Two years ago, I walked out of the Princess of Wales Theatre onto King Street West in Toronto. I saw bumper to bumper traffic and looked at my Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) app to see it was going to be a 30-minute wait for the streetcar to St Andrew subway station. I decided to walk instead and got to the station without even seeing a streetcar which was a common occurrence. Flash forward to 2019, I visited the King Street Pilot Project in Toronto recently on a weekday during rush hour and streetcars were constantly arriving. John Tory, the Mayor of Toronto, said that the reason the city created this project was because before the project began, “you could walk faster” than if you were driving or riding the streetcar down King. I was thoroughly impressed when I visited the project because I took a TTC bus home from school almost every day in high school, and I would sometimes wait 20 to 30 minutes and usually just ended up walking. In my opinion, the streetcar pilot project on King Street West in Toronto should become a permanent restricted transportation route, as long as the city builds up the neighborhood and supports businesses.
King Street West is in the heart of the financial district in downtown Toronto. It houses restaurants, theatres, concert halls, office buildings and the Toronto Stock Exchange. The streetcar route on King Street West is the busiest surface transport line within the TTC. Before the pilot project started, cars would try to turn left at streetlights and since it is a busy area, only one car would get through per light. The streetcars had no choice but to sit behind these cars turning left because they are on a track, as they are much like subway cars. Therefore, the city created a pilot project where streetcars had the priority and there is no through traffic for private vehicles. Cars can only travel one block before having to turn right, solving the issue of congestion.
One of the most important reasons that this pilot project should become permanent is the boosted ridership along the already busy streetcar line. The 504 King Street West streetcar has shown a rapid increase in ridership with city data indicating ridership has increased by double-digits during commutes. Average weekday ridership on the streetcar across King Street has increased from 72,000 to 84,000 in the year since the start of the pilot. This is an increase of about 12,000 riders daily. Not only is this an increase in profit for the city to be able to pay for the project, the potential decrease in cars from this boost in riders of public transportation means less pollution and traffic. For the people on the King Street West streetcar, the lack of congestion created by cars turning left has meant a rush hour commute that is up to five minutes faster than it was before. In an email to the Toronto Star, the president of the Liberty Village Residents’ Association, Todd Hofley stated that the residents in the area do not have to wait 20 to 30 minutes for streetcars and that bunching on the street has significantly decreased. Reports show that due to this pilot project, commuters taking the King streetcar have been saving a combined total of 30,000 minutes or 500 hours every weekday. These numbers are tough to ignore and show the pilot project’s tremendous impact on ridership and commute times. Leading into the project, the TTC had three impacts it was measuring; travel time, ridership, and reliability. According to Brad Ross the TTC spokesperson, there have been improvements in all three which is a great feat for the project.
Speaking of reliability, as I mentioned before when I visited the project area there were constantly streetcars arriving at each stop. Service reliability is extremely important to a well-functioning public transit system. It is a “key quality indicator for public transport” that people have found more and more important over the past few years. Residents and tourists alike are much more likely to take public transportation if they can rely on when it says it will arrive. Since the start of the pilot project, service reliability has been improved 82 percent according to Brad Ross. John Tory tweeted that the pilot displays that the city is capable of moving “a larger number of people on the city’s busiest surface route, quickly and reliably, while managing the impact on drivers.” Overall, the King Street Transit Pilot has been extremely successful in its first year and continuing and potentially even expanding the project would be in the city’s best interests.
Other cities around the world have adopted similar successful and cost-effective plans like the King Street pilot project, opting to create public transportation above ground rather than below it. In Strasbourg, France there is a streetcar system that runs throughout the city. From 1980 to 1990, traffic in the city of Strasbourg increased by 20 percent to 240,000 vehicles passing through the city center every day. The pollution from the number of cars travelling through the city everyday started to deteriorate the Cathedral as well as other historic buildings. At that time, surveys showed that transportation through the city included 73% car drivers, 11% bus riders, and 15% bicyclists or walkers. The city had been trying to create a change for a while, but it wasn’t until 1989 when Mayor Catherine Traumbert made strides with a new city plan. The plan ensured that bicyclists and streetcars had priority and directed car traffic away from the city center. Overall this plan has been in action for over 15 years and the positive adjustments to public space and traffic have been a great achievement. Streetcars were a faster and more cost-effective form of implementing public transportation than creating new subway lines for Strasbourg, as they would be for Toronto.
Streetcars could be used for not only King Street, but to parts of the city that the current subway system doesn’t reach. The City of Toronto is currently creating a new subway line down Eglinton Avenue because the Toronto subway system is severely underdeveloped. However, that project is costing $5.3 billion and is continually being delayed from its 4 to 5 year promised timeline. Therefore, a streetcar line would be a much more cost-effective form of transporting people along Eglinton. Streetcar lines are much easier to install, unlike subway lines which disrupted businesses, residents, and traffic in their creation. The pilot project has also cost the city over 3000 times less than the new subway line at $1.5 million. Rather than continuing to create these massive subway lines in the future, the city can combat the lack of transportation with new streetcar lines.
Creating public spaces and making King Street West a desirable location brings more customers to the businesses in the area. Along King Street West, the city has implemented public spaces with seating areas and art installations. The city held a competition for Torontonians to build street art installations to make King Street West a more enjoyable place to visit. For the project, the city implemented “19 temporary public spaces” along King Street and with the summer fast approaching, 14 businesses are interested in operating cafes on King Street in the curb lanes. John Tory has stated that he is dedicated to increasing public spaces along the street and continuing to make King Street West a destination for residents and tourists alike. This matters because one of the main concerns leading up to this project was the lack of parking impacting businesses in the area.
The biggest counter argument against making the King Street West Transit Pilot a permanent restricted transit route is the impact on local businesses. While retail stores held the main concern leading up to the pilot project, the main impact has been on restaurants. Since the pilot began, some restaurant and business owners in the area have noted a significant decrease in customers, with some business owners taking to social media with a campaign under the hashtag #ReverseKingCarBan protesting the project. There has been a large amount of backlash from the area’s business owners since the project was first announced. A restaurant owner in the area, Al Carbone told the Toronto Star that his business has been impacted with a decline of about 30 percent due to the pilot. Approximately 17 restaurants have closed on King Street since the start of the project. This may be due to reduced car traffic, parking and the resulting loss of patrons. The city’s data indicates a growth of 0.3 percent in spending by customers in the pilot area through the first half of the project. Meanwhile, there has been an average growth of 5.7 percent in the pilot area and 3.8 percent in the city overall.
John Tory has been meeting with business owners in the pilot area to understand their point of view on the project. In an attempt to manage the impact on these business owners, Tory has implemented measures like more parking on side streets, free two hour street parking in the pilot area, and more loading zones for vehicles on King Street West. The city also administered a promotion where diners received $15 toward a meal which increased sales and brought new customers to the area. The aforementioned improvements to public spaces also will help draw customers to the area, especially in the upcoming summer. These developments in and around King Street West will help to mitigate impacts on business owners from the transit pilot, however, more should be done.
If the City of Toronto really wants to manage the impact on local businesses like they have said, more measures need to be taken to ensure they hold up their end of the bargain. My first suggestion is that the city continues to improve the public spaces and seating areas along King. They could add more seating areas on the sides of the roads and make the current ones more permanent. When I visited the project, I noticed an area on the side of the road that looked like it had been blocked off for a seating area but never completed. I would suggest they turn any spaces like that into a functional space for people to visit and spend time. It can be a way to get people to visit this area, so they realize what they have been missing.
Secondly, food events would be particularly useful in getting people to King Street West and trying food from the businesses there. I often spend time in familiar areas because I might not know about other ones I might love in the city. Events would be a good way to introduce the residents of Toronto to the new and improved King Street West. There is a park on King called David Pecaut Square which would be a great place to host an event like this. It is a large open space in the otherwise crowded downtown core.
Finally, in the past few years, the city has raised prices for patio and sidewalk cafe licenses. Patio season in Toronto is immensely popular because people love being able to enjoy the few months a year that are really beautiful outside. I would suggest that the city should lower the prices of these licenses for the restaurants in this area to draw more people to it. If licenses are more attainable, more businesses in the area will pay for them. I think it is important for the restaurants to draw the customers to them rather than just giving people coupons because this way the customers will keep coming back. These solutions aren’t one-time fixes, they are long-term improvements that the city can help the restaurants make in the pilot project area.
Assuming the City of Toronto continues to improve the impact on business owners on King Street West, the pilot project should become a permanent restricted transportation route. The city has been working hard to please everyone impacted by this big change and should continue to if it gets approved. I believe that all of the reasons mentioned display the overall positive impact the transit pilot has had on this area. I am optimistic that the few problems it has will be solved, especially with the upcoming summer and patio season to look forward to. If the city is able to continue to mitigate impacts to the business owners in the area, a similar project could be done elsewhere in the city. If we want to alleviate impacts on the environment as well as traffic, we have to push people to take public transportation more often. The King Street West Transit Pilot has been a very good start in improving the constantly growing, modern city of Toronto and removing it would erase the progress made through its creation.
Poster presenting my thesis and main points.
