The Star: Jarvis St. must change with evolving environs

[Archivist]

Given the sclerotic nature of New York's planning, I would be very surprised indeed if they did it "overnight". New York is one of those rare places that actually seems to take longer than we do to accomplish anything. Look at the mess (and ultimately highly unsatisfying) results around the WTC replacements.

Anyways, NYC aside ...

I saw some dipshit from the Moore Park resident's association on the TV yakking on about how "innovative" the extra lane on Jarvis was. There's no other way to say this - it made me fucking puke. These are the same people who fought Mount Pleasant Cemetery's tooth and nail to "save trees". Imagine putting a five lane roadway through their little corner of town and seeing how they like that.

Here's my letter to him today, CCd to Kyle Rae.

Dr. Mr. Costigan.

I saw you on TV last night, extolling the virtues of the extra lane on Jarvis and it's "innovative" signs to change the flow of traffic. I am finding this hard to square with your association's recent opposition to the Mount Pleasant Cemetery's expansion, on the basis that some trees would be removed. May I ask, are trees only important for the residents of Moore Park, which I note is rather more blessed with them than Jarvis Street? Does your association feel they not important for those of us who live lower down in the city?

Perhaps a second question is in order. Would your association be in favour of five lanes of traffic, with a middle lane that changes direction according to the time of day, along Moore Avenue in Toronto? As Moore connects directly with Mount Pleasant, I'm sure that such a lane would be appreciated by those trying to drive from downtown into Leaside through your neighbourhood. Let's make a deal - the minute that your association comes out in favour of widening Moore Avenue to accommodate a great flow of traffic, I will write my Councillor and beg him not to rid Jarvis of their extra lane.

I invite you some day to walk along Jarvis, crossing the street on several occassions, and compare it with your own leafy neighbourhood. The selfishness of your community association astonishes me.

[Archivist]
Toronto

 

[TonyV]

Huh? Maybe you should look at population dynamics in the GTA before you talk. Never mind trying to avoid sounding like some second rate African "president for life" about to liquidate all of his opponents before the start of the rainy season.

.

You're a riot.

I consult presently in the Don Mills and Eglinton area, and I see daily what a total mess the car culture can create. A TTC user takes his/her life in their hands when crossing Don Mills to catch the 25 bus southbound at 4 or 5 p.m. Don Mills and streets like it are a nightmare. There isn't a pedestrian crosswalk in sight.

This city must mature with a mixture of transit uses and pedestrian- and bike- friendly inititiatives, and the Jarvis project is just a start in the direction where things should be going. And as per other posts this morning, beautification is in a tie with the transit initiative -- beautification in and of itself is enough reason to do something like this.

This isn't the war on the car, it is an effort to improve the city. Let this be just a start.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

I can't say I'll be thrilled with the centre lane being removed, as I take that route to work once a week or so for a variety of reasons, but I'm willing to wait and see. Have to say though, the way this whole process was handled stinks. I live right at Mount Pleasant and Davisville and we didn't get a single notice about the whole initiative, no surprise with Miller's hammy fist behind the whole thing. That man can screw up a cure for cancer. It's only because I'm such a municipal docs freak that I stumbled upon the project at all while going through various committee agendas.

But the larger point is something else I've always thought about whenever I drive down that route, and that is I wish there was a tunnel beginning just north of Bloor that would hide the express, downtown-bound vehicular traffic altogether and zip you down to, say, Richmond Street or Adelaide, or even Lakeshore. I've never figured out why this city is completely lacking in vehicular tunnels, and when I think about it, this city, starting around the 1930s-1960s, should have - in parallel with subway construction - constructed a series of tunnels that would have *vastly* improved the efficiencies of main arteries downtown while removing the worst effects from said traffic. Some other areas that could have used them (?):

- University south from King, bypassing that whole mess by Union to the Lakeshore, with direct access to the Gardiner completely separated from Lakeshore
- Jarvis, as mentioned, from Bloor to Richmond/Adelaide and/or Lakeshore
- Spadina south from Wellington, with a tunnel under the tracks and emerging at Queen's Quay, and again, with separate access points to the Gardiner

For the above streets, note I'm not advocating the elimination of the continuation of the surface street network, rather, their being supplemented with a link to a tunnel system.

And as I'll get flamed for this, but what the hell: the most bad-ass tunnel of them all, Allen south from Eglinton, emerging somewhere south of Bloor, most likely Richmond/Adelaide as well.

Car-centric fantasy? You betcha. More likely, a sense of frustration at the timid infrastructure this city has, which in my mind includes a lack of vehicular tunnels and four-track subway lines.

Oh, and a big F-U to that Moore Park residents' association. Where the hell have they been while Mount Pleasant itself has deteriorated to the point where the old Mount Pleasant streetcar tracks are now so visible that they might as well be put back into service....

 

[Archivist]

With all due respect, the Jarvis changes have been in the press a number of times, starting some years ago, and there is abundant information on them on the city's website. The site details more than one meeting, community updates, and has a lot of details about the proposed changes. I feel the opposite - I've been hearing about the Jarvis plans for four years now - and we are at the point where it has been approved (but is apparently not in the ten year funding formula for changes of this nature).

In general, I don't think it is a fault of the city's that they don't consult or inform enough - the need to do so is one of those things that slow down changes in our city's fabric considerably.

 

[SimonP]

There was talk that this might be a close vote, but the final result was a strong 28 to 16 in favour of the project. Here is a list of those who voted against:

Paul Ainslie - Scarborough—Rouge River
Brian Ashton - Scarborough Southwest
Michael Del Grande - Scarborough—Agincourt
Mike Feldman - York Centre
Rob Ford - Etobicoke North
Doug Holyday - Etobicoke Centre
Cliff Jenkins - Don Valley West
Chin Lee - Scarborough—Rouge River
Gloria Lindsay Luby - Etobicoke Centre
Denzil Minnan-Wong - Don Valley East
Case Ootes - Toronto—Danforth
John Parker - Don Valley West
David Shiner- Willowdale
Karen Stintz - Eglinton—Lawrence
Michael Thompson - Scarborough Centre
Michael Walker - St. Paul's

 

[Whoaccio]

This city must mature with a mixture of transit uses and pedestrian- and bike- friendly inititiatives, and the Jarvis project is just a start in the direction where things should be going. And as per other posts this morning, beautification is in a tie with the transit initiative -- beautification in and of itself is enough reason to do something like this.

This isn't the war on the car, it is an effort to improve the city. Let this be just a start.

This is the kind of banal argument that pisses me off. You are just assuming that removing a lane of traffic will ipso facto make everything on Jarvis wonderful. The City hasn't produced any evidence to that effect and is relying on romantic ideas of returning Jarvis to some 19th century residential street to carry the day. The City presentation from 2008-03-19 itself states that the they found "no evidence of misuse" relating to the 5th lane, average rate of accidents and no noticeable change in pedestrian behavior. Maybe if the City had gone and consulted with developers and tried to form a detailed assessment on how the 5th lane effects property values, presumably in a negative, they would have a leg to stand on. But they didn't, and they don't. You can't seriously expect anybody to believe that an extra 5 meters of road is so caustic to development when there are, literally, hundreds of examples from all over the world of successful development occurring on roads many times wider. Roads like Spadina are wider than Jarvis yet have proved no hindrance to development. Never mind places like NYCC.

From a transport standpoint the entire project is equally poor. It firstly relies on the premise that the 20-30 peak cyclists an hour should be prioritized over the thousands who drive or take the bus. It goes without saying that isn't an uncontroversial view. Even if you do subscribe to it though, the City still hasn't shown how alternative transport will seriously benefit. Its own studies show that most of the displaced traffic, far from moving into a condo and riding a bike everywhere, will just relocate to Sherbourne & Church. Cumulatively those two streets carry 10x the peak hourly bike traffic. It is totally illogical then to force more cars down their throat absent a clear safety issue on Jarvis, which is basically what the city plans to do. There is a reason why the City's Bike Plan specifically excluded Jarvis as a priority.

There is nothing wrong with removing lanes, per se. What is wrong is this reflexively anti-car sentiment which substitutes for urban planning. I am sure, positive, that there are more than a few streets scattered about where pedestrian (and, I guess) cyclist volumes clearly exceed vehicle traffic. In situations like those I am totally for prioritizing public space over roads. But you can't just have this seat of the pants planning which goes for big publicity over actual usage. Jarvis is visible, people who use it generally don't vote for the Kyle Rae's of this planet and it's closely associated with this kind of "colonization" of downtown by suburbanites. That's why we are talking about it. Not because business along Jarvis are sick and tired of not having customers, not because the strip is (frankly) ugly, not because Moss Park looks like something out of The Wire after dark and not because there is some kind of pedestrian slaughter every time someone tries to cross the street. It is the left-wing municipal equivalent of "getting tough on crime" or some other such red-meat nonissue meant to rile up identity politics.

 

[Archivist]

*Give me convenience or give me death*

Given obesity rates due to lack of physical activity, pollution and global warming, aren't these really the same thing rather than a choice? Myself, I never found anything that was designed for convenience only to be much worthwhile.

 

[Whoaccio]

*Give me convenience or give me death*

Given obesity rates due to lack of physical activity, pollution and global warming, aren't these really the same thing rather than a choice? Myself, I never found anything that was designed for convenience only to be much worthwhile.

It's a Dead Kennedys album, not my mantra. Don't worry, I'm pretty sure Jello Briafa wasn't out to promote WalMart.

 

[GraphicMatt]

Jarvis is visible, people who use it generally don't vote for the Kyle Rae's of this planet and it's closely associated with this kind of "colonization" of downtown by suburbanites. That's why we are talking about it. Not because business along Jarvis are sick and tired of not having customers, not because the strip is (frankly) ugly, not because Moss Park looks like something out of The Wire after dark and not because there is some kind of pedestrian slaughter every time someone tries to cross the street. It is the left-wing municipal equivalent of "getting tough on crime" or some other such red-meat nonissue meant to rile up identity politics.

I don't think you can accuse the 'left-wing' of riling up identity politics when the other side is the one pushing that there's a 'war on cars.'

Also, 'usage' isn't just people who drive down Jarvis to work. People actually live on Jarvis - and there's many more who will live there in the coming years. Kids go to school there.

Planners may have seen fit to turn it into a downtown highway decades ago, but that was a mistake. This is a correction.

 

[Archivist]

Graphic. Yes, exactly, on all points.
Interestingly, I received a response as below to someone associated with the Moore Park Residents Association from my email that I quote above. She said,

... against my better judgment, I can’t help myself but to respond to you myself.

I live on Moore Avenue and just got back from delivering my three children to school and saw your email. I have to honestly say my blood is flowing quickly! Moore Avenue is at present a very dangerous street and we have asked for Kyle Rae’s help repeatedly for years! The street was/is a mess with cars all over the place and illegal U-turns – too dangerous a place for three small children. And Moorevale Park is across the street – full of dogs and children and no fence! I see near misses all the time. In fact yesterday I was crossing the street with my four year old and we got a serious scare as a police car peeled around the corner and headed straight for us. We have giant steel bollards to protect people at the Moore and Mt. Pleasant corner. Once again they have been completely ripped out of the ground by what one can only assume is a very large truck – one that is even likely prohibited on Moore Avenue – but they use Moore all the time. This traffic situation is ridiculous and I will be supremely upset but not surprised when it ends in some kind of fatality. What people don’t seem to realize is that Mt. Pleasant = Jarvis. We have it right here!

I personally resent your comments – and believe you don’t have an accurate appreciation for the situation. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Because you as well as Kyle Rae have characterized all of us in Moore Park as the lazy rich fat cats north of Bloor. And our situation on Moore, which will only get worse with the bottleneck on Jarvis, will certainly be nobody’s concern. Perhaps the people of Moore Park can secede from Toronto Centre and can be annexed by Michael Walker’s ward to the north.

I find her comments exasperatingly small in their focus. She shows no awareness of the larger issues as they face Jarvis. Is it really that hard to use a small amount of imagination to think about some other neighbourhood?

She herself brings up the "fat cats north of Bloor" analogy, but is it really such a huge stretch to imagine her picking off a 10 year old promising ballet student and slowing down to throw a hundred dollar bill onto the street as recompense.

My reply is below:

Thanks for your response. I would strongly support any initiative to further control traffic on Moore Avenue, which, as you point out, has a ridiculous traffic situation that endangers the lives of children using parks and schools nearby.

In your email, you did not mention the existence of Jarvis Collegiate Institute, St. Michael's Catholic School, or the National Ballet School, all of which directly border Jarvis Street. If you have ever attempted to cross Jarvis, as the students of these institutions do every day, you will certainly understand that having five lanes of rapidly moving traffic is not conducive to the health and wellbeing of these students.

May I assume that you stand in opposition to the Moore Park Residents Association's Association stand on the removal of the centre lane of Jarvis Street? If so, I hope that you will join me in asking Mr. Costigan to publicly remove his objections to this lane removal, in the interests of those children who must cross Jarvis Street every single day.

 

[valkoholic]

Am I missing something or is this a the false victory for the cycling lobby and true victory for the councillor? Councillor Rae wanted wider sidewalks and no bike lanes and that’s what he appears to have gotten. The shared bike/car lanes (3.6 metres) are the width of a normal car lane downtown. The road will look like Yonge Street through the core except with a brand new row of trees down one side.

Anyway, another ‘victory’ for Toronto's most important 1% of commuters. If the transit community (70% of commuters) had a proportionate amount of power to the cycling community we’d all be beamed to work by TTC teleporters by now.

 

[Whoaccio]

I don't think you can accuse the 'left-wing' of riling up identity politics when the other side is the one pushing that there's a 'war on cars.'

Sure I can. If we were serious about improving the public realm we would start with streets that are already on their way. Low hanging fruit in other words. I'm not really qualified to make suggestions, but Kensington Market seems much more pedestrian friendly.

Also, 'usage' isn't just people who drive down Jarvis to work. People actually live on Jarvis - and there's many more who will live there in the coming years. Kids go to school there.

Come on, that doesn't sound Hellen Lovejoy-ish to you? Kids go to school along much wider roads and don't suffer. That is why I suggested the city poll developers and real estate agents, to get a picture of what they feel the impact of an extra 5 meters of road is. Obviously it doesn't show up in reduced safety (pedestrian or automotive), deranged pedestrian patterns or much else.

Planners may have seen fit to turn it into a downtown highway decades ago, but that was a mistake. This is a correction.

Highway? Come on, don't get too exited. Jarvis is, what, 15m wide? The horror. Why do some of the most vibrant neighborhoods pop up around the "highways" of Spadina or University? What is Fifth Avenue, a NASCAR track? The Champs Elysee an F1 circuit? Why is Sherbourne, or any number of nearby 4-lane streets, far more scuzzy than Jarvis? Shouldn't this "highway" have utterly ruined the street while it's more urbane neighbors thrived?

 

[Whoaccio]

Anyway, another ‘victory’ for Toronto's most important 1% of commuters. If the transit community (70% of commuters) had a proportionate amount of power to the cycling community we’d all be beamed to work by TTC teleporters by now.

My favorite is the terrific logic that the abysmal uptake of bicycling is proof that we don't pamper the cycling community enough. I 'oughta start a pogo stick riders association, lobby for pogo lanes and pogo days. Afterall, less than 1% of us commute via pogo stick. Clearly our community is in need to a city wide pogo-plan to raise our modal split to 20%.

 

[valkoholic]

My favorite is the terrific logic that the abysmal uptake of bicycling is proof that we don't pamper the cycling community enough. I 'oughta start a pogo stick riders association, lobby for pogo lanes and pogo days. Afterall, less than 1% of us commute via pogo stick. Clearly our community is in need to a city wide pogo-plan to raise our modal split to 20%.

That's awesome. I'm sure it's the lack of pogo-supportive infrastructure that keeps me from hopping to work.

 

[SP!RE]

More people will cycle once it's safer, including when more projects like this are constructed.

Thank God this went through.