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Yonge-Dundas Pedestrian Scramble Implementation

Giving the streetcars signal priority might help a little bit with that. (Not that the Transportation department will ever do THAT.) Also, I imagine drivers will start avoiding the intersection more now.

Whatever the case, I hope it stays. I keep finding excuses to cross diagonally because it's fun.
 
The auto traffic cycles should be longer. Seems like traffic just gets going and it's time to stop again.

This has also made jaywalking on Dundas between Yonge and Bay extremely easy.
 
casaguy said:
I'm glad that Toronto is trying this out... The one in Tokyo is amazing but I've noticed a big difference that I haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet:

The flow of Tokyo's appears so smooth because when crossing diagonally you can only go between two corners as opposed to all 4 at the same time like in Toronto.

In Toronto, won't there be a lot of awkward collisions in the centre? There is no "walk on the right side" sort of rule for this scenario yet.
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Ummm... in Tokyo (there are a lot more than just the famous Shibuya crossing) there aren't generally any rules saying that you can only cross diagonally. At the Shibuya intersection, there is an extremely busy train/bus station on one corner so the vast majority of people are either going towards or away from that corner. You can try crossing in the other diagonal direction but it can be difficult. You definitely can cross in any of the other four directions though.
 
We need more ... we need a lot more!

Yonge and Bloor to start with ... actually Yonge and every subway stop till Front!

Then some on the waterfront! A few on Spadina. A few on Church ...

That should be a good start.
 
taal said:
We need more ... we need a lot more!

Yonge and Bloor to start with ... actually Yonge and every subway stop till Front!

Then some on the waterfront! A few on Spadina. A few on Church ...

That should be a good start.
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Isn't interesting that Los Angeles (the city built for the auto) and the 3rd largest city in North America would install 10 scramble intersections and use transit priority on its LRT lines. While Toronto, 5th largest city in North America, has only 1 scramble intersection and does not use transit priority on its LRT lines (except ½, Harbourfront).

Toronto's department of transportation has to wake up and be more transit, bicycle, and pedestrian oriented. They all use the roads, not just the automobile. Scramble intersections should be at every busy Yonge, Bloor, and Danforth intersection that has a subway station, as a start.
 
W. K. Lis said:
Isn't interesting that Los Angeles (the city built for the auto) and the 3rd largest city in North America would install 10 scramble intersections and use transit priority on its LRT lines. While Toronto, 5th largest city in North America, has only 1 scramble intersection and does not use transit priority on its LRT lines (except ½, Harbourfront).

Toronto's department of transportation has to wake up and be more transit, bicycle, and pedestrian oriented. They all use the roads, not just the automobile. Scramble intersections should be at every busy Yonge, Bloor, and Danforth intersection that has a subway station, as a start.
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I think how busy an intersection is should be second to the carrying capacity of the sidewalk at the corners.
Yonge and College/Carlton is not as busy a corner as some others, but the sidewalk, especially at the north west and south east corners has no room for people to queue up to cross.
The other corners have more space but get clogged with people waiting at the streetcar stops.
This intersection should also have streetcar loading islands installed, there is certainly room for them.
I think there would even be space for a staircase down to the subway level from the islands.
 
Jonny5 said:
I think how busy an intersection is should be second to the carrying capacity of the sidewalk at the corners.
Yonge and College/Carlton is not as busy a corner as some others, but the sidewalk, especially at the north west and south east corners has no room for people to queue up to cross.
The other corners have more space but get clogged with people waiting at the streetcar stops.
This intersection should also have streetcar loading islands installed, there is certainly room for them.
I think there would even be space for a staircase down to the subway level from the islands.
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Yonge & Bloor is even worse now with the 1BE hoarding up. The S/E corner is bordering on dangerous, a scramble crossing here would be ideal.
 
W. K. Lis said:
Isn't interesting that Los Angeles (the city built for the auto) and the 3rd largest city in North America would install 10 scramble intersections and use transit priority on its LRT lines. While Toronto, 5th largest city in North America, has only 1 scramble intersection and does not use transit priority on its LRT lines (except ½, Harbourfront).
Click to expand...

Isn't interesting that Toronto and the 5th largest city in North America would have the 3rd largest transit ridership and transit signal priority in some form on nearly all its surface routes (bus and streetcar)?
 
299 bloor call control. said:
Isn't interesting that Toronto and the 5th largest city in North America would have the 3rd largest transit ridership and transit signal priority in some form on nearly all its surface routes (bus and streetcar)?
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We do, really?

What transit signal priority do we have on any bus routes? I was aware of none.

Oh and regarding the initial post, the number of scramble crossings really don't equate to how walkable / livable a city is. I mean, how many are in New York out of curiosity? ... either way.
Have you ever visited L.A. btw? Toronto is way more walkable (well in a sense that there are WAY more people walking) ... not to hate on L.A., it has many great assets that aren't known to many outsiders. But in terms of pedestrian activity / transit, anything you want along those lines it really pales in comparison to Toronto.
 
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A good number of bus routes are equipped with signal priority similar to the streetcar routes - extending greens and shortening reds.

As for the LA scrambles, I think it would be fair to say that they put in their scrambles for the benefit of the cars, so that they can do turns unimpeded by pedestrians. We put ours in for pedestrians to have an extra phase to cross.
 
Do any of the buses use them on current routes? If so which ones?
I'd really like to see it in action ... although I suspect it would be pretty hard to notice anyway.

It wouldn't really work on a route with heavy transit usage would it? i.e. If they used it on Finch East during rush hour ... Finch would always have a green light for the most part :)

Regarding you're L.A. comment ... ha! ... it's probably true. Actually, if there are right/left turns at any scrabble how advantageous are they for pedestrians anyway? As this will result in them waiting longer for the ability to cross. Yes, given the fact that once this happens they can cross any direction they want but still ... I dunno might depend a lot on the flow of pedestrian activities at the particularly intersection in question.
 
Transit priority is installed all over the city.

The transit priority system is "passive", all it does is hold a green light for a few seconds longer when there is a transit vehicle stopped at the intersection (presumably loading). The system is easy to spot - whenever the pedestrian countdown gets to zero but the light stays green, that's the transit priority at work.

Although it helps in many places, its passive nature often hinders the movement of transit vehicles. My personal favourite spot for watching this in action in is at Dundas and Bathurst. If there is a streetcar stopped at the intersection, the light stays green for an extra 8 seconds or so. So what happens is...

1. Streetcar approaches the intersection at a red light, but there are 3 or more vehicles in front of it so the driver doesn't open the doors.
2. Light turns green, cars in front of the streetcar pass through the intersection, the streetcar drives up to the white line and opens its doors to unload and load.
3. Crosswalk lights count down to zero, the light stays green, but the streetcar is still loading.
4. After an additional 8 seconds, the light turns red (and the streetcar finishes loading just after).
5. Steps 1-4 repeat for a second streetcar on the perpendicular street. The second streetcar also gets an extra 8 seconds which it doesn't use because it is loading, but holds up the first streetcar which is ready to go.
6. Light changes, and first streetcar departs on its way, 16 seconds later than it would have had there been no transit "priority".
 
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