the truth we are all aware of that the police aren't very good at enforcing traffic. This is nothing to do with streetcars, you see equal amounts of lack of enforcement over many issues, such as cars not coming to a full stop at stop signs, speed limits, and no-turn sign during rush-hour on quiet suburban streets.
We are kidding ourselves if we think that enforcement is going to ever improve. What we need our design improvements, better signage (what is wrong with simple No-Entry signs, with an exception below it for TTC vehicles and bikes), and bollards/concrete in places to stop cars going where they should never go. And perhaps making cameras legal for enforcing running through the intersections.
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DSC
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"Tiresome" - I think this is an excellent description of your constantly repeated gripes. As @nfitz says so eloquently, time to move on.
pstogios
Senior Member
I will not move on from pointing out the glaring holes remaining in otherwise a successful pilot. I expect the city to take action on these and if I continue to raise some small awareness here, then I will continue.
But I actually agree (for once) with the many suggestions you make because they acknowledge there are still issues to address on King. And addressing them would require minimal effort on the city’s part. Signage, bollards, concrete, design changes, all would go a long way to preventing idiotic drivers from blatantly breaking the rules.
pstogios
Senior Member
nfitz
Superstar
Absolutely - discuss it, and discuss how to improve it.
But that doesn't mean you can make stuff up and falsify data like "an adherence rate of 50% (or less)". Far more than 50% of cars are being diverted elsewhere. And while the number of cars running through an intersection is annoying, it's not 50%.
Then you claim there are blocked intersections at nearly every cycle ... which is odd, as the only blocked intersections I regularly see are because traffic is backed on on cross-streets, like Jarvis. Which long pre-existed the pilot. And even then it's not most cycles ... let alone nearly every.
Perhaps you should apply the scientific method here - and look at the data that has been collected and presented.
Edit ... I had the change to stand at King and Jarvis (waiting for a streetcar) for about 4 light cycles at around 11:30 AM, and watched how many ran through there, and in the distance at Church. I didn't see a single car run through either, and many cars turning. I did see one firetruck run through at Church - but I don't know what the rules are there (the lights weren't going, but a couple of cycles later one with lights going did go up Jarvis). I did see one confused car, doing something odd at Church ... seemed to sit at the light through two cycles, not knowing what to do ... but they didn't enter the intersection. Certainly not 50% non-compliance ... closer to 0% non-compliance (though I've certainly seen cars run through both locations before).
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thettctransitfanatic
Senior Member
See. Automobile gods need to wake up and realize what we need. What's needed for King Street. Even with the pilot the drunken automobile gods seem to find a way... to creep up on us
felix123
Active Member
I work on King in the streetcar priority zone and see maybe one car every other day, disobeying the rules. Out of those, perhaps every 4th transgressor is caught by the police. I have no idea what your rants are about. King St is a success and there's so little car traffic on it these days. Now if they could resolve the cars blocking pedestrian crossings issue, that would be great.
dowlingm
Senior Member
My experience of King in the Yonge-Bay blocks is that vehicle traffic is indeed down, but red light cameras in the north south direction would make a big difference. I keep seeing eastbound 504 cars getting blocked in PM rush because of vehicles not clearing the Bay-King intersection southbound, either because they are long enough to block two lanes or because they are stacked behind another non-clearing vehicle. It is also huge disrespect to pedestrians who have to squeeze between these vehicles and their selfish drivers.
en.m.wikipedia.org
Box junction - Wikipedia
crs1026
Superstar
^We live in a society that is averse to enforcing to the letter of the law. That’s why we are studiously debating raising the speed limit from 100 to 110 when people are already driving 120.
The key question is.....how much time do the streetcars lose because of the drivers who ignore the signs? If the answer is “a lot”, then we need more enforcement. If the answer is “not much”, then there’s no hit and no foul....and maybe that’s a good win-win between the interests of motorists and the interests of transit riders.. No need for a war on the auto if we don’t need one. I’m sure that the police, with so many conflicting priorities and urgent calls to respond to, are taking just this approach.
If this were, say, Switzerland, every driver who flaunts the signs would have their car impounded on the spot. But it isn't.
I expect we will continually cycle between some level of drivers ignoring the signs and police declaring periodic crackdowns. If that is too frustrating for the more anal observers, try weed, it’s legal. It makes one mellow.
- Paul
The key question is.....how much time do the streetcars lose because of the drivers who ignore the signs? If the answer is “a lot”, then we need more enforcement. If the answer is “not much”, then there’s no hit and no foul....and maybe that’s a good win-win between the interests of motorists and the interests of transit riders.. No need for a war on the auto if we don’t need one. I’m sure that the police, with so many conflicting priorities and urgent calls to respond to, are taking just this approach.
If this were, say, Switzerland, every driver who flaunts the signs would have their car impounded on the spot. But it isn't.
I expect we will continually cycle between some level of drivers ignoring the signs and police declaring periodic crackdowns. If that is too frustrating for the more anal observers, try weed, it’s legal. It makes one mellow.
- Paul
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