Yonge Street and Bay Street - Make them ONE WAY says Minnan-Wong

[james t kirk]

Could complementary one-way streets on Yonge and Bay solve everyone’s problems?

Councillor Denzil Minnan-Wong thinks so, and he’s speaking with city transportation staff about making it happen.

Minnan-Wong said he’s open to all possibilities, but one idea could be to remove one of the existing four lanes between Bloor and Front Sts., extend the sidewalks and add proper bike lanes. Then there would be three lanes of traffic all flowing the same direction, removing the friction of left-hand turns and easing gridlock.

“Have you ever tried to drive on Yonge St.? It’s impossible to even turn on to it,” said Minnan-Wong, who chairs the public works and infrastructure committee. “Obviously before doing anything we would need to study this, but I think one-way streets on Yonge and Bay — Yonge would go one way, Bay would go the other — could really provide a better experience for drivers, pedestrians and cycles.”

Across North America, from St. Catharines, Ont. to Lexington, Ky., to St. Petersburg, Fla., cities are taking the opposite route. But Minnan-Wong said there’s no comparison.

In those cities, the idea is to slow traffic, to create a more walkable city. Toronto already has a vibrant downtown with a healthy retail sector. What it also has is a serious congestion problem.

“We’re more comparable to New York, where one-way streets seem to be working just fine,” he said.

The Downtown Yonge BIA said it has no comment at this time about Minnan-Wong’s proposal.


http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1175084--one-way-yonge?bn=1

 

[james t kirk]

Just when you thought that Rob Ford was the biggest dummie at City Hall along comes this idiot - Denzil Minnan Wong.

God what fucking stupidity is this? This is the same clown who wanted to get rid of the "scramble" pedestrian crossings in Downtown "because they are bad for traffic" Jesus, I hope they hold public hearings about this lunacy so I can go and humiliate Wong.

Having been born and raised in Hamilton, I can assure you that One Way Streets are Traffic Engineering's equivalent of the Grim Reaper. (Hell, even Hamilton is getting rid of its One Way Street system having recognized this fact.) Typical 1950's suburban thinking and planning. One way streets turn streets into expressways. They destroy businesses, they are loud, they destroy residential communities. Successful inner cities are not designed and built around ease of access for the automobile.

 

[Thousand]

Councillors just have too much time on their hands. They go about dealing with unimportant issues, and trying to fix things that aren't even broken.

 

[nottyboi]

Er actually this is broken. So I am not sure if this is the answer, but I have no problem when councillors spend time looking at solutions to ease congestion in the city.

 

[Buick Mackane]

One way streets don't have to equal expressways if they're done right. Not like Hamilton.

Wider sidewalks are definitely needed on Yonge, and they only way to get them is to remove car lanes.

 

[wetnose]

Just when you thought that Rob Ford was the biggest dummie at City Hall along comes this idiot - Denzil Minnan Wong.

God what fucking stupidity is this? This is the same clown who wanted to get rid of the "scramble" pedestrian crossings in Downtown "because they are bad for traffic" Jesus, I hope they hold public hearings about this lunacy so I can go and humiliate Wong.

Having been born and raised in Hamilton, I can assure you that One Way Streets are Traffic Engineering's equivalent of the Grim Reaper. (Hell, even Hamilton is getting rid of its One Way Street system having recognized this fact.) Typical 1950's suburban thinking and planning. One way streets turn streets into expressways. They destroy businesses, they are loud, they destroy residential communities. Successful inner cities are not designed and built around ease of access for the automobile.

Talking out of my ass....If it's Bay from Front to Bloor, then there's not much retail anyway. So no great loss. There's a lot more retail on Yonge but face it, they're mostly crummy from Bloor to Front.

And those retail stores service the community in close proximity, which wouldn't be affected anyway. Plus they get business from the busiest part of the subway. Converting both of the streets and fitting into new parking spots might possibly increase foot traffic & business.

 

[larry]

these councillers must get paid by the idea. these are dead from the get-go. for goodness sake. now we'll study it. how about we study the gravy. and eliminate some of that? and i know i'm listening to a genius when he says "...we would need to study this..." but he has an opinion anyway. what a bunch of nuts we have in toronto council.

 

[Thunderballs]

She's wong.

 

[nottyboi]

these councillers must get paid by the idea. these are dead from the get-go. for goodness sake. now we'll study it. how about we study the gravy. and eliminate some of that? and i know i'm listening to a genius when he says "...we would need to study this..." but he has an opinion anyway. what a bunch of nuts we have in toronto council.

He has an opinion, but that opinion must be vetted by traffic flow experts and case studies. Are you really such a jackass that you would expect major changes like this to be made on a whim? Good Lord.

 

[alexmst]

No no no no!!!!! What a nightmare having Bay St as one-way would be.

 

[The Fox]

We need to stop designing North America around the motor car. I know this is going against the grain of NA developement but our developers have a responsibility to build a beautiful country. If we keep putting the Car first we will only have more ugly strip malls and more congestion. In any other modern city, driving a car downtown is pure madness and it should be in Toronto. Lets stop trying to accomodate cars in the downtown car and force drivers to park outside and commute. The behavior will force the gov to finially invest in a modern subway and transit in and out of the city. Paris, London, NY have been examples for us and we still try and think of ideas to improve the flow of traffic. Downtown + car doesnt work.

 

[shai]

It works in Montreal and New York but it is a nightmare in Ottawa. I have no problem with it from Queen to Bloor.

 

[james t kirk]

We need to stop designing North America around the motor car. I know this is going against the grain of NA developement but our developers have a responsibility to build a beautiful country. If we keep putting the Car first we will only have more ugly strip malls and more congestion. In any other modern city, driving a car downtown is pure madness and it should be in Toronto. Lets stop trying to accomodate cars in the downtown car and force drivers to park outside and commute. The behavior will force the gov to finially invest in a modern subway and transit in and out of the city. Paris, London, NY have been examples for us and we still try and think of ideas to improve the flow of traffic. Downtown + car doesnt work.

I agree (obviously)

Truly successful cities are not designed around the automobile.

While I recognize that cars are here to stay (at least in our lives), their use in inner cities should not be encouraged. Quite the contrary, usage of automobiles in inner cities should be actively discouraged. What I have always loved about Toronto was the energy and life its inner city has. You can walk along any major street and make right turn and you are into single family homes. People actually LIVE right downtown and its desireable to do so. So many NA cities have been utterly destroyed by building expresseays, interstates, and traffic corridors. Toronto, by virtue of luck and a bit of planning has managed to escape that. The streets are tight grids, mixed usage, and expressways were squashed before they were built (Spadina and Scarborough). Thank DOG.

Growing up in Hamilton, I used to think that one way streets were brilliantly simple. All you had to do was stay on the gas at about 60 kph and if you timed it right, you could zip from one end of the city to the other without ever stopping. I thought that Hamilton had it right. But when I moved to Toronto I began to see that Hamilton had it wrong. Downtown Hamilton is DEAD. And it's not getting any better - it's getting worse. And I'm not refering to King and James area - hell, the entire downtown core is tumble-down and destitute. No-one wants to live there. Contrast that to Toronto. You can't do more than 40 kph in downtown Toronto and you're constantly stopping and you cannot "make time", but downtown Toronto is alive and thriving and a huge part of that is the strong residential community you will find in downtown T.O. I'm not saying that One Way Streets are entirely to blame for what has happened to downtown Hamilton, but it is definitely a factor.

If Toronto wants to improve things on Yonge Street - close it and make it a pedestrian mall. I could get behind that.

Or, reduce it to 2 lanes (one in each direction) and build wider sidewalks and bike lanes.

Doubtful given guys like Wong and Ford and their desire to drive their damn SUVs that this would ever happen, but one can hope.

 

[alexmst]

Not catering to cars or closing the streets to them would just cause business to suffer as all the car drivers stayed in the burbs and business came out there to cater to them.

NY, London, Paris are thriving because they are tourist meccas in a way Toronto is not and will never be. The tourists flock into the core and have no interest in the burbs. Cars are restricted except for cabs catering to tourists. When I lived in London I didn't bother buying a car as there was no point as one could walk or cab everywhere. What sane person drives around Manhattan for fun?

Toronto has a small tourist draw compared to NYC, London, Paris. Tourists and Toronto city residents could not keep the stores in business. When I lived in London I talked to people who lived in the outer suburbs who went into the city maybe twice a year even though they lived only 25 miles out. Driving there is insane, they said. We just shop out here where we can drive and park for free easily. When I was in the Washington DC area people rarely drove into the city - indeed, for shopping all the upscale shops left the city altogether and opened up in the suburbs in Virginia in upscale malls that catered to cars. The DC city tourist area was very beautiful, but it was geared for tourists and the shopping was not there at all.

So this is why Toronto merchants oppose closing streets to 2-way traffic. They know anything that annoys the car drivers from the outer 416 anf the 905 is bad for their bottom line.

Me, I don't care if they close Yonge St and turn it into a pedestrian mall as it is impossible to drive on/turn onto anyway so I avoid it and haven't driven on it for years. Bay St though is another matter.

 

[basketcase]

Considering the much better traffic flow on Richmond and Adelaide, it doesn't sound like a bad idea to me, especially if they cut Yonge down to 3 lanes and widen the sidewalks to keep downtown vibrant.

Only problem would be a way to shunt traffic between Bay and Yonge at the north end.

 

[Buick Mackane]

There are plans for separated bike lanes on Richmond as well as Adelaide. You couldn't do this if you converted them to two-way traffic as some people wanted to do.

This will make those streets more civilized and take away their current expressway status.

 

[LKD]

if Toronto hopes to improve the city for pedestrians and bikers, hopes to make the city more sustainable, and hopes to densify the core, it will require bold moves like these. Heck, I've seen waaay too many major European cities accommodate pedestrians and bikers successfully with just a fraction of the roads and space we have in Toronto, so I don't see what the fuss is all about here and why it can't be successfully employed. When lanes become much smaller, fewer and are taken over by one-way lanes like in most European cities, people will actually start planning before driving out, or just take the local transit instead as its more convenient. I can understand the concern doing something like this in the suburbs, but its the freaking core of the city where local transit is more than available. They city wasn't meant to, nor can it sustain all that vehicular traffic that pass through such a dense area.

We need change!

 

[explorerzip]

What we need to do is ban the courier and Canada Post vans from stopping on the right lane to make deliveries during rush hour, which blocks traffic. We can't compare Toronto to European or Asian cities, since we're so spread out and we use cars a lot more and our transit sucks. Most of the other major cities are tiny geographically compared to TO.

 

[GameBoy27]

I like the thought of making Yonge and Bay one-way streets. Three lanes of traffic, wider sidewalks and a separated bike lane. You can't park on those streets so I don't buy the argument that making them one-way will negatively affect business. Making traffic flow helps everything including pollution and greenhouse gasses.

Transit isn't always the better way, that's why so many people drive. Lots of people come to the downtown core to shop, go to shows and eat in restaurants. If you have a car and it takes you twice as long to travel by transit, why would you take it. A lot of people are in the same boat. I'd take transit to and from work if it made sense but it takes 30 mins. by car vs. 1 hr. 30 mins. by transit. The other advantage is it doesn't cost me an extra fare each time I make a stop on the way home with the added bonus of being able to throw whatever I buy in the trunk. Didn't mean to turn this into a transit debate, but I did. :wink:

 

[afterhours]

She's wong.

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