There were a lot of good ideas floating around at the “Visions for a Walkable Toronto” workshop hosted by the City of Toronto and Spacing magazine last Wednesday. I wrote down two that I found particularly intriguing.
The first came from the speakers, Jim Walker, Chair of the Walk21 International Conference Series, and Gil Penalosa of Walk & Bike for Life.
Apparently, when Copenhagen embarked on a strategy to increase walking, one of the things they measured at the outset was the number of sidewalk cafe seats in the city. They considered it a key measure of success when the number of people sitting outside was increased by 60% as the strategy was implemented over the years. It’s an interesting idea, because counting people sitting in public measures being on the street as it becomes a way of life, in addition to being a practical way of getting around. So one of the ideas put forward for a walking strategy in Toronto is to do the same — measure the number of sidewalk cafe seats in the city, and set a goal of increasing this number by 50%, or even doubling it. It’s worth noting that when Copenhagen started its strategy, people said it would never develop a street culture because it’s a cold city and people were reserved, unlike somewhere like Italy that had good weather and an existing street culture. But as spaces were opened to pedestrians in Copenhagen, people occupied them.
The second idea was inspired by the work Gil Penalosa did in Bogota, Colombia, where as the commissioner of parks and recreation he opened 91 km of roads every Sunday from 9 am to 2 pm to pedestrians, cyclists and rollerbladers, closing them off to cars. Well over a million people came out every week (in a city of about 7 million). So the participants in the workshop proposed something similar for Toronto. Why not dedicate the downtown subway loop — Yonge to Front then up University and across Bloor — every Sunday morning during the summer to pedestrians, bladers and cyclists, closing them off to cars? We could also stretch the Yonge closure down to Queen’s Quay, which would also be closed, so that people can get to the waterfront easily and the east and west sections of the waterfront Martin Goodman trail become truly connected. Many of these roads are closed in part regularly anyway for various weekend events during the summer, and traffic isn’t that heavy on Sunday mornings. I remember, when I was a kid growing up in Ottawa, that the road alongside the Rideau Canal was closed this way during summer Sunday mornings, and our family would go cycling there every week, along with what seemed like half of the city.
photo by Solsken on Flickr
13 comments
Hmm – a large ped zone? Trouble is the area between the loop is rather boring and institutional, and with the hospitals, enough folks may insist on driving to see loved ones it may be awkward despite the subway. Perhaps from University over to Spadina might be another large swath, but that might mean a problem for the Dome, because we don’t have transit, any transit on Front St., preferring roads.
But if we did have better transit, imagine opening up the Gardiner to bikes and bladers and peds on the Sunday morning – it really is a great view! and we the unmotorized public just help pay for it, but can’t use it, a clear case of inequitable “carism”.
inspired by the work Gil Penalosa did in Bogota, Columbia
Please could you edit one of my biggest geography pet peeves? It’s Colombia
Urgh – that’s what happens when you post at night – typo fixed.
Hamish’s point about the hospitals is a good one. Maybe Spadina would work better. And it’s true, the Gardiner would be spectacular.
If anyone was downtown on Sunday afternoon, you may have noticed that Yonge was closed between Shuter and Dundas, Lakeshore had closures, most of Dundas was closed, Queen was closed from Bay to York, and York was closed from Lakeshore to Queen.
I didn’t make it down to Lakeshore, but it was quite nice to breathe the air in the rest of the places where traffic was extremely limited / absent.
By the way, how about the economy bursting into a poof of thin air on Sunday? That sure was unexpected . . .
I was downtown on Sunday, and it was insane. I was trying to get to the Ex for the Green Living Show via streetcar from Queen/Yonge, and never managed to get there because of all of the car and human traffic created by road closures and cultural festivals. A fellow streetcar rider was angrily bitching to the driver about being late for work, and a TTC employee bitched back that he should have left earlier. When the streetcar finally announced at Spadina that it would not be continuing on to Union station as planned, I took the opportunity to walk instead, and found the sidewalks at Queen’s Quay packed with people, as rollerbladers (forced from the road due to lack of space) wove their way through them.
As a person who lives right downtown and whose primary method of transportation is walking, I can say from experience that the downtown core is already incredibly walkable. What I’ve found, is that it’s actually becoming increasingly less walkable as the number of pedestrians increases. These days I regularly find myself in the midst of human traffic congestion similar to the major highways during rush hour, and it’s just as unpleasant.
As the sidewalks are now home to both those out for leisurely strolls and those attempting to get from Point A to Point B, walking is becoming less viable as a functional mode of transportation.
Unfortunately, road-based public transit is significantly more expensive, and as illustrated above, is often not any faster and is inherently less reliable.
What worries me is that as the city works diligently to increase the number of people living, working and touristing downtown, transportation in all of its forms is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. Angrily targeting automobiles and trying to move people from one mode of transport to another is not a good solution. We need to be addressing the transportation system as a whole, not looking at each mode in isolation or prioritizing one use (recreation) over another (getting from Point A to Point B).
Following my transportation nightmare on Sunday, I jokingly suggested that perhaps we needed vertically stacked roadways, where each use and mode of transportation had a dedicated roadway to facilitate safe and functional movement. I don’t think that’s a practical option, but it is the kind of “all systems” approach I would like to start seeing in these discussions.
Wow. What a wonderful, comment, Melissa!
It’s nice to hear from someone who isn’t posting just to rant about drivers (or cyclists or skaters or bladers or pedestrians or whoever got in your way yesterday).
Regarding your comment about vertically stacked roadways, many people don’t realize that Chicago has had these in the downtown core for decades:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilevel_streets_in_Chicago
Toronto hates pedestrians just slightly less than cyclists. The car rules in this city, it has always been this way and it will always be this way. Forget about making Toronto walker friendly, it can’t be done.
To make a city walkable you need at least two of these things: large sidewalks, lots of piazzas/squares, lots of beautiful green space, an efficient transit system and a culture geared more towards community than cars. Toronto doesn’t have any of these things, so just forget about it.
Just see what they did last summer when they closed the south lanes of Queens Quay for pedestrians and cyclists. It was a huge success. But did that matter? No! They are not going to make it permanent because drivers in this city are more important to politicians than pedestrians or cyclists.
Carlos, they are making permanent changes to Queens Quay. There was a public meeting in January which was the start of the detailed design process for the central waterfront, and the permanent closure of the south lanes of Queen’s Quay is a key part of that.
Between the extra space on Queens Quay and the continuous boardwalk and bridges along the water’s edge, there will be much more space for pedestrians in that area. That won’t address Melissa’s concerns for other downtown streets, though.
Hey Matt, sorry for being so sceptical, but I will have to see it to believe it. I will not even believe if construction starts, I will have to be able to bike all along the Martin Goodman trail without interruptions to believe it (not a lot of faith in me).
Interesting post, Melissa. I was down there sunday too, on a bike. It was total gridlock. A perfect storm resulting from the confluence of a sikh fest at Nathan Philips Square and some sports event.
But I can’t agree that “targeting automobiles”, “angrily” or not is wrong. Moving people to other forms of mass transit IS the solution, logistically and environmentally.
Nevertheless, the simplest solution would be to put LRT on the existing rail rights of way. They are grade-seperated so street traffic would not be affected, except to take some cars off the roads by attracting riders and thus easing the traffic jams – win-win.
Hmmm…so many points to comment on, but I think I’ll stick with Mobius’:
You seem to have missed my point. Traffic congestion is now a problem on sidewalks AND roadways. Moving people from cars to LRTs might ease road traffic congestion a little (and I emphasize MIGHT, since population and traffic is continuing to grow, meaning that even with more people using public transit we will likely continue to see gridlock on the roads), but it will do nothing to address the issue of pedestrian traffic, and other forms of transportation that end up on the sidewalks.
I’m all for improving public transit and encouraging people to drive less, but to see public transit as a “solution” to ALL of the city’s “traffic” ills is hilariously myopic.
I would also like to point out that the most environmentally friendly solution would to get people walking. Not riding subways, busses, streetcars, LRTs or bicycles, but WALKING. It is the ONLY form of transportation that isn’t inherently resource consuming or polluting, and strangely, it’s the one we advocate the least.
Sure, hooray for walking – no argument there, Melissa. But people do regularly have to travel distances too far to walk, and for that transit will move more of them with less environmental impact than individual cars.
And while I sympathize with you on downtown sidewalk congestion, having experienced “sidewalk rage” myself, that is part of big city life. For leisurely, arm-swinging strolls smaller towns, burbs and parks are your best bet.
Having said that, there are plenty of ideas around about making this or that street into pedestrian-only. Some even say make Yonge south of Bloor a pedestrian mall. Another one is to close Gould to traffic as part of the Ryerson campus makeover.
There’s no shortage of good ideas. Turning them into reality is the trick.
Mobius, I’m trying to make an argument for FUNCTIONAL pedestrianism. Toronto’s streets ARE great places for leisurely, arm-swinging strolls, because “the leisurely stroll” has become the unofficial speed limit of the city’s sidewalks. What they AREN’T are friendly places for people traveling on foot who are trying to get from one place to another quickly. Pedestrian-only streets aren’t going to improve overall walkability, which is what I’m advocating here.
You shrug your shoulders and say, “Downtown sidewalk congestion…is part of big city life,” but I would argue that sidewalk congestion isn’t any more a fact of life than highway congestion, insufficient bike lines, a dysfunctional public transit system, or street furniture paid for by corporate advertising. Pedestrian routes are fundamental part of the urban transportation system and like other transportation routes are planned and designed in ways that make them more or less functional. We currently take these routes for granted and I would like them to see them as part of current transportation discussions. Instead of talk about cars vs public transit, cars vs bikes, and public transit vs public transit, and pedestrians vs everybody, I would like to hear people talking about cars AND public transit AND bikes AND pedestrians. Changing one component of a system without thinking about the other components is just asking for trouble down the road . Pun intended.