Taxis could soon be allowed to park in front of designated fire hydrants as the city seeks new and innovative ways to clear up curbside space and reduce gridlock.
The proposal is included in a list of “quick wins” in the city’s exhaustive curbside management plan, which will go before the public works committee next week.
Staff are recommending that city council move ahead with the item by introducing a pilot project, which would see 30 taxi stands established in front of fire hydrants. Under the proposal, any driver using the taxi stands would have to remain in their vehicle at all times and vacate the spot upon the arrival of an emergency vehicle.
The other “quick win” that staff are recommending that the city move forward with immediately is a pilot project to establish delivery vehicle staging zones in the Financial District. Under that plan, delivery vehicles with the necessary permit could park in dedicated time-limited spaces while completing deliveries or waiting to access delivery elevators.
“I just am not going to fall into the school of people who want to say no to any change and go backwards,” Mayor Tory said of the report while speaking with reporters at city hall on Thursday. “The city is too busy, it is growing too fast and there were too many decisions that were left for too long. That is why we are trying to make these changes on a gradual basis. None of them are going to solve traffic problems in of themselves but I think all of them are going to make a difference.”
The curbside management plan includes a number of recommendations that could be implemented in the short-term (zero to two years) and the medium term (three to five years), though staff are only recommending that council take steps to move ahead with a handful of the so-called “quick wins” for now.
Some of the more significant proposals that will require further study include a plan to create a permit system for delivery vehicles and another proposal to explore changes to commercial laneways that would allow for delivery trucks to be loaded and unloaded away from busy streets.
The proposal also suggests that Municipal Licensing and Standards staff could work with local BIA’s and major deliver companies to shift some deliveries to off-peak hours, as was done during the Pan American Games in 2015.
“Many other cities have much more restrictive rules,” Tory said. “We are not going to be inconsiderate of the needs of business but we also have to look at the balancing act of things you can do to allow business but at the same time allow other people move around the city. We can’t just do nothing.”
