Toronto Spadina Subway Extension Emergency Exits | ?m | 1s | TTC | IBI Group

Panzerfaust said:
Honestly, I think a subway under Queen would destroy the street, even with frequent stops. The streetcars have been a part of the area for a century, providing local service to various nodes on the route.
Click to expand...

What if we take the cars underground instead of the streetcars?

My vision of Queen Street is a transit mall from Woodbine to Roncesvalles, with an underground expressway complete with underground parking lots at major intersections. The Queen Street car tunnel would have ramps to the cross streets - a car approaching Queen would have to descend into the tunnel to turn left or right, but traffic heading straight would stay at grade.

This would preserve the mid block services, increase car capacity (a necessary evil), provide more parking (a necessary evil), and completely reduce the 501's reliability issues.

It's bold and expensive, but we have to dream big.
 
RedRocket191 said:
What if we take the cars underground instead of the streetcars?

My vision of Queen Street is a transit mall from Woodbine to Roncesvalles, with an underground expressway complete with underground parking lots at major intersections. The Queen Street car tunnel would have ramps to the cross streets - a car approaching Queen would have to descend into the tunnel to turn left or right, but traffic heading straight would stay at grade.

This would preserve the mid block services, increase car capacity (a necessary evil), provide more parking (a necessary evil), and completely reduce the 501's reliability issues.

It's bold and expensive, but we have to dream big.
Click to expand...
You just, nearly word for word, stated the second part of my plan that I didn't put up there. I presume it's because it's a common idea. I wouldn't provide an underground portion for cars though. Screw that, there's enough east-west thoroughfares downtown for traffic to adjust. I figure that the DRL would have stations on either end of Queen in the rail corridors, and the area between them would be pedestrian and transit only. I wouldn't extend it outside of those areas though, because once you leave downtown the east-west corridors get less frequent, and we want to reduce traffic rather than creating it.
 
I think transit malls are a big mistake. They've been tried across North America, and they're disasters pretty much everywhere. Queen Street is our best street, and we wouldn't want to risk ruining it just because the TTC can't bring itself to run a streetcar on a regular headway.

I wouldn't mind, on the other hand, making Queen and perhaps also King into a pair of one-way streets. One lane for parking, and one for road traffic. The remaining two lanes would be given over to the streetcar. It's a win-win for everybody.
 
Panzerfaust said:
You just, nearly word for word, stated the second part of my plan that I didn't put up there. I presume it's because it's a common idea. I wouldn't provide an underground portion for cars though. Screw that, there's enough east-west thoroughfares downtown for traffic to adjust. I figure that the DRL would have stations on either end of Queen in the rail corridors, and the area between them would be pedestrian and transit only. I wouldn't extend it outside of those areas though, because once you leave downtown the east-west corridors get less frequent, and we want to reduce traffic rather than creating it.
Click to expand...

What can I say? Great minds think alike:)
 
I think that all major downtown streets should be made one way. Our downtown streets were designed to carry the horse and buggy traffic generated by a city of 10,000 people. It's about time that Toronto's road network got with the times and switched over to higher capacity one way streets. This would do wonders for streetcars, cars, and on street parking.

I strongly believe that pedestrians would not see much of a difference if streets like Queen converted to one way operation. As I've said before, don't use Adelaide and Richmond as a model of what one way streets do to pedestrians. For 100 years, they have been an industrial back alley, and never had commercial buildings from the time they were built. That's why those streets were dead 100 years ago, dead 50 years ago when they operated as two way streets, and are dead now. It's got nothing to do with vehicular traffic.
 
For the love of everything holy, do not convert Queen and King to one-way streets. This was done in downtown Hamilton. It pretty much killed the pedestrian life there and it turned the roads into miniature highways. The core still hasn't recovered from that one. I would prefer everything the way it is, crowded streetcars and all, if the alternative was one way streets.
 
Go to Montreal and look at St-Laurent, St-Urbain, Ste-Catherine. Going one-way has absolutely effect on the vibrance of the street. For pedestrians, they're much easier to cross.
 
unimaginative2 said:
Go to Montreal and look at St-Laurent, St-Urbain, Ste-Catherine. Going one-way has absolutely effect on the vibrance of the street. For pedestrians, they're much easier to cross.
Click to expand...
Perhaps Hamilton was just a fluke then. All I know is that one way streets killed our downtown.
 
There were many other factors involved in killing Hamilton's downtown. There are virtually no cities in North America of Hamilton's size and economic structure that have healthy downtowns, whether or not they have one way streets. They tried to use that argument in Kitchener, too. They blamed the fact that Duke and Charles were one way on the death of downtown. I'd say that the widening of Duke and Charles and the tearing down of many of the buildings lining them certainly didn't help, but the fact that they were one way had rather little bearing. They've restored them to two-way operation, and it has had no appreciable impact, other than perhaps encouraging people to bypass downtown when they're driving.
 
I think "expresswayness" of one-way streets does hinder how pleasant the urban experience can be. Consider the maximum number of lanes travelling in the same direction. Looking at Google Maps in DT Hamilton, Main is a consistent 5 lanes wide and King varies between 4 and 5 lanes, all of which are used for traffic at peak times. From what I can see in LiveMaps, Ste Catherine in Montreal seems to be 2 traffic lanes for much of its length, plus parking at all times (I assume this because there doesn't seem to be any lane marking for the curb lanes, implying that they are never used for traffic). 5 lanes of traffic versus 2 lanes of traffic means a big difference in speed, flows, and "expresswayness".

I just think that seeing things as "one-way" is too simple. What unimaginative is proposing for Queen and King is 1 traffic lane. I dare say it's a very European proposal.
 
I like Toronto's general lack of one way arterials, it sets us apart. It's the way the roads have been set up from their beginning and compliments our historic shopping strips. It's also easier to navigate by any vehicle (bike or car) if you're new to an area or the city. With that said, unimaginative's idea is very interesting.
 
You've said exactly what I was trying to say, cdl! The width of the street is much more important than whether it's one way or not. A two-lane one-way Queen Street with a streetcar ROW will likely be no more hostile -- and probably even less -- to pedestrians than the existing setup.
 
Now that I'm looking at it, I guess it is the width rather than the unidirectional flow of traffic that killed King and Main. Walking on those streets is hell because it's like you're standing next to an expressway. I concede defeat.
 
Yes, Ste-Catharine is only 4 lanes with two lanes traffic. In my experience, it is as busy on Yonge in terms of pedestrian flow, if not more.

I put Queen and King as one way streets on my map before to allow for streetcar ROWs. Queen's tracks would be moved to the southernmost lanes, and King would be moved to the northernmost lanes. So both streets would be unidirectional for cars, but bidirectional for streetcars.
 
You must log in or register to post here.

Back
Top