The city will conduct a study to determine if turning a stretch of King Street into a streetcar-only corridor would indeed help ease traffic congestion.
TTC Chair Stintz tabled a motion during today’s TTC board meeting asking staff to explore the feasibility of transforming a yet to be determined stretch of King Street into a designated streetcar thoroughfare.
The closure could be put into effect in a number of scenarios, including the morning rush for the duration of the Pan American Games, coming to Toronto in 2015.
The study will help determine when and if the plan would be advantageous for commuters.
The board approved her motion for the study, moving the debate to the city's public works committee.
The public works committee could deny the proposed study. The matter will likely be up for discussion at the September committee meeting.
Stintz said if the study is approved, members of the public works department will study a number of options for King Street, including completely shutting down the street to vehicular traffic during rush hour and restricting vehicular traffic to certain lanes.
Stintz said the goal is to help the city get the most from a $1.2 billion investment in a new fleet of streetcars, which will be rolled out beginning in 2015.
“We spent $1.2 billion on these new streetcars and we know that right now the streetcars get stuck on King (Street) in mixed traffic, so we are going to look at all ideas that are going to help King move more effectively,” she said.
Stintz said ideally, she'd like to introduce the closure during the Pan Am Games so that the city could learn from the experience and decide whether or not to implement it permanently.
“I think it is worth studying," Stintz told CP24 Monday during a sit-down interview. "The reality is we have 65,000 riders every day on the King (Street) car and with the construction in Liberty Village and the construction of the new Pan Am Games facilities, we are building up around King (Street) and we need to make those streetcars work better.
“It is not something to do lightly and I recognize there are a lot of impacts, so we want to make sure we know what they are and make a thoughtful decision moving forward,” she said.
The idea of establishing a streetcar corridor along King Street first surfaced late last week when TTC CEO Andy Byford told CP24 that such a move would help to prevent gaps and service delays for riders along the busy downtown road.
Mayor Rob Ford then took to the airwaves to criticize the idea on his weekly radio show on Newstalk 1010 Sunday, saying he was “disappointed” it was even being considered.
“I don’t know where the cars would go,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
Asked for her reaction to Ford’s comments on Monday, Stintz refused to weigh in.
“I am going to let the mayor speak for the mayor,” she said. “I learned long ago that I don’t speak for the mayor.”
Similar proposals for streetcar corridors were made at city hall in 2001 and 2007, but both attempts were thwarted.
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