Intersections are inherently a competition for space and time. In many places in the world, intersections are still governed largely by the assertiveness of the participants. Crossing the street in many parts of Italy drivers will not stop unless you walk out onto the street. In orderly Toronto, the nature of intersections has been heavily institutionalized and regulated; we expressly decide which parties will have the priority at intersections in the city based on the importance we place on different modes of transportation.

While it is easy to argue that our society gives this priority to cars, Toronto is taking steps, albeit small ones, to shift its priorities and institutionalize intersections where transit and pedestrians are the primary focus.

Toronto began gradually implementing signal priority for streetcars along Queen Street in the mid 1980s and since then has expanded the program to 332 intersections across the city. You will likely have experienced — possibly unknowingly — a handful of signal priority intersections if you travel on the Queen, King, College, St Clair, Dundas, Gerrard, Bathurst, and Spadina streetcars or Dufferin, Jane and Finch West buses. The city has the goal of implementing priority along one route every year and is currently working on Finch East. Bruce Zvaniga, at Transportation Services filled Spacing in on some of the details of how the signals work for transit vehicles.

As a streetcar (or equipped bus) approaches an intersection it is picked up as part of the control system’s loop. Upon detecting the transit vehicle, the system will hold its right of way for two second intervals, until the vehicle has passed. This can last a maximum of 30 seconds. If the vehicle is facing a red light the system can initiate the pedestrian countdown and shorten the opposing green up to 15 seconds.

The biggest impediment to having transit vehicles soar through a continuous stream of green lights is the pedestrian signals, which must give enough time for people to cross safely. The city is also working on improving pedestrian priority; something of particular interest in light of January’s tragic spree of pedestrian deaths. The intersection of University and Adelaide is currently hosting a test program of pedestrian signal priority in which pedestrians are given a head start of cars. The idea is to allow pedestrians out into the intersection before traffic starts, in order to better establish their presence. Such systems are already well used in Montreal. The city plans to implement similar schemes at 4-5 other intersections this year in situations where there is a large amount of left hand turns.

As for Transit City vehicles, officials are currently working out what kind of signal priority will be implemented. The city says that the scheduled nature of the new lines will likely force a new set-up. Garry Carr, a traffic engineer with the TTC who is working on the details of the new LRT lines, told Spacing that Transit City vehicles will likely have enhanced priority over what is currently given to the legacy streetcar network. LRTs will likely have GPS based sensors that detect when the vehicle has left the previous intersection so that the next interchange can be timed accordingly. Carr says that such a system may also be used to slow vehicles down when they are running ahead of schedule (maybe preventing the need for impromptu coffee breaks). It also should be noted that the design for the new lines currently features three-metre wide pedestrian waiting areas to enhance safety and comfort (platforms on Spadina are 2.4 metres wide).

While transit riders may be weary of the tangible improvements of priority at intersections, Carr insists that Toronto’s signal priority program is amongst the most aggressive in North America. At the city’s already crowded intersections the impediments to a system that would allow for better flow of transit vehicles are great. Traffic must kept flowing, pedestrians must be given sufficient time and everything must be done in a way that follows the conventions of what people are expecting; an important aspect of safety.

At the city’s intersections, the collective priorities of our city are laid bare. Who we direct priority towards reflects not only on our values, but on the course we are setting for our future.

Photo by Kevin Steele

Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.

MAYORAL RACE
• Adam Giambrone apologizes for ‘inappropriate’ contact with woman [ Toronto Star ]
• Rightward tilt in mayoral race? [ Toronto Star ]
• Is Rob Ford officially in? Not according to Rob Ford [ Globe & Mail ]

OTHER NEWS
• ‘Tune-up’ for Pickering, overhaul at Darlington [ Toronto Star ]
• One record we may not want to break [ National Post ]
• Ryerson told to crack down on racist ‘chill‘ [ Toronto Star ]
• Plastic is slow way to park [ Toronto Star ]
• Parking machine fraud costs cities hundreds of thousands [ Toronto Star ]
• Renovation delays leave Casa Loma a wreck [ Toronto Star ]
• Get going on housing [ Toronto Star ]
• Awarding diversity [ Toronto Star ]
• 63 charges last week in driving and dialing crackdown [ Toronto Sun ]
• Loyal java lovers stand by the unpretentious brand [ Toronto Star ]
• Deadly gas plant blast concerns Oakville residents [ Toronto Star ]

It couldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the city’s swinging right in this election year, and not without reason, given the increasingly perilous state of Toronto’s finances (the gory details of which will be getting a lot of airplay over the next week). But there’s something bizarre about the breast-beating over the alleged dearth of red-meat conservatives in the mayoral race.

Exhibit A: Marcus Gee’s plea in Saturday’s Globe and Mail for Rob Ford to jump into this “lefty” campaign. As a journalist, I whole-heartedly agree with him that the spectacle of a Ford candidacy would be enormously entertaining to cover.

But surely there’s more to this business of holding elections than simply the prospect of nine months of zingers. In our yearning for some blue blood, have we lost sight of that little matter of competence?

At the risk of inviting days of attack on the comment string, I’d argue that three current and former council conservatives certainly have the skills to run the city: Doug Holyday, Karen Stintz, and David Soknacki, former budget chief and currently chair of Parc Downsview Park. You may not agree with them on many points, but they all have functioning brains and understand the issues.

In lieu of these figures, we have Rocco Rossi, whose pronouncements to date make him look more and more like a conservative in Liberal clothing.

It’s not obvious to me why a guy who wants to sell Toronto Hydro and press the pause button on a multi-billion transit expansion isn’t considered right enough.

The conservatives mentioned above are somewhat to the right of Rossi, but anyone running for the job must reach beyond their core ideological constituency in order to build a winning campaign.

Ford certainly has the potential to become a lightning rod for ambient voter dissatisfaction, especially in the suburbs. And yes, Marcus, it would be fun to watch him perform his rhetorical belly flops during the mayoral debates.

But I seriously doubt whether Ford could run a Tim Horton’s drive-thru’, much less a $9 billion-a-year corporation with 50,000-plus employees. He couldn’t even remember the name of the company he’d hired to do the poll allegedly putting him in third place.

His shortcomings are both a matter of style and substance. Ford, as Gee concedes, has conducted himself disgracefully in public and at council, with drunken and/or belligerent behaviour.

More troublingly, I’ve never had the sense that he’s got the intellectual ability to grasp the complexity of the problems facing the city.

A recent case in point: Ford’s answer to my question last week, about his top transit priority, was to designate the TTC as an essential service to prevent the possibility of more wildcat strikes. In other words, he wants to create a situation that will drive up the TTC’s cost structure at a time when we need to do precisely the opposite.

Holyday, by contrast, argued vigorously during the summer strike that the city must resist the public’s calls to designate garbage collection as an essential service, because to do so would only make the operation more expensive (witness the costly arbitrated settlements for police and firefighters). Whatever else you may think about out-sourcing waste management, Holyday’s arguments are consistent, whereas Ford seems incapable of recognizing the contradictions in his bombast.

Run, Rob, run…but to another line of work.

photo by Miles Storey

MAYORAL RACE
• Smitherman gears up his mayoral bid [ Toronto Sun ]
• Smitherman opens campaign office [ Toronto Star ]
• Right out of nowhere [ National Post ]
• Giambrone Makes Grade - Grade 10[ National Post ]
• Let non-citizens vote in city election [ Toronto Star ]
• Rob Ford, please run. You’re the right guy for a lefty race [ Globe & Mail ]

ARCHITECTURE / DEVELOPMENT
• ’Laughter, music, dance’ -all in Oakville [ National Post ]
• Developer should pay city bill with condos, committee says [ Toronto Star ]
• No cash for city in land sale [ Toronto Star ]

CITY FINANCES
• Budget chaos is coming, study warns next mayor [ Globe & Mail ]
• David Miller blames province for parking ticket losses [ Toronto Star ]
• Prof traces roots of Toronto’s financial crisis: Blame David Miller, but Mike Harris too [ National Post ]

NEIGHBOURHOODS / COMMUNITIES
• Troubled neighbourhood desperate for change [ Toronto Star ]
• Battle brewing: Garden or park space? [ Toronto Star ]
• Condo Critic: Wellesley struggles for an identity [ Toronto Star ]

OTHER NEWS
• James: Change trickles slowly to the streets [ Toronto Star ]
• Race Matters: Blacks documented by police at high rate [ Toronto Star ]
• First thing: WinterCity Festival [ Globe & Mail ]
• Trustee refuses to apologize [ Toronto Star ]
• The Windy City is blowing Toronto away [ Globe & Mail ]
• Winter cycling a ‘paradise’ [ Toronto Sun ]
• Toppled utility pole should have been moved long ago [ Toronto Star ]
• Hume: Anatomy of a Toronto street corner [ Toronto Star ]

Below is a repost of my Eye Weekly Psychogeography column that appeared last week. The TTC has, obviously, had a bad few weeks (worse than the US Democratic Party’s January, maybe). That’s no fun for them, but it’s good for the rest of us because it’s a perfect storm of complaint, anger, citizen reporting and an election year that has led to movement on issues that have been systemically ignored for years. Earlier in the week The Star’s “Fixer” was incredulous at Chair Adam Giambrone’s acknowledgment that customer service is a problem after earlier denials and just yesterday TTC general manager Gary Webster released a letter to employees regarding this heretofore elephant in the TTC’s boardroom.

It’s easy to be cynical and wonder “why now” — those of us who have been riding the TTC for a long time have all experienced routine events like drivers leaving a running bus or streetcar to get coffee, and certainly management did too. So, how to manage this perfect storm now that it’s blowing change all over the city? Can it be channeled into someplace not-angry and useful, with long term effect (that is, beyond this election cycle)? Perhaps, as I write below, a TTC Riders Union could fill that void. Responses to this column and the past week’s events-at-large have reinforced my call for an ideologically-free union (with no ties to either side of the political spectrum). On the right we’ve heard the usual tired calls to “crush the union” while the left shifts any blame from workers to either management or chronic funding problems (a problem, yes, but not an excuse for bad customer service and broken corporate culture). Both look at the TTC through ideological goggles and, as I write, a TTC Riders Union can’t do that in order to be successful.

Last year in this space I wrote about quitting my near-decade-long TTC metropass subscription. It was a difficult decision, but the routine anger and frustration I felt using the system was tarnishing my experience of Toronto. As expected, the rider rage is largely gone, because now I can abandon the streetcar stop anytime, as I haven’t prepaid for bad service. Now I walk directly to places two to four kilometres away, without any wait-and-see delay. This also is the first year I’ve continued to ride my bike into January (the warmish, desert-dry winter we’ve been having is, admittedly, helping). Once you start winter riding, it’s easy and it can be all done without looking like a fleece and GORE-TEX Mountain Equipment Co-op gear fetishist.

As I mentioned in that column, my living and doing most things roughly within the old city of Toronto boundaries makes this possible, a luxury a lot of Torontonians don’t have, so my escape from the TTC is not an option for many customers. One letter to the editor in response to that column suggested I was being irresponsible by abandoning the TTC, that I should have stayed and worked to make it better from the inside, as if there is some kind of altruism in submitting yourself to the bad machine for the greater good.

There is hope on the horizon though, and it isn’t Adam Giambrone’s “Blue Ribbon Panel” of experts looking at how the TTC can improve its customer relations. That’s a good thing, certainly, but we all have a hard crust of cynicism when it comes to change happening from inside at the TTC, a bureaucracy that some city hall insiders refer to as (with appropriate apologies to the disabled) the “most autistic of the city’s agencies.” TTC management has a habit of blaming riders for problems (whether subway delays or the removal of the “Walk Left — Stand Right” signs) and now, so does its union.

Last week we saw Toronto’s collective rider rage find a rare visible target: that poor fellow at McCowan Station who got caught sleeping on the job by somebody with a camera. It’s a bad thing to do on the job, yes, but he, perhaps undeservedly, became the target at whom Torontonians could finally direct their pent-up frustration with a system that doesn’t respond to complaints particularly well. A statement from Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 113’s president, Bob Kinnear, chastised the picture-taker for not checking to see if the employee was all right (he didn’t say anything about the fare collectors who post hand-written “no-knocking” signs on their windows, but when spinning a story, subtleties often get left out). You, dear riders, are the problem again.

The real hope for customers is coming from the outside: last year a new TTC Riders Union was formed and, while it’s just in its infancy, it has the potential of uniting all riders and focusing their general rage somewhere productive, giving riders a feeling that they have a little bit of power. Even when I quit the Metropass last year — one of the only empowering acts I could have taken — the TTC took one last bureaucratic swing: I was charged for cancelling my pass before my 12-month contract was up. When I explained in an email that I had been a faithful subscriber for 10 years, a functionary at Davisville HQ forwarded the Metropass contract that said the 12-month lock-in is renewed each year. When I asked to appeal, I was told, “There is no possibility of appeal.”

The TTC Riders Union offers the possibility of a unified voice, and a place to channel ambient dissatisfaction into a politically effective tool. The majority of good and sometimes great TTC rank-and-file employees should also welcome this development as incidents like the “TTC Sleeper” might not take off the way it did if the public felt it were being listened to.

There are precedents for this. Most famously (and with the best name) is the New York Straphangers Campaign that has been around since 1979 and is a respected force in city politics, representing all riders as well as producing reports and analysis of the entire system (a sort of cross between an advocacy group and local transit think-tank). Los Angeles has their Bus Riders Union, and some other cities have similar set-ups. With Toronto’s high level of transit use cutting across class and income demographics, our version has the potential to be quite successful.

While an effective and strong TTC Riders Union could bring me back to riding the rocket, it’s the new group’s labour-union association that gives me pause. One of the organizing sponsors of the group is the Toronto and York Region Labour Council. While I don’t doubt the Labour Council is committed to “building strong cities,” individual unions are conservative and inherently self-interested organizations, and the link (and what it represents) on their website to the ATU #113’s website is cause for concern.

First, a TTC Riders union should be non-partisan and non-ideological. It should appeal to both a Bay Street Tory lawyer who lives in North Toronto and those guys who hand out copies of the Socialist Worker at political rallies. If it is going to represent all riders it must be free of any ideological leaning because the taint of dogma will evaporate potential membership.

The other concern is that as a rider, neither the TTC management nor the ATU union is my friend. I want my riders union never to pull any punches when acting on my behalf. Political romantics sometimes evoke the punch Ali never gave George Foreman as the latter went down during the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle. When it comes to the TTC, I want my Ali to throw that punch and then another because you know the TCU’s Bob “Wildcat Strike” Kinnear would never be so compassionate on our behalf and the TTC-bureaucracy brain can be as thick as a punching bag, too.

This is not an anti-union rant. Both my parents were members of the Canadian Auto Workers union in Windsor (my straight teeth are what is known in Windsor as “the Buzz Hargrove smile,” named after the former union president who negotiated the nice benefit packages we grew up with) and somewhere I still have my CAW card from a stint working in a factory. (I’ve yet to make as much money since.)

Yet the conservative, self-interested nature of unions eventually let down my hometown: in the 1990s and into the 2000s, when the auto factories were pumping out big SUVs and Windsor worker driveways were full of new F150s and Explorers, the CAW provided little long-term leadership on the sustainability of the industry and its products. Its members were working, and that’s all that mattered. CAW leadership is as complicit in my hometown’s current troubles as any auto executive is. For the TTC Riders Union to work, its conservative self-interest must have the back of its members and nobody else.

Photo by Cannon Fodder XT.

Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.

Though you may not know much about the person sitting next to you on the streetcar, chances are you have at least one thing in common: you both want to get to where you’re going quickly. Whether we are heading towards Kennedy Station or a revitalized approach to urban transportation, we’re understandably impatient about arriving at our destination.

In the case of a better transit system, each of us is silently groaning, “are we there yet?” And why shouldn’t we? Changes to the TTC will alter our paths and patterns, economic possibilities, and environmental realities in a way that few other projects can.

Like a long ride with many transfers, the environmental assessment process is notoriously arduous — which is why the Ontario Government made the bold move in 2008 to streamline transit undertakings as a unique class of environmental assessments known as Transit Project Assessments.

In this edition of the EA series, I’ll be looking at the Transit Project Assessment process through the lens of the Scarborough-Malvern Light Rail Transit (SMLRT) project. This project, in various incarnations, has been a transit pipe dream since the 1980s. Bandied back and forth for several decades, it gained steam with the Transit City announcement in 2007 and again last year when Toronto’s 2015 Pan Am Games bid was accepted.

Broadly, the project seeks to improve transit access to northeast Scarborough, support local population and employment growth, accommodate future ridership, connect Scarborough Rapid Transit to the Sheppard Light Rail Transit line, and provide rapid transit access to Centennial College’s Morningside campus and University of Toronto’s Scarborough campus. The 10-kilometre route has committed funding of $1.4 billion, and is expected to will hopefully open in time for the Pan Am Games. (The image above is the planned route. For more information about the specifics of the route, please see the SMLRT Environmental Project Report Executive Summary [PDF].)

Under the guidelines of the streamlined transit project assessment, the SMLRT is exempt from the requirements of a regular EA. This means no terms of reference (ToR) document is produced. Recall that the ToR defines the scope of the assessment and involves a fair portion of the public consultation (see our EA Primer for more details). As Steve Munro rightly noted a in a comment on a previous installment of this series, there’s an expectation that “a lot of the legwork of public consultation and a good chunk of preliminary design will happen before the [transit project assessment] formally gets underway.”

What the streamlined transit assessments sacrifice in content, they make up for in time: Transit EAs have six months to cross the finish line. Unlike other EAs, the Transit Assessment begins with a chosen transit project. In other words, proponents do not have to justify the need for the project or identify alternative solutions. Instead, the assessment requires proponents to describe the project and its design, consult with appropriate stakeholders, evaluate potential impacts, and offer proposed measures for mitigating these impacts.

Munro has concerns about transparency and meaningful opportunities for public comment. “[The Transit approval process was] badly perverted in the old way,” he says. “The new way relies on the good will of the proponent to undertake proper public consultation prior to the process itself. By the time the project receives consultation, detail and design decisions have already been made.” Streamlining eliminates some key opportunities to present ideas, collect feedback, adapt plans, and gain public trust.

Some argue that, when it comes to transit, this streamlining is justified. The Ministry of the Environment reasons that “a shorter process for these environmentally beneficial projects will help get people out of their cars and onto public transit. This is good news for Ontarian’s health and the health of the environment.” The SMLRT’s Environmental Project Report estimates that particulate pollutants will decrease by 25 percent, gaseous pollutants by two percent and carbon dioxide by 1.2 kilotonnes per year within the study area as a result of the LRT.

Positive impacts of the SMLRT extend beyond atmospheric concentrations and into community benefits. There is broad consensus in the planning community about the economic benefits of LRT. According a recent Region of Waterloo study, “[r]ail transit has a demonstrable influence on land values and locational decisions and is recognized as a planning tool that can support and encourage the development of more sustainable land use patterns. LRT has been shown to influence land development in part because, being tied to tracks, it is both distinct and perceived to be permanent.” With 45 percent of Malvern residents over age 15 qualifying as low-income earners, the sooner these benefits reach northeast Scarborough, the better.

But Ontario’s Environmental Commissioner, Gord Miller, gives the streamlined process an amber light. Citing the public uproar around the use of diesel cars on the Union-Pearson rail link, the Commissioner worries that “the streamlined transit EA doesn’t allow for the consideration of alternatives. Had the Union-Pearson EA been completed in a more classical sense, we might have ended up in the same place without all of the irate people. We ended up with the best alternative but not in the analytical, progressive, consultative way that EAs are supposed to proceed. We ended up there through conflict, which the EA is supposed to avoid.”

While transit comes with many obvious environmental benefits, Gord Miller reminds us that “some elements of these projects can be highly problematic and thus should have a process that incorporates considerations of need and alternatives.” He says it’s a matter of scope and magnitude — while the SMLRT has been relatively smooth sailing, not all transit projects are uniformly beneficial.

The SMLRT has justifiably broad public approval; there are measurable net benefits to  reducing vehicular traffic, facilitating economic development, and linking a Toronto neighbourhood to the wider city. But transit projects as a whole deserve transparent analysis and the scrutiny of an informed public empowered with meaningful opportunities to shape final outcomes. Next time you find yourself nose-to-nose with an impatient TTC stranger, consider asking him or her whether it’s worthwhile to take some extra time to get where we are going.

With thanks to Steve Munro and Gord Miller

Bay Street North from Lakeshore Blvd 1926 - 2009

Before and After will appear each Friday showcasing mixed Then and Nows by local artist and Toronto history enthusiast Alden Cudanin.

Toronto Archives, Fonds 1244, f1244_it0519

Only a mere two kilometres  north of Meadowvale, in Brampton, is another “lost” village, Churchville. Both communities share a lot in common: both were established as mill towns on the Credit River, both were served by the Credit Valley Railway when it arrived in the 1870s and the Toronto Suburban Railway, which ran from 1917 to 1931. Both are removed from major roadways, perhaps helping their survival.

In “Toronto’s Lost Villages” by Ron Brown, published in 1997 and one of the inspirations for this series, the author lamented that Churchville was about to be inundated by suburban development. Luckily, because of strengthened historical interest, and the proximity of floodplains that restrict new development, it remains relatively intact and somewhat interesting.

Churchville was the most northerly settlement in Toronto Township (which in 1968 became the Town of Mississauga) and is somewhat older than Meadowvale, established in 1815. At its peak, Churchville had several stores, a church, a hotel, mills and other local services. An ambitious network of streets was laid out, some of which do not exist today, but still appear on some maps (such as the Google Map linked above). After a a period of growth, the population level stagnated after nearby Brampton grew larger with the 1856 arrival of the Grand Trunk Railway and designated as the county seat. Many of the stores left, the mill was lost to time, and fire destroyed at least one of the churches.

Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, built 1856, the last surviving religious structure.

It wasn’t until the 1960s, when some exurban development grew around the fringes of the villages, that the population expanded again. In 1974, Churchville became part of the City of Brampton, and separated from Meadowvale from a new “Greenbelt” (which eventually became little more than a utility and highway corridor). But Brampton’s sprawl did not reach Churchville, deep in the Credit Valley, until the last decade. Happily, though, as with Meadowvale, residential development now completely surrounds the historic core, yet it is set back enough as to now fully overwhelm it.

On Steeles Avenue, a historic farmhouse at Creditview Road is being preserved and restored by the city, perhaps for a new local park. Note the new suburban houses in the background.

Amongst the only remaining services left are a small Wesleyan chapel, a large, well-maintained cemetery, and one of two remaining volunteer fire stations in Brampton. A new large station on Mississauga Road is scheduled to open late this year, staffed by a professional crew, which will replace this station, and the one in nearby Huttonville.

Interestingly, Brampton has chosen to preserve two local one-lane bridges. A steel truss in the centre of Churchville is in excellent condition, and is unlikely to be replaced as traffic levels remain low. North of Steeles, towards Eldorado Park (an early electric park run by the Toronto Suburban) an elegant concrete arch bridge was recently restored.

CITY FINANCES
• Auditor pegs city’s lost cash at $105M [ Toronto Star ]
• $5-million lost to parking ticket ‘drive-aways’ [ Globe & Mail ]
• Auditor’s tally of lost money: $105 million [ Toronto Star ]
• What’s in a name? Quite a lot, apparently [ National Post ]
• City Hall lost $600,000 to fraud last year [ National Post ]
• Taxpayers ripped off for 600Gs [ Toronto Sun ]
• How one staffer fleeced the city of more than $300,000 [ Globe & Mail ]

OTHER NEWS
• Race Matters [ Toronto Star ]
• Hume: Making the best growth out of bad situations [ Toronto Star ]
• Live from the web, it’s the Toronto District School Board show. [ Toronto Star ]
• Top executive leads shortlist to head Toronto Pan Am Games [ Globe & Mail ]

As pedestrian deaths started to mount to disturbing numbers in January, the response at first was a combination of concern, blame that was reasonably balanced between both drivers and pedestrians, and, occasionally, some thoughtful discussion.

Then, in the last week of January, the response suddenly changed for the worse. On Wednesday Jan. 27, Toronto woke up to radio, TV and newspapers saturated with stories about reckless pedestrians, and images of Toronto Police “blitzing” pedestrian behaviour in downtown Toronto. Suddenly it was pedestrians’ fault for getting themselves killed. While a few drivers were ticketed too, they were not emphasized in the stories.

What happened? The change in tone seems to have been a direct response to the police campaign. The first sign was a segment on CBC TV’s The National on Jan. 26, where the cameras were there to watch police warn pedestrians and then drive along with a policeman as he talked about reckless pedestrians. The next day, the stories focused on police stopping people on foot for various infractions in the downtown business district. They had plenty of quotes or clips from police representatives and the pedestrians being stopped, and not many from others. There was only minimal discussion about driver behaviour, mostly buried at the end of the stories.

Now that the deadly January and, I hope, the police crackdown are past, it’s a good time to look back and analyze the whole affair, one last time, in more depth. I’ve heard outrage from a lot of people about this police campaign, and it had various negative effects on pedestrianism in Toronto.

The police campaign consciously shifted the blame-game towards pedestrians. This strategy ignored the fact that many of the pedestrians killed in January were behaving in a legal and responsible manner when they were killed by vehicles. Instead, it reassured drivers that they did not need to examine or change their own behaviour, relieving them of responsibility. By trivializing the causes of the deaths as “those crazy pedestrians,” it threatened to derail a developing and constructive discussion about how Toronto intersections can be made safer. And it portrayed walking itself as an unsafe activity.

What’s more, the police focus on the downtown business district was a cheap shot, the easy way out, and sent the wrong message. This area is in fact quite safe for pedestrians, because there are so many of them that drivers drive slowly and carefully. No pedestrian has been killed there recently. The danger comes at bigger intersections farther out, where there are fewer pedestrians and vehicles drive faster.

The way pedestrians clog the streets downtown is not the problem — it’s the solution.

Perhaps most aggravating was the way the police blitz literally added insult to injury. At a time when pedestrians were shocked and horrified by a series of terrible fatalities, and looking for someone to do something constructive about the situation, the police chose to pile blame on pedestrians themselves with a facile publicity campaign that did not address the real issues. Rather than reasssurance or constructive action, pedestrians were left with the sour taste of being kicked while they were down.

Why did police do this? It seems like it was primarily an attempt to get a low-effort publicity win. Picking off pedestrians in the financial district is like shooting fish in a barrel — it didn’t take a lot of resources, it didn’t require a lot of effort from the media, and it got maximum publicity.

The weird thing is that, apparently, police in every division were targeting intersections that were actually dangerous, and many of them were no doubt ticketing drivers too. It really would not have been that difficult to focus media attention on these intersections instead, and on drivers as well as pedestrians — but it would have taken the media more time and more travel to get there, with less of a clear and easy story.

Another reason for the pedestrian focus may have been the theory that a series of pedestrian safety campaigns and anti-jaywalking blitzes by Montreal police in recent years reduced pedestrian deaths in that city. Several of the media stories that accompanied Toronto’s blitz referred to these Montreal blitzes. Of course, Montreal also re-introduced its universal “no right turns on red” rule throughout the city after the Province of Quebec had rescinded the provincial law. That would do way more for pedestrian safety than a blitz, but I’m not expecting to see it implemented in Toronto any time soon.

Let’s have a closer look at some of the tactics in this anti-pedestrian blitz.

“Pedestrians are the vulnerable ones”

When the fatal collisions began, the police response took a while to develop, but it at first tended to assign responsibility for pedestrian safety equally between drivers and pedestrians.

But then the police response shifted. Rather than assigning responsibility equally, the police began emphasizing only the pedestrian’s responsibility. The argument was, essentially, that because pedestrians are the ones who get hurt, it’s up to pedestrians to be more vigilant, even if they are obeying all of the rules.

On Monday, in response to a pedestrian struck by a bus while crossing with the right-of-way, a police spokesman had this to say:

Although the woman was crossing the street legally, Const. William Wang said she should have been more aware of her surroundings.”It’s an unfortunate situation,” he said. “Even though the pedestrian had the right of way, she still has to pay attention.”

This line of argument is flawed. You could just as easily argue that, because drivers are the only ones wielding machinery that can cause injury, they are the ones who bear extra responsibility to be vigilant that their actions do not cause harm. Basically, “with power comes responsibility.”

As a matter of fact, that’s exactly what Ontario’s Highway Traffic Act says. Section 193 (1) states that when a driver hits a pedestrian, the onus rests with the driver to prove that it was not their fault.

Pedestrians should not have to cross Toronto’s streets in constant fear.

If we are crossing a street with a green light, we should not have to be watchful at every moment to see if a reckless driver is about to hit us. No doubt we will make a quick check for turning vehicles when we start crossing, but we should be able to expect that drivers will routinely obey the law. Furthermore, even if we did notice an oncoming vehicle, there is likely very little we could do about it. Cars move fast, and in many cases they are turning into the pedestrian from the side or from behind. The only way to prevent pedestrians being hit in these circumstances is for drivers to exercise reasonable caution and obey the laws that say they have to stop before turning, and yield to pedestrians who are crossing with the right-of-way.  The police should be working to raise driver awareness and remind them of these responsibilities, not lay the blame on pedestrians when they are behaving responsibly.

Expanding the application of laws

In order to find reasons to warn and ticket pedestrians, the police began to enforce laws that they had not previously concerned themselves about, notably the law that says that pedestrians cannot start crossing on the flashing hand signal.

When Toronto’s pedestrian countdown signals were introduced a few years ago, the Toronto Pedestrian Committee discussed how the countdowns — which seem to acknowledge that pedestrians might start crossing after the flashing hand has started — fit with the legal technicality that says they should not do so. The police representative at the committee said that, in their experience, this law was rarely enforced.

In fact, one of the reasons for introducing the countdown was that studies showed that, when they are present, pedestrians are much more likely to clear the intersection before the light changes (because they know how fast they have to go). So the law is even less relevant now.

For the purposes of creating a highly-publicized “crackdown” where they could warn or ticket lots of pedestrians in a short time for the media, however, it seems that the police began to actively enforce this law — in an area of town where pedestrians were not in fact in significant danger.

If a fully mobile pedestrian is still in the intersection when the light changes to green the other way, ticket them by all means for causing danger and impeding traffic. But the enforcement should depend on when they finish crossing, not when they start.

Some media also picked up on the idea of “jaywalking” as part of this blitz, but the police began clarifying this question the next day. In a Q&A with the Globe and Mail on Thursday Jan. 28, Sgt. Tim Burrows explained right from the top (at 12:06) in reply to a question about “under what conditions jaywalking is legal and illegal”:

As long as you never cause a driver/rider to avoid you (interfere with them) there has been no offence. Walking outside of crosswalk line, also an offence. If you are near them, you have to use them.

The “near a crosswalk” provision, however, is not clearly defined, so police may be able to use it flexibly when they want to be more aggressive in targeting pedestrians.

It’s also worth quoting Sgt. Burrows at 12:53 of the same Q&A:

I am not against jaywalking…I do it myself. What we all have to keep in mind is that we have no protection in the event we get hit. When I jaywalk, I leave extra space in case I slip or something so that thereis a safety cushion built in for hazzards.

Of course, it is entirely reasonable to target pedestrians behaving irresponsibly — such as crossing against a red light, not getting out of an intersection by the time the light changes, or darting into traffic and forcing vehicles to stop to avoid them. The point is that changing and enforcing driver behaviour is at least as important in saving pedestrian lives. Any “crackdown” is a useless and facile publicity stunt unless it targets drivers loudly and clearly as well as pedestrians.

The dangers caused by drivers are nicely illustrated in a video sent by a reader of an intersection in Philadelphia. Note how the vehicles almost invariably do no more than a rolling stop, often not until they are well into the crosswalk. The only time they actually come to the full, legal stop is when there is a pedestrian in the intersection, and the pedestrians often feel so intimidated they rush across even though they have the right of way. Note also how the right-turning vehicles almost never stop completely before turning — and the turning buses barely slow down. Just last weekend a woman in Toronto was clipped by a bus turning right.

Click here to view the embedded video.

These are the kind of driver behaviours that need to be targeted in any attempt to make the city safe for walking.

The one good thing about the terrible events of January is that it raised awareness of pedestrian safety and, amidst the general clamour, resulted in a few good articles about how to make the city better  for walking. Here are a few of the ones I collected:

• Sunday Star editorial: “Don’t blame pedestrians“
• Christopher Hume: “Maybe we’d all be safer jaywalking” (Toronto Star)
• Chart of how to improve an intersection in “The war on walking” (Globe and Mail)
• Jane Farrow talks about suburban intersections on Globe and Mail video (at 45 seconds in)
• “Why are Toronto’s streets so dangerous?” - the Globe actually looks at the statistics (although I’m disappointed no-one noticed that the spike between 3-4 pm coincides with kids getting out of school)

Photo by deadrus

Standing on the platform of Hong Kong’s Tsim Sha Tsui station at 11:30 on a Tuesday night, watching crowd after crowd filter into already busy subway trains, you come to understand the importance of the MTR to the city pretty quick. On top of being one of the world’s most densely populated cities, Hong Kong’s geography (a crowded island separated by a busy harbour from a mountainous territory) poses unique problems to transportation planners. Mix this with a political climate that some claim to be amongst the most neoliberal in the world (the Hong Kong government moved heavily in the 90’s to divest itself of public utilities), and you have a very unique and fascinating transit system that is a hot bed for innovation.

The backbone of the system is clearly the MTR subway and rail system. The first line of which opened in 1979 and has since expanded to cover over 211km with 150 stations; although some of this expansion was accomplished through a takeover of the existing Kowloon Canton Railway (KCRC).

The subway is marked by several features, most notably its utilitarian design. Similar to Toronto, many stations are colour coded for easy recognition. Public art is not particularly common and food and drink is banned from the fare paid area. Glass barriers separate the platform from the track at all stations, and give the platform itself a much more comfortable and enclosed feel. The most noticeable characteristic of the system however is the ever-present crowds. This hits home the fourth and fifth time you hear the trilingual announcement reminding people to stand clear of the doors.

Crowd control is built into the system’s design and impressive infrastructure works to reduce bottlenecks. At some prominent transfer point between lines tracks are interchanged over two stations so that passengers can disembark and simply cross the platform to the other line, depending on which direction they want to go.

Diagram showing a two station interchange on the MTR, busy transfer points were anticipated in the design and are often at level

The MTR is a full of interesting details. Displays in many stations narrate the history of the area while guard rails around escalator entrances ensures orderly crowds when leaving stations. An admirable system of exit signage in mezzanines matches above ground destinations to exit letters and sub numbers.  Each exit/entrance at a station is numbered with signs throughout the station directing you to your specific exit. This makes meeting people at a station much easier and reduces confusion once back above ground. Crowd control is also sometimes manifested in lines and arrows on stairways separating people walking in different directions.

Well marked exit signs

Free internet stations throughout the system

Hong Kong’s subway system has made a clear focus to integrate itself into people’s daily lives. There is WIFI throughout the system and free internet terminals. Advertisements also showed how the system cross-promotes itself with culture, focusing interest on transit by bundling fare cards with toys and event tickets. The best feature of integrating the transit system however is clearly the infamous Octopus smart card, first introduced in 1997. A testament to what PRESTO could do for the GTA, the Octopus card is ubiquitous in Hong Kong and you can use it to pay for a surprising array of situations. Many stores and food outlets, accept the card as a means of payment, I even used it to pay for the mounted binoculars at Victoria Peak. The Octopus card is now operated within its own company and continues to expand its uses in the city. The Octopus card allows for distance based fares and seamless integration with Hong Kong’s ferry’s, busses and trams.

The Octopus card started on transit and is now used throughout the city

Hong Kong’s ferry and tram systems are impressive in their own ways as well. The heritage double-decker trams (referred to as the ‘ding ding’ by locals) are surprisingly rickety and do an incredible job of being both symbolic and highly functional. If your lucky enough to find one with some room to board, passengers enter through a turnstile at the back and pay when leaving. The historic Star Ferry accomplishes its dual roles as working transit system as well as a tourist attraction quite well. Seat backs on the ferry can be swung either way so that you can always face forwards.

Inside one of the historic trams

What is most impressive about transit in Hong Kong however is how affordable the system is. Whatever you think about privatizing transit, in Hong Kong it has produced a system that is clean, efficient and affordable. Perhaps due to the competition with other transit operators, or ownership of adjacent profitable commercial properties, transit in Hong Kong will cost you surprisingly little. The tramway for instance, running through the heart of crowded Hong Kong island costs a flat rate of two Hong Kong dollars. At the current exchange rate that’s 27 cents Canadian. It’s no secret that this is a transit system to drool over.

Proof of the unbelievably low flat fare on the Hong Kong Tram (two Hong Kong Dollars = 27 cents Canadian)

Top photo by Heather Champ, all other photos by Marcus Bowman

MAYORAL RACE
• George Smitherman’s non-contradiction [ Globe & Mail ]
• Adam experiment [ Now Magazine]
• LRT meeting brings out mayoral candidates [ National Post ]

ICE TIME
• Figure skaters spinning mad over rink times [ Toronto Star ]
• City, parents and officials clash over ice time [ Globe & Mail ]
• Cooler heads in the city’s ice issue [ National Post ]
• Rocco Rossi draws blood as mayoral hopefuls meet [ Toronto Star ]
• James: Rossi’s outsider chance [ Toronto Star ]

NEIGHBOURHOODS
• Keepin’ it real for the renters up on Steeles
• Residents want special cop unit all year round [ Toronto Sun ]

OTHER NEWS
• Fantino corruption charge thrown out [ Toronto Star ]
• Teachers’ summit coming to ACC [ Toronto Star ]
• Fumes over Port’s green plan [ Now Magazine]
• Slate museum [ Eye Weekly ]
• Marathon applicants get more time [ Globe & Mail ]
• Bring on the Toronto democratic revolution [ Eye Weekly ]
• Tourism gets boost from big events [ Globe & Mail ]
• January housing sales in ‘recovery phase’ as sales jump 86% over last year [ National Post ]
• Toronto Grace hospital saved on voting day [ Toronto Star ]

Street Scene will appear each week showcasing the illustrations of local artist Jerry Waese.

Spacing is pleased to again partner with Heritage Toronto on the Building Storeys exhibit, opening tomorrow (Thursday).

After the success of our 2009 exhibit, Building Storeys 2010 returns in February 2010 for a longer stay at the Gladstone Hotel! A collaborative effort by Heritage Toronto and members of the photography groups the Shadow Collective and the DK Photo Group, Building Storeys is a visual documentation and anecdotal exhibit of city’s heritage building and sites. By showcasing some of Toronto’s industrial past we hope to change the perception of heritage in our city, by revealing some of the hidden beauty of these sites.

WHEN: Thursday, February 4 - Saturday, February 27th, 2010

WHERE: The Gladstone Hotel 3rd & 4th Floors
 — 1214 Queen Street West
Toronto

SHOW HOURS: 12:00 - 5:00 pm daily FREE

Participants:
Robert Dyke, Sean Galbraith, Rick Harris, Mathew Merrett, Timothy Neesam, Olena Sullivan, Toni Wallachy

Featured in the Exhibition: Ashbridge’s Bay Wastewater Treatment Plant, 
Ashbridge’s Bay Pumping Stations, 
CNR Eastern Lines Locomotive Shop, 85 Laird Drive, 
Canada Linseed Oil Mills
, R.L. Clark Water Treatment Plant, 
Commissioners Street Transfer Station
, R.C. Harris Water Filtration Plant, 
R.L. Hearn Generating Station, 
The John Street Roundhouse
, North Toronto Wastewater Treatment Plant
, The Pease Foundry, 211 Laird Drive
, Toronto Island Water Filtration Plant

There was a lot of buzz around Invisible City when it premiered at Hot Docs last year (check out the Spacing review here)  and now the film has finally come to theatres.

The film — by Academy-award nominated director Hubert Davis — centres on the inner-city housing project in Regent Park and follows Kendell and Mikey, who like their surroundings are in the process of transformation. Check out the trailer above.

Invisible City is playing at The Royal (Link to their Facebook group) from Friday, Feb 5 until Thursday, February 11.

Each week we will be focusing on blogs from around the world dealing specifically with urban environments. We’ll be on the lookout for websites outside the country that approach themes related to urban experiences and issues.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

• A big transit news week as the Obama administration announced the benefactors of the $8 billion investment in high-speed rail.  Time Magazine ran an in-depth piece on what high-speed rail could mean for the future of America. The St. Louise Tribune however, questioned the merits of the investment; arguing that high-speed rail only serves a small (and relatively affluent) segment of the population and that investment in public transit is a far fairer and far wiser use of stimulus money. The Chicago Tribune, arguing that aesthetics matter as much as function, offers suggestions on how the future stations should be designed.

• Within the month the eyes of the world will be on Vancouver, and local activists are determined to make the city’s homeless population visible. In preparation for the media blitz sure to accompany the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, local organization Pivot Legal Society is launching the “Red Tent Campaign”.

• The campaign to empty out Moscow’s Rechnik neighbourhood, deemed by the city’s mayor to be illegally occupied, has the country in an uproar. Bulldozers teared through the neighborhood last week leveling  homes and leaving families homeless in minus 20-degree temperatures. According to the New York Times, the neighbourhood’s struggle has become a rallying cry for the country as ordinary citizens, “politicians, human rights activists, media organizations and even nationalist and anarchist groups have come to the defense of the neighborhood”.

• And lastly, in a list that includes “both buildings and things built by architects” the Mammoth Blog compiles the best architecture of the decade.

photo by Joe Lewis

CITY MARATHON
• Marathons get ultimatum [ Toronto Star ]
• Hold a marathon in spring, city says [ Toronto Sun ]
• TTC is ‘world’s best 1970 transit system, but it’s 2010′ [ Toronto Sun]

OTHER NEWS
• Residents dry for three days [ Toronto Sun  ]
• Hundreds left without water [ Toronto Star ]
• Fewer Toronto tourists in ‘09 [ Toronto Sun ]
• Boxer mixes caught up in pit bull controversy [ Globe & Mail ]
• 1 Bloor East will rise again, this time to 67 storeys [ Globe & Mail ]
• Full-day program to help neediest [ Globe & Mail ]
• Spur needs work, but not the railcar [ Toronto Star ]
• City’s coyotes popping up again [ Toronto Star ]
• Offers pour in to vandalized Acton school [ Toronto Star ]

WHERE: Urban Strategies: 197 Spadina Avenue, 4^th floor
WHEN: Thursday, February 4th, 5 – 7 pm
HOW MUCH: Free (Requires registration)
There will also be a live webcast of the event here.

Social Media Week is a week-long international conference that explores “the profound impact that social media has on culture, business communications and society at large.” Toronto is one of six cities participating in this year’s conference, which features several events that may be of interest to Spacing readers.

In particular, “We Built This City on Web 2.0,” hosted by urban planning and design firm Urban Strategies, features an exploration of how social media tools can be applied in meaningful public engagement related to city-building. The event will include a brief presentation by planner Andrea Winkler and colleagues about current public engagement tools in community redevelopment projects around the world, followed by a panel discussion about the challenges and opportunities presented by social media in this context. What are the tools currently used for public engagement related to city-building? What are their strengths and limitations? How can Cities and practitioners use Social Media tools in the pursuit of meaningful engagement?

The panelists include Zahra Ebrahim (OCAD Instructor and archiTEXT Founder and CEO), Kris Erickson (Communication and Culture PhD student), Mark Kuznicki (Principal, Remarkk Consulting), and Spacing’s own Steve Munro.  (Full disclosure: I am a planner with Urban Strategies and will be moderating the panel discussion).