Toronto Queens Quay & Water's Edge Revitalization | ?m | ?s | Waterfront Toronto

[nfitz]

Thankfully, the degree of enjoyment expressed by the general public have demonstrated your priorities are somewhat off.

Why do you think maintaining 2-way auto traffic is creating enjoyment of the general public? The car drivers don't look very happy driving down it. The streetcar riders don't look happy when they go into extra breaking. And I've heard pedestrians screaming when an auto unexpectedly tried to drive over the trail.

Wouldn't there be even more enjoyment if there was less frequent danger of someone being killed?

The issues with the route are minor, and should be resolved through gradual fine-tuning and does not really represent any fundamental failure as a mixed-used route.

They may be minor once resolved. They are not currently minor. If they are not resolved, sooner or later, there will be a death.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

Why do you think maintaining 2-way auto traffic is creating enjoyment of the general public? The car drivers don't look very happy driving down it. The streetcar riders don't look happy when they go into extra breaking. And I've heard pedestrians screaming when an auto unexpectedly tried to drive over the trail.

I will go by the general increase in usage instead of anecdotal stories of happiness.

Wouldn't there be even more enjoyment if there was less frequent danger of someone being killed?
...
]They may be minor once resolved. They are not currently minor. If they are not resolved, sooner or later, there will be a death.

Sooner or later there is death anytime there is an interface among and between vehicles, streetcars and pedestrians. If it was that terrible, it would have happened already.

AoD

 

[nfitz]

I will go by the general increase in usage instead of andectocal stories of happiness.

There's been an increase in car traffic?

Sooner or later there is death anytime there is an interface among and between vehicles, streetcars and pedestrians. If it was that terrible, it would have happened already.

Every time I've ridden a streetcar down there, I've seen a auto running through a red light in front of a streetcar. Every time. While these things happen on Fleet and Spadina - personally I've never seen it. I've seen one on Bathurst - but not with a streetcar, and only once.

There is something very wrong with the design.

It's too late now, but I think they'd have been better to have made it one-way, and tried to eliminate some of the crossings.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

There's been an increase in car traffic?

Is that the only thing that mattered? Usage - i.e. usage of the space, inclusive of pedestrians.

Every time I've ridden a streetcar down there, I've seen a auto running through a red light in front of a streetcar. Every time. While these things happen on Fleet and Spadina - personally I've never seen it. I've seen one on Bathurst - but not with a streetcar, and only once.

There is something very wrong with the design.

It's too late now, but I think they'd have been better to have made it one-way, and tried to eliminate some of the crossings.

If it was that bad, clearly it's time for them to station some cops and issue tickets. They'd probably cover their quota in a day.

AoD

 

[PinkLucy]

Every time I've ridden a streetcar down there, I've seen a auto running through a red light in front of a streetcar. Every time. While these things happen on Fleet and Spadina - personally I've never seen it. I've seen one on Bathurst - but not with a streetcar, and only once.

In the comments to the Steve Munro article, you mentioned you go to QQ just infrequently. I live in the area and am there a lot. I see red light runners (which is driver error, not design) on occasion but not every time. I also see them on Lake Shore every day. Oh, and turning left pretty much everywhere in the city. It's not unique to QQ. I think those who run reds in front of a streetcar are a special kind of Darwin candidate.

 

[nfitz]

Is that the only thing that mattered? Usage - i.e. usage of the space, inclusive of pedestrians.

I thought that was what you implied. I think too much of the road and functionality has been sacrificed for a relatively few amount of autos. You might disagree with this, but clearly we have different priorities?

If it was that bad, clearly it's time for them to station some cops and issue tickets. They'd probably cover their quota in a day.

That only fixes the problem for a few hours.

In the comments to the Steve Munro article, you mentioned you go to QQ just infrequently.

Relatively infrequently compared to other lines. I frequent Spadina more, but haven't seen anything like that - though I hear there were issues before they fixed the design problems there, when I lived elsewhere.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Simplest would be rumble strips.

Or speed bumps along the entire length.

 

[EastYorkTTCFan]

what about railroad crossing gates at every point where cars can cross the tracks and they only go up when the light is green for traffic to enter or exit from the drive ways on the south side?

 

[Megaton327]

In the comments to the Steve Munro article, you mentioned you go to QQ just infrequently. I live in the area and am there a lot. I see red light runners (which is driver error, not design) on occasion but not every time. I also see them on Lake Shore every day. Oh, and turning left pretty much everywhere in the city. It's not unique to QQ. I think those who run reds in front of a streetcar are a special kind of Darwin candidate.

As a counterpoint, I am a fellow frequent 509 user as I live in a building along the western (Fleet) portion of 509/511; I use the 509 at least twice in a day on at least 5-6 days of the week, oftentimes more for whatever reason. I would say I see red light runners, especially people running the left turn or right turn red and people disobeying 'no turn' signs, on about 90% of my rides. I see this very rarely elsewhere in the city. It is not every single time, but it is so close that I am much more surprised to ride without any incidents than with. A sample size of one in a report from any UT poster is not realistically accurate to any sort of actual average, I would like to see some detailed statistics of this but there's currently no mechanism for recording that across the city in that detail.

 

[PinkLucy]

I was out walking yesterday and was watching specifically for red light runners because of this conversation. I saw plenty, some left turning, some going straight. I saw them at Fort York and Bathurst, at Spadina and Fort York, at York and Bremner (going straight, almost took out a pedestrian with a baby stroller), at York and Lake Shore. I didn't go that way yesterday but the left turn from Fleet at Fort York is another favourite red light running left turn spot as is the left turn from Stadium Rd to Lake Shore.

 

[Napoleon]

As a counterpoint, I am a fellow frequent 509 user as I live in a building along the western (Fleet) portion of 509/511; I use the 509 at least twice in a day on at least 5-6 days of the week, oftentimes more for whatever reason. I would say I see red light runners, especially people running the left turn or right turn red and people disobeying 'no turn' signs, on about 90% of my rides. I see this very rarely elsewhere in the city. It is not every single time, but it is so close that I am much more surprised to ride without any incidents than with. A sample size of one in a report from any UT poster is not realistically accurate to any sort of actual average, I would like to see some detailed statistics of this but there's currently no mechanism for recording that across the city in that detail.

Well, I don't frequent Queen's Quay that often, but I can honesty say that I almost never see anyone run a red light. I'm not talking about going on "orange", but legitimately just saying "screw it the light's red, but I don't care." My most often frame of reference is College & Spadina for a complicated intersection with lots of TTC. I'd say I see one person make a U-turn on the red light about once every two months. I might see people run the red light in general maybe once every 3 months.

 

[junctionist]

Generally you don't notice things like that unless you spend a lot of time in one area. I never saw so many people drive through a stop sign until I lived in an apartment in front of a stop sign. It happened throughout the day. Some people didn't even brake. There was a school nearby, and they'd have crossing guards at times when kids walking to and from school. Those volunteer crossing guards probably save lives.

 

[Mercator]

Yesterday TPS was doing enforcement on left turning vehicles at QQ and Simcoe (right in front of the parking garage entrance). He didn't have any trouble. At one point, he got two vehicles in the span of a few minutes. I am not sure if he was ticketing pedestrians (walking around in the bike lane) or cyclists (blowing through reds) but hopefully in the future we'll continue to see TPS on QQ ticketing/educating.

 

[the lemur]

Every time I've ridden a streetcar down there, I've seen a auto running through a red light in front of a streetcar. Every time. While these things happen on Fleet and Spadina - personally I've never seen it. I've seen one on Bathurst - but not with a streetcar, and only once.

There is something very wrong with the design.

So something about the design encourages drivers to run reds in front of streetcars? What would that be?

 

[wopchop]

So something about the design encourages drivers to run reds in front of streetcars? What would that be?

This is common to road design in general. Most drivers know that even after a left turning signal turns red, there is still a considerable amount of time before the parallel direction is given a green signal. They exploit this and it becomes a habit. Unfortunately, the streetcars change things, and drivers are not thinking about this, because they are operating on habit / instinct.