EDITORIAL: Enough with King St. pilot project, move on
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If city council’s decision to extend the King St. pilot project until July 31 is going to be a genuine re-evaluation of the downtown traffic experiment, we’re good with it.
But if, as we suspect, it’s going to be eight more months of the city patting itself on the back for what a great decision it thinks it made when it instituted the plan last November, why waste everyone’s time?
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If that’s the case, then it’s an example of the same mentality that has contributed to interminable delays in decisions about public transit in Toronto going back decades, the result being that today we have a mediocre system as opposed to the great one we used to have.
This includes refighting the Scarborough subway approval ad nauseam every time it comes up for a routine vote at council, by some councillors who are determined to kill it.
Why? Because they care more about resurrecting old fights than moving the city forward.
And we all know where that’s gotten us over the years in terms of public transit.
We go one step forward, two steps back, with Torontonians today experiencing some of the longest commuter times in North America no matter what form of transportation they use.
That translates into traffic congestion and gridlock that costs Toronto’s economy billions of lost dollars every year.
Despite the torrent of praise and statistics touting the King St. project from the same people who thought it up, supported by Mayor John Tory and most councillors on the old council, and, we suspect, the new one, it’s not a game changer.
Giving streetcars the right-of-way on King by requiring all non-essential vehicles to turn right after one block between Bathurst St. and Jarvis St., has made life easier for public transit commuters, harder for motorists in the downtown core.
Some businesses haven’t been adversely affected while some, particularly restaurants, have been hard hit.
We’re at a loss to understand — other than stubbornness and ideological rigidity by anti-car crusaders — why these rules have to be applied 24/7.
Why the city refuses to compromise and help drivers and local businesses out, by lifting the restrictions on cars in non rush hour periods, meaning evenings, early mornings and on weekends.
That said, what’s done is done.
If the extension of the pilot project might actually lead to meaningful change and improvements, study away.
But if the fix is already in, then we don’t need to hear any more about what a great success it’s been from the people in control of defining what success means.
Council needs to focus on real priorities, like the need for the subway relief line, still years away, to ease the daily morning and evening rush hour crush of commuters fighting for space on overcrowded subways and stations in the city core.
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