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Posted 3 years ago #
The next meeting to plan TCAT's Complete Streets Campaign is on Monday, September 28th at 7pm, Metro Hall, 55 John St., Rm 316.
There has been a lot of work done since we first met. Todd Tyrtle, one of the group's member's has set up a site with some amazing resources.
If you would like to help out with this initiative, please send an email to be added to our contact list and feel free to join us on Sep 28th.
Posted 3 years ago #
Hey, that's me! I didn't know that was out there.
Complete Streets is one of the more exciting ideas I've seen in the past several years and if we could just get over the anti-cyclist bias I think it could go a long ways towards making Toronto into a world-class city for pedestrians, cyclists, and even drivers.
So many folks I talk to at work say they would love to bike to work or to the store but that "it just isn't safe." If we could change that and get to even 10% mode-share for bikes, that would take quite a number of cars off the roads and parking lots thus making drivers' lives easier as well.
Which for some reason now makes me wonder if we should look at "parking return on investment" - how many cars do we have to take off the road to offset lost parking spaces to infrastructure? If we lost 5,000 on-street parking spaces in the city but managed to get at least that many *cars* off the street or more wouldn't it be worth it? The cynic in me says absolutely not, because the grumpy driver who had to look an extra 5 min for a space or take 2 min longer to get to work will vote with his anger... But still, something to consider.
Posted 3 years ago #
The grumpy driver who can't find a space to park has already abandoned the core and is shopping at a store with acres of "free" parking which is hidden in the price of products cyclists also pay for.
Let's use a carrot and a stick to create a major shift in thinking to make cycling an even wiser choice, bring on the carbon tax.
Posted 3 years ago #
^ At a rough guess there are 5 times as many cars and trucks in Toronto than on-street parking places, so just eliminating parking spaces and cars one for one would create a lot of congestion - since studies show people spend *a lot* of time driving around the block looking for a space. Another approach would be just to raise the price of on-street parking, which would discourage car use in the centre-city and encourage development of off-street parking - all of which frees up the streets for drivers and cyclists alike. As a bonus, those extra city parking revenues could be devoted to bike lane construction! (Just my two cents-per-hour.)
Posted 3 years ago #
On the heels of this meeting, Val Dodge writes about complete streets over on Torontoist:
No one—not even cyclist or pedestrian advocates—ever questions whether we should include space for cars when we're redesigning or constructing streets: accommodating private motor vehicle use in any road construction is a given. Yet the private automobile is the only method of transportation that is routinely given a bye past the first round of design; everything else has to be studied and justified or is relegated to the margins as an afterthought. Even the way that streets are designed and funded is stacked in favour of the car: design most frequently begins with vehicle lanes—how many and how wide—and then tries to squeeze all other users into whatever space remains. Sorry, we need four wide lanes for cars. But sidewalks? Benches? Bike lanes? Crosswalks? Those are frills and we can't afford them. Some suggest that we'd arrive at a more equitable division of space if we designed from the edges in: start with sidewalks, buffers, and space for cyclists, and then squeeze cars into whatever space is left in the middle.
Unfortunately, the political climate in Toronto has been poisoned in recent months by a meaningless catchphrase: the war on the car. But to latch onto such huff- and puffery is to ignore the fact that some of the most desirable communities in the GTA, from Unionville to Port Credit, are built on complete streets. Only we don't label them that way: instead we call them "small towns," "historic," and other code words for "really nice non-car-centric places to live where you can also drive if you want to." Complete streets are about people and neighbourhoods and, yes, not planning public infrastructure exclusively around two-tonne mobile metal boxes.
Toronto has actually made some progress on implementing complete streets. The makeover of St. George Street through the University of Toronto in the 1990s and the upcoming reconstructions of Jarvis Street, Queens Quay, and Roncesvalles Avenue are good examples of what can happen when planners take everyone into account before the construction equipment moves in. Waterfront Toronto has paid attention to all modes of transportation throughout most of its planning and the TTC is considering more than just LRT and cars on the Transit City routes. In contrast, stumbles on the current reconstruction projects on Bloor and St. Clair offer lessons about the risks of omitting entire groups of users entirely, intentionally or not. But all of these are still one-off projects, with no broad requirement to meet the spirit, never mind the letter, of the city's own Pedestrian Charter or Bike Plan. What's really needed is clear and formal policy that that makes complete streets the rule, not the exception.
Posted 3 years ago #
Awesome Duncan, and Val, if you are reading... great job!
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