{"id":3512,"date":"2008-08-29T09:00:54","date_gmt":"2008-08-29T13:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/08\/29\/a-pedestrian-lobster-trap\/"},"modified":"2008-09-15T21:10:23","modified_gmt":"2008-09-16T01:10:23","slug":"a-pedestrian-lobster-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/08\/29\/a-pedestrian-lobster-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"A pedestrian lobster trap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A massive new residential development is taking shape in the railway lands on the west side of Spadina, just north of Lake Shore Boulevard and the Gardiner. You might imagine that some of these thousands of new residents will want to step out and make the short walk along the western side of Spadina to the waterfront, where they will find the charming <a href=\"http:\/\/www.toronto.ca\/parks\/music_index.htm\">Music Garden<\/a> and other pleasant harbour sights. If they do, they will find themselves in something like a lobster trap &#8212; easy to walk into, but no way out.<\/p>\n<p>The first challenge on their route is the on-ramp to the Gardiner from southbound Spadina. Two lanes of cars whip quickly and dangerously around onto the expressway on-ramp. You can see the waiting pedestrians are not going to try to cross into this traffic flow.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3147\/2806175898_b5ef90e51c.jpg?v=0\" title=\"Gardiner on-ramp\" alt=\"Gardiner on-ramp\" height=\"327\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>However, there are curb cuts, even paved with pretty bricks, which clearly indicate that pedestrians are expected and allowed to cross southwards here. (Note also that there&#8217;s no way a pedestrian could cross safely to the east side here &#8211; there are three lanes of rapid traffic each way, plus the streetcar lines). Fortunately, because of the new lights farther to the north on the new Bremner Boulevard, there are occasional interruptions in traffic that allow pedestrians to cross to the south.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3279\/2805324829_af19d6a698.jpg?v=0\" title=\"Gardiner on-ramp at Spadina\" alt=\"Gardiner on-ramp at Spadina\" height=\"433\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Once they get there, they can then proceed southwards under the Gardiner to the Gardiner off-ramp onto Spadina and the eastbound branch of Lake Shore. And here,  they are suddenly trapped.  They&#8217;re not allowed to cross southwards &#8212; a big sign says  &#8220;Pedestrians Cross at East Side&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3235\/2805324855_a69d310e75.jpg?v=0\" title=\"Gardiner off-ramp at Spadina\" alt=\"Gardiner off-ramp at Spadina\" height=\"413\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>But there is no way a pedestrian could cross safely to the east side at this point &#8212; there are always multiple lanes traffic, either turning from the off-ramp north on Spadina, or heading north and south on Spadina.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3294\/2806175864_4dcf2c3864.jpg?v=0\" title=\"Traffic turning onto Spadina\" alt=\"Traffic turning onto Spadina\" height=\"375\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So, the west sidewalk on Spadina and the on-ramp crossing has simply allowed pedestrians to get to an isolated island under the Gardiner whose only allowed exit is to turn around and go back. In fact, having come this far, in order to safely cross to the east side, a pedestrian would have to walk all the way back the way they came, back across the on-ramp and uphill to Bremner Boulevard.<\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, there is a convenient and reasonably safe &#8212; although illegal &#8212; solution. The off-ramp from the Gardiner and eastbound Lake Shore share a traffic light at this point, with a nice long signal. Pedestrians can simply wait for the traffic light and cross in front of the stopped cars.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3265\/2806175950_cd610d108b.jpg?v=0\" title=\"Pedestrians crossing safely\" alt=\"Pedestrians crossing safely\" height=\"427\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Which leads me to wonder, why is there a sign telling pedestrians not to cross here? Why not simply set up a pedestrian crossing signal? Thanks to the traffic light, it&#8217;s probably actually safer than crossing the on-ramp just to the north, where, as noted above, the city has put curb cuts for pedestrians to indicate crossing is allowed.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s an example of how the city does not think of pedestrian traffic flows with the same amount of attention it gives to vehicle traffic flows (you can imagine there would never be a road system that led drivers on into this kind of dead end without warning).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A massive new residential development is taking shape in the railway lands on the west side of Spadina, just north of Lake Shore Boulevard and the Gardiner. You might imagine that some of these thousands of new residents will want to step out and make the short walk along the western side of Spadina to<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/08\/29\/a-pedestrian-lobster-trap\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;A pedestrian lobster trap&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4006,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[572],"class_list":["post-3512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-walking","tag-lake-shore-boulevard"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A pedestrian lobster trap - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/08\/29\/a-pedestrian-lobster-trap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A pedestrian lobster trap - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A massive new residential development is taking shape in the railway lands on the west side of Spadina, just north of Lake Shore Boulevard and the Gardiner. 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He has also written articles for NOW magazine and the uTOpia books. He was co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee 2007-2010, was one of the founders of the Toronto Coalition (now Centre) for Active Transportation, and is a co-founder of Walk Toronto. 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