There’s
something about St. Clair. The proposal to build a protected
right of way down the centre of this avenue has triggered
surprisingly strong emotions. Some are scared that reserved
lanes will intimidate shoppers who come by car, and others worry
that if transit can’t be improved on St. Clair, then city-wide
plans for better TTC service are doomed. The proposal is also
the first real test of the city’s ambitious new official plan.
St. Clair -- especially the six-lane-wide
thoroughfare west of Yonge Street -- links the older part of
Toronto with the beginning of the city’s inner suburbs. It’s a
major conduit for motorists, and is the home to the TTC’s
northern-most streetcar line. Because the roadway and tracks are
so beat up, St. Clair must be rebuilt -- and
the TTC has
made no
secret that it wants exclusive lanes down the middle, arguing
that traffic makes the ride slow and unreliable. Some merchants
and residents, primarily in the area near Dufferin Street, feel
that City of Toronto officials don’t care about the street’s
economic life and intend to force the lanes through. The city’s
transportation planners, along with the TTC and the roads
department, are conducting a formal environmental study of the
street -- and perhaps because of the controversy have
tentatively scheduled an unprecedented fourth series of public
meetings for later this month. Most such studies only go out to
the community twice.
Jeff Gillan,
chair of the Corso Italia Business Improvement Area, says those
opposed to the right-of-way have suggestions for improving
service on the 512 streetcar, but think reserved lanes are like
using a sledgehammer when only a hammer is needed. He says, “We
have been wrongly painted as being... anti-TTC, and that’s not
true. We’re very much in favour of it. We’re not in favour of
the proposed solution -- which has always been the solution.
It’s been the only one on the table, irrespective of this
environmental assessment.”
That
mistrust of the city’s intention is disappointing to chief
transportation planner Rod McPhail, but he agrees that what
happens to St. Clair is an important precedent for the whole
city. “It’s where the tracks hit the road.” He says that while
Toronto’s Official Plan clearly points to more transit instead
of roads, planners are very sensitive to the needs of each part
of the avenue. The environmental study has looked at nine major
options for the corridor, from doing nothing except repaving the
road to building exclusive streetcar lanes.
In a kind of
“St. Clair Survivor”, four options now remain and McPhail says
that there is most interest in a hybrid solution -- using
appropriate transit-improving measures tailored for different
parts of the street. On Monday, a select group of residents
walked the entire seven kilometers from Yonge to Keele St.
Representatives of organizations both opposed to and in favour
of reserved lanes came along on the four hour tour, looking at
the unique needs of each neighbourhood.
This could
mean a combination of exclusive lanes in some areas, or special
traffic signals, or ways of getting left turning vehicles out of
the way of streetcars. Improvements to traffic flow and parking
are also part of the city’s agenda, which brings together
several agencies that don’t usually work together. To get an
idea what would transit and car commuters would experience on a
new St. Clair, traffic engineers at the University of Toronto
have been called in to analyze the different proposals using
state-of-the-art computer models.
It’s hard to
say yet what St. Clair will look like after planners, citizens
and politicians have their say, but this process is a great way
to understand how Toronto works. To get a look at the saga of
St. Clair from all angles, visit the web site
www.mystclair.com,
which has links to all the concerned organizations.