TRANSIT
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• Firefighters raise alarm over TTC dedicated lanes [ Globe and Mail ]
• St. Clair streetcar right-of-way under fire…by fire department [ National Post ]
• TTC update [ Globe and Mail ]
• Adult tickets won’t fare well after September [ Toronto Sun ]
• Light-rail line’s on track for Sheppard [ Toronto Sun ]
• • TTC looks at face-scams in lieu of drug-and-alcohol testing for workers [ National Post ]
• Too few tickets for idling: Moscoe [ Toronto Sun ]
CITY HALL
• Taxpayers subsidizing telecom firms, cities charge [ Globe and Mail ]
• $134M in T.O taxes went to telecom roadwork [ Toronto Sun ]
• Toronto council breaking the law: Ombudsman [ Toronto Sun ]
• Why 311 is needed [ Eye Weekly ]
ENVIRONMENT
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• City nixes plan for church-top condos [ National Post ]
• • Don’t be outsmarted [ NOW magazine ]
MISCELLANEOUS
• Post post-mortem [ NOW magazine ]
35 comments
Maybe the fire department shouldn’t set the street width. Maybe they shouldn’t rely on boat-sized rigs. Maybe the rigs should be designed for the streets, rather than the other way around… but we don’t do that in N. America.
I thought the following quote from the Royson James column was interesting:
“Metrolinx, the provincial agency set up to coordinate and plan transportation needs for the region, has a vision to improve transit so significantly that 80 per cent of people live within two kilometres of a rapid transit line.”
Are they including the Transit City lines in that plan? Because as we have discussed on this site before, anyone expecting those lines to be “rapid” is in for a disappointment.
Aurmchair urban planning question: Why does it seems like fire departments are the enemy of planning departments? I’ve read that fire access is one of the reasons laneway housing is DOA in Toronto, and also why new roads are wide and car-friendly as opposed to narrow and people-friendly.
Disclaimer: I’m no firefighter, but I did get FD plates for my car in the hopes they might get me out of trouble…I’ve avoided one speeding ticket so far!
Seems to me that someone, either from TTC or Toronto Fire, needs to resign. Since I think TF should have refused to endorse the project at all without being completely satisfied, I think Toronto Fire should be the people to answer. However, the central pole design was dumb from day 1 and fire trucks are being impeded so it’s possible that St. Clair needs to be dug up again – fun!
http://stevemunro.ca/?p=408#comment-22222
The Berkley Church project looks so cool. I think it’s interesting that council talked about the project not fitting in with the “fine-grain”, old-town vibe of the area (on the fringe of Corktown), but neglected to mention the mammoth Moss Park apartments on the north side of Queen street.
I don’t understand what all the fuss is about regarding St Clair W. What happens on Yonge St when a firetruck needs to get through four lanes of tightly packed traffic? There are tons of other four lane streets in Toronto, many of them with lots of traffic. The fact is that St Clair still has four regular traffic lanes, and if the firetrucks can’t reasonably use the ROW, then they should fight through the regular traffic lanes like they have to on hundreds of other streets.
As for jumping the curb to cross the street, it’s also no big deal. Just think of the sheer number of streets with speed humps. If the trucks can get through those streets, they can hop the curb on the St Clair ROW no problem.
“someone, either from TTC or Toronto Fire, needs to resign” – I vote for Adam Giambrone. There have been a LOT of screwups and bad publcity for the TTC ever since he took over.
“…so it’s possible that St. Clair needs to be dug up again – fun!”
Well, in that case, the streets in Kensignton Market are far too narrow for firetrucks to safely and efficiently respond to an emergency. Better raze all the buildings on one side of every street so that we can widen them. Same for Cabbagetown, Yorkville, and what they heck, all the four lane streets in the city.
It’s ridiculous, really. Why can they have smaller firetrucks in Europe to accomodate tight spaces there, but we can’t do that here? Are we such neanderthals that all our trucks have to be enormous, with absolutely no compromise?
Is Howard Moscoe saying the TTC can get tickets for idling??? I never knew this. Come to the Rouge Hill GO station any time of day or night. Drivers idle the bus while they stand around and have their coffee. The fumes makes me wonder how green public transportation really is.
Does that mean the buses aren’t supposed to drive in bike lanes too?
To Andrew: The lines will be considerably faster than the current buses. Do your research before talking sh*t.
Why is the TTC going with centre poles for their downtown ROW’s?? It makes no sense. There is no for so many poles. They could have used the streelighting to hold up the wires.
Moscoe is right. There aren’t enough idling tickets being issued. Either that or the price of gas is still too low judging by the numbers of motorists I see every day running their engines while going nowhere. Their windows are usually wide open so it’s not for the AC. City vehicles are some of the worst offenders, of course they don’t pay for the gas they burn so what do they care.
Justin,
I’m referring largely to the following discussion on Steve Munro’s web site:
http://stevemunro.ca/?p=795
There, we learn that the average bus speed along Finch West is between 17-20 km/h, while from Transit City we can expect 20-25 km/h. I don’t consider that to be “considerably faster”, or even in the realm of rapid transit.
I was looking for a reference for these speed numbers and couldn’t find one, but Steve himself did not contradict the numbers. Further, the “metronauts” agree with these numbers (though again without a more formal reference):
http://transitcamp.wik.is/METRONAUTS1/Toronto%27s_LRT_Plans
If you have different speed numbers I’d like to hear them.
Brad J.
“’m no firefighter, but I did get FD plates for my car…”
Can you do that? Doesn’t the MTO require proof of some sort?
Toronto Fire Trucks are 4m wide. For comparison, a TTC truck is 2.59m wide. Figures came from a public consultation on the width of Royal York Rd.
Wouldn’t it be easier to buy fire trucks that fit the street instead of having the street fit the firetrucks? Anyone who has been to Europe can see that their FD’s have trucks capable of navigating the most narrow streets, so what is the big deal in St. Clair? I guess firefighter have a Hummer complex, I see them driving those trucks to get food and coffee all the time… Hey! What the hell it is only our property taxes paying for such waste.
“Can you do that? Doesn’t the MTO require proof of some sort?” – Diane
It makes no sense, but yet you can. Star Trek, Ryerson U and Boy Scouts are some of the many other options.
Andrew, you can find the scheduled speed for any route in the TTC’s Service Summary. For example, Sheppard buses east of Don Mills range from 16.8 to 25.1 km/h (page 48).
And according to the boards at the latest open house (panel set 2, page 5), the Sheppard East LRT is expected to achieve 22-23 km/h.
The TTC argues that having fewer stops to make the LRVs run faster would be cancelled out by a longer average walk to the nearest stop. Optimizing for good local service isn’t necessarily a bad idea, but the same service can’t really solve the “get me across town quickly” problem.
This FD memo is just another PR campaign by the minority opponents to the ROW. They just cant let go even though the ROW will help revitalize an area that needs.
Before people start jumping on my “minority” comment I should say that I live south of St. Clair and drive, walk, and TTC it a few times a week and have many friends who live within a block of it. What I hear and see tells me that most people are for it as proved in the last election.
It strikes me as phony to talk about safety when the previous St.Clair was one of the widest, craziest, most pedestrian unfriendly roads in the city with cars constantly changing lanes and TTC riders dodging speeding cars. Generally you shopped on one side or the other as crossing the street was such a drag. And thats why St.Clair, despite what SOS says, has long strips of decay (especially after Dufferin). With the advent of the box stores at Keele there is even greater need to slow traffic down so St.Clair does not become a thruway in stead of a destination.
The FD has issues with almost every street in one way or another (and I have never seen a proposed building that the FD didn’t have “concerns” about) and they always find a way to get there fast. There are no fire stations on St. Clair so in many cases the FFD would be using even narrower streets to get there in the first place but that apparently is not a safety issue. And like other tight fits they drive on the OTHER side of the road or the sidewalk when they have to. Do I think that the FD should have smaller trucks, yes I do. Does the St. Clair ROW pose any serious safety issue compared with other streets? Not really.
This is a shady attempt to stir up a pot again by those that stand in the way of making storied St. Clair a more humane place for residents instead of cars.
Don’t forget those concrete curb chicanes that were installed a decade ago along Davisville Ave near Bayview as an alternative traffic calming measure. (At each intersection and some points in between the road was narrowed on either side so that you had to sort of “slalom” around them) The FD claimed that their trucks wouldn’t fit and that response time would be affected, and sure enough, they were all ripped out, only a couple of years after who knows how much effort and money was spent installing them.
Mark, are you sure about that 4 metres? If so, the Royal York Road report must have had an error… the letter from the fire dept. (on Palacio’s website) states 2.6 m (the max width for a vehicle as specified in the Highway Traffic Act).
http://www.cesarpalacio.com/press1.htm
The 2.6m width figure is also the minimum parking space width (between the two lines) in Toronto. So that number does look more correct.
Come to Castlefrank station anytime time day or night Mr. Moscoe and you’ll be able to write your fill of idling tickets to TTC bus drivers.
While your at it, open your ears and you’ll be able to write noise tickets until 3 am because the announcements blare out from the speakers disturbing the peace.
“There, we learn that the average bus speed along Finch West is between 17-20 km/h, while from Transit City we can expect 20-25 km/h. I don’t consider that to be “considerably fasterâ€Â, or even in the realm of rapid transit.” — Andrew
According to the TTC service summary linked by Matt L., the subways/RT operate at 30-33km/hr. That is rapid transit by our current standards. Is 20-25km/hr really that far off?
That NOW article, “Don’t be Outsmarted” is required reading in my opinion. The developer, whose ironic name will go unmentioned, presents this as a walkwable, “main-street” addition to the city. But there’s plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise.
The developer is becoming increasingly aggressive with postering and suggesting neighbourhood improvements.
Interestingly, twice this week I’ve boarded a bus at Woodbine station that has been turned off rather than the usual idling while laying over. It was neat but kind of unnerving at the same time…
“Face-scams”? Sounds pretty scary.
“A 9.4m width is required to accommodate a fire truck that has a width of 4m”
http://www.toronto.ca/wes/techservices/involved/transportation/royal_york_reconstruction/pdf/2005-03-29_meeting_summary.pdf
(at end page 2)
Seemed weird to me too…
I’ve read all four sections of the report and some very valid points are made. The question is: who in TFS signed off on this fiasco originally?
I can’t believe that this is news now. As a local resident who actually supports the ROW, I was talking with two representatives from the fire department last year at one of the consultation meetings at the J. Piccinini Community Centre over a year ago.
They were complaining about how difficult it would be to mount and drive on the right of way back then. Mind you, they did say it was possible, just difficult. I asked them how easy it would be for the fire trucks to get out of the local station during construction, noting that it was on a side street surrounded by speed bumps. That really set them off. They railed on how speed bumps cause a lot of damage to the trucks, slow them down and sometimes cause injury. IMHO speed bumps and traffic calming impose the bigger impediment to trucks arriving to in a timely fashion than the ROW.
Scott D. There are 3 fire stations very near St Clair that I know of–Ascot (1 block away), Hendrick (1 storefront away) and Balmoral. I expect there are more. St Clair is certainly the main throughfare used by Ascot and Hendrick for most jobs. They could have fixed this a long time ago by moving the poles. GIven the delays, they’ve had the time. The TTC has certainly known the centre pole design had problems like this. They just didn’t care.
And that’s been on of the main problems with this implementation of a right of way. Repeatedly after consulting with stakeholders, they’d go and do what they wanted to do in the first place. They could have done a better job so ofter during this process. I hope it goes better in the other neighbourhoods that get ROWs.
Two things I forgot to add. Given the new design of St Clair, firetrucks will not be able to ride on most sidewalks without hitting trees or poles.
Rob L, those stupid curb chicanes still exist on Merton, south of Davisville.
Er, sorry that Balliol not Merton
Ian, Transit City is being sold to the public as rapid transit, but in practice its speed will not be much greater than the buses it replaces, not to mention slower than the subway. It’s not clear to me that it’s worth $8 billion.
A TTC subway car is 3.1 m wide — there’s no way a fire truck is 1 m wider than that. (Maybe I should take my tape measure the next time I’m walking by the fire station near me.)
My best guess would be that that’s the width of the operating footprint (side doors open, hoses attached, stabilizing feet out for aerial trucks, etc.) and that they want room for two of those, side by side, in the event of a major fire.
The thing I never understand with the fire dept’s push for wide streets: we’re not tearing down Corktown, or other older areas with narrow streets. The fire department has a responsibility to be ready to fight a fire on those streets; they should be able to apply those same techniques elsewhere.
“We’ve said right along St. Clair was safe,” said Stewart. “We respond in the city of Toronto as we do every day. In fairness that report was written in April, there’s alterations that are going to occur with TTC and we’ll make a plan work for the citizens of the city of Toronto. The issue for us is we’ll operate on the curb as we have and will continue to do so. There’s traffic congestion in the city, there’s densification and there are more vehicles and we have to be able to accomodate moving in the city.”
Thats the sound of ROW opponents big new pr balloon deflating.