Walking (only) on Yonge

Posted on September 3, 2008 at 2:13 pm by Sameer Vasta

Empty YongePedestrians got a big boost when the Yonge and Dundas intersection became a scramble crossing last week, so now’s a good time to ask how we can improve the pedestrian experience even more in the downtown core.

One answer to making the city more walker-friendly that floated around last year and perhaps should be revisited is creating pedestrian-only streets.

Streets like Yonge Street.

It has been done before: Spacing reported last year that Yonge Street south of Bloor was converted to a pedestrian mall for a short time in the 1970s. I think it’s time to look at that idea again.

Sure it has been brought up before, but with the Regional Transportation Plan still open for discussion, perhaps now is the perfect time to bring the idea back up for serious consideration? Can pedestrian malls be integral parts of the new vision on transportation?

In theory, pedestrian malls not only encourage less of a dependency on cars, but also encourage a vibrant street life that would foster a closer citizen connection with the pedestrian-only neighborhoods around them. Pedestrian zones would likely have lower noise levels, offer more room for trees and plants, and also provide room for outdoor art installations and performance.

The advantages are evident, but the reasons against creating pedestrian malls on busy streets like Yonge are many: with congestion already so bad, pedestrian-only zones are removing important (and already-crowded) access routes into the core for vehicles. In addition, the city would have to provide better parking facilities around the pedestrian zones, and efficient cross-routes for cars trying to go from one side of the mall to the other.

On top of that, special arrangements would have to be made for delivery and emergency vehicles, and businesses would have to adapt to cater to a crowd that now walks instead of drives to their stores.

Taking that all into account, maybe Toronto’s not quite ready to turn a street like Yonge Street into a pedestrian mall, but there are other options.

A first option, of course, is to try the concept somewhere else. The city has a plethora of narrow one-way streets that could be used as pedestrian-only areas — Yorkville, parts of Front near the St. Lawrence Market, Gould near Ryerson — and could help both drivers and pedestrians get acllimated to the concept.

A second option, which I prefer, is to start by removing a lane on Yonge (as discussed on blogTO last year) and widening the sidewalks. To take the concept further, a second vehicle lane could be removed to make space for trees and dedicated bike lanes. This would still allow Yonge Street to be a core access route, but enhance the pedestrian experience at the same time.

Again, I’m no urban planning expert, so there’s probably a lot of things I’m missing out on when it comes to the feasibility of the plan. If any of you have more information on whether or not these ideas are doable, please do share.

The city has changed quite a bit in the past years since the idea was floated around last, and the Regional Transportation Plan gives us a reason to revisit the whole concept.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether creating pedestrian-only zones is a good idea and how we can go about making it happen — even on Yonge Street.

Photo by Igor Mazic.

Tags: , , , , ,

13 Comments »

  1. Great topic Sameer. I’m sure there’s going to be strong opinions from both sides.

    There are streets in Toronto that already don’t have parking, garage access, or loading/recieving facilities along the street. Bay Street between Queen and Union Station is one of them, although Trump Tower is going to have a loading area facing Bay when its done (but we can restrict it to night time use ;) ). Front St.’s eastbound lanes in front of Union Station would also make a great candidate since bus traffic can use the bus terminal east of Bay.

    However, instead of pedestrian-only malls, I think it might be in the city’s interest to explore transit malls. This encourages street activity while also mitigating the need for parking around the pedestrian areas by taking transit right into the mall.

    Church Street has such potential, as there are only 2 or 3 properties between major intersections (i.e. the ones that have subway stations at them along Yonge) that need vehicular access, many of which can be slightly modified to obtain access to another street. Often, there’s vehicular access behind the buildings facing Church, which is accessed from a perpendicular street that intersects Church, so the need for cars on Church St. proper is rather small. Church Street also has streetcar tracks on it currently, continuously from Carlton to Wellington/Front, a prime candidate for a potential transit mall. The streetcar and pedestrian activity would see more commercial and business activity along Church St. than its current auto-dominated environment.

    Sure, Yonge subway is 2 blocks away, but we run a bus on Bay St., so why not streetcars on Church?

    If we can spread these kinds of areas across downtown, in a balanced approach that still allows the car to get around in its own right (streets like University, Jarvis, Richmond, and Adelaide), the vibrancy of downtown will perceptably increase and through it a decrease in congestion should result. While this inolves the removal of space for cars on the road network, it is key to remember that traffic volume adjusts to the space it is given, which is why expanding the road network never solves traffic problems.

    GravatarComment by Karl Junkin — September 3, 2008 @ 3:14 pm

  2. I think your idea, one I’ve bandied about before myself, is a good one. That is, reducing the car-carrying capacity of Yonge Street, in favour of more room for pedestrians.

    In terms of feasibility, there is certainly no structural barrier to reducing Yonge from 4 lanes to 2, most likely with Davenport as the northern limit for the short term.

    In fact the City’s own staff have openly mused about reducing Yonge by 1 lane (and putting in a switch lane)

    However, I am very much opposed to the idea of a switch/lane (like the current one on Jarvis), as I find these to be complicated/confusing to anyone not immediately familiar with the idea, and one that can lead to greater numbers of collisions.

    It should be said that any removal of lanes would mean the need for left-hand turn lanes at any intersection where said turning would be legal. (this could in fact speed traffic as there are currently no such lanes on Yonge, and any left-turner would currently obstruct a through lane of traffic.

    ****

    I should also note that the City has already approved reducing Yonge from Harbour or Lakeshore, south to Queen’s Quay and adding bike lanes.

    So the precedent is there on paper (though not yet implemented).

    *****

    Now there would undoubtedly be some traffic displacement.

    The question arises as to how much, and what can be done about it?

    I don’t have the exact numbers, but my impression from walking and driving downtown is that except after big events, Yonge is not really THAT busy on weekends and evenings. So a reduction in capacity during those times should not be burdensome to accommodate, either by getting people to switch transportation modes or by having them take an alternate driving route.

    The real problem is rush hour.

    Currently the Yonge Subway south of Bloor is at capacity.

    Even if a sizable portion of drivers were willing to switch to TTC to arrive at their Yonge Street destination, the TTC can not readily accommodate them during rush hour.

    Therefore the timing of a full, permanent conversion (as oppose to a summer weekend type exercise) must be linked to significant new transit capacity in the corridor.

    Bike lanes may shift a few people, a more attractive walking environment a small number more; but for the most part, drivers on downtown Yonge, are coming from well outside the core and there only alternate commuting option would be transit.

    IF, the TTC Yonge Street Subway capacity improvements (Automatic Train Control + New Trains, along with station enlargements) and Super GO Service (ie electrified Lakeshore service at double or greater that of current frequency) were both implemented by 2015 I could see a permanent narrowing of Yonge at that time.

    Until then, I would suggest focusing on things like ‘pedestrian Sundays’ being brought to Yonge Street.

    As well as supporting “Road Diet” projects that more feasible now, and closer to being implemented.

    Examples of the above include the proposed narrowing of Queen’s Quay, Jarvis and York Streets)

    GravatarComment by James — September 3, 2008 @ 3:23 pm

  3. I don’t have as much to say on the topic, but one thing I always think to myself when walking down heavily crowded areas or areas with heavy traffic is that it would just *be cool* to take the 2 outer lanes of 4 lane streets and turn them into Bike + Bus only lanes.

    Even though realistically it probably wouldn’t even things out and make traffic more efficient, I’m just tired of seeing so many cars now… The fewer the cars the better.

    GravatarComment by Malcolm Bastien — September 3, 2008 @ 3:23 pm

  4. I guess the Yonge Street pedestrian malls of the 1970’s could be considered the forerunners of the street festivals we now get on the Danforth, St. Clair, College, Roncesvalles, etc.

    GravatarComment by W. K. Lis — September 3, 2008 @ 3:44 pm

  5. Thinking of reducing Yonge Street from four lanes to two makes me think of Barcelona and Las Ramblas, where the pedestrian mall goes down the centre of the street, with one lane of traffic running in each direction on the outside. It makes the traffic even less of a barrier, and creates a lively strolling, shopping and entertainment avenue. And it could create possibilities for pocket parks and other imaginative streetscaping.

    GravatarComment by David Vereschagin — September 3, 2008 @ 3:55 pm

  6. I’m definitely glad to see that my thoughts weren’t completely off base.

    James, that’s exactly why I think this topic is extremely relevant right now: if we want to make pedestrian malls a reality, we need to couple them with appropriate transit capacity and forethought in transportation planning. But hey…what do we need to do make Pedestrian Sundays Yonge Street a reality?

    One question for David V: with the pedestrian mall in the centre of the street, how do pedestrians access roadside storefronts? Don’t local businesses have a problem with that?

    GravatarComment by Sameer Vasta — September 3, 2008 @ 4:46 pm

  7. > Sameer Vasta:

    As I recall, in Barcelona there are marked crosswalks along the stretch. There are, of course, still sidewalks along the existing storefronts. We could do the same in Toronto, with ye olde “point and cross” instructions. As well, in Barcelona there was a lot of what we would consider jaywalking. Which helped slow down traffic.

    I don’t think we’ll ever see bird sellers on a Yonge Street mall, but gilded, live Elvis “statues”… aside from artistic objections, why not?

    GravatarComment by David Vereschagin — September 3, 2008 @ 5:43 pm

  8. Sameer,

    To make Yonge Street Pedestrian Sundays happen, The BIAs need to be involved. The biggest on Yonge is ‘Downtown Yonge’ (Richmond to just north of College). There is also Yorkville as well.

    They can apply to the City to allow any kind of pedestrian festival they would like (just as Greektown does).

    To run something similar to the other ‘Pedestrian Sunday’ events, best to have the BIAs talk to the people that started the PS’s “Streets are for People”

    They all have websites.

    Don’t be shy to share your thoughts!

    To reach the Downtown Yonge BIA:

    Website: http://www.downtownyonge.com/

    Address:

    Downtown Yonge Business Improvement Area
    40 Dundas Street West, Suite 300 PO Box 42
    Toronto, Ontario
    Canada
    M5G 2C2

    Phone: 416-597-0255
    Fax: 416-597-0233

    Email: See form on website, under ‘contact us’

    *******

    To Contact the Bloor-Yorville BIA (Charles to Davenport)

    Website: http://www.bloor-yorkville.com/

    Address:

    Bloor-Yorkville BIA
    55 Bloor St. W.
    Suite 220
    Toronto, ON M4W 1A5

    Tel: (416) 928-3553
    Fax: (416) 928-2034
    E-mail: bybia@bloor-yorkville.com

    *******

    To contact Streets are for People:

    Website: http://www.streetsareforpeople.org

    Email:info@streetsareforpeople.org

    GravatarComment by James — September 3, 2008 @ 6:31 pm

  9. My sister and I remember the pedestrian mall on Yonge in the 70s. It was great, and everyone would go down to Yonge just for that.

    It just goes to show you how much we’ve moved backwards from the 60s/70s. We were on a progressive track back then … pedestrian malls, a Queen St. subway … now fast forward 35 years and the best we can muster up is “Transit City”.

    GravatarComment by M. Briganti — September 3, 2008 @ 8:52 pm

  10. Karl Junkin said, “I think it might be in the city’s interest to explore transit malls.”

    Especially pedestrian-friendly transit malls – I was expecting someone to cite Calgary’s transit mall, which is a good example of a transit mall for transit, but not exactly pedestrian oriented.

    Some good examples are Denver, which uses a FREE bus service on its 16th Street Mall (a photo can be seen at http://lrt.daxack.ca/Denver/hires13.jpg).

    Melbourne has a stretch Bourke Street between Elizabeth and Swanston (http://lrt.daxack.ca/Melbourne/hires025.jpg) and Oslo has a section at their water front at Aker brygge (http://lrt.daxack.ca/Oslo/hires075.jpg).

    GravatarComment by Calvin Henry-Cotnam — September 3, 2008 @ 9:03 pm

  11. Yonge street is an obvious target as it’s the longest street in Canada, the heart of Downtown Toronto, etc, etc. All due respect to the BIAs that run stores along it, though, it’s also not really much for destination traffic. Aside from the short corridor from Bloor to College, there isn’t a lot of density of restaurants, cafes, and destinations that people would want to walk to.

    Put more plainly, a pedestrian mall will not attract pedestrians; destinations attract pedestrians.

    I fully support the idea of more walking spaces in Toronto, but would encourage you to examine areas of the city that are already crawling with pedestrians such as:

    – Queen West between University and Spadina
    – Kensington Market
    – Bloor between Spadina and Bathhurst

    Better still would be to select a corridor that connects parts of town together, which bodes well for Queen West. Better *still* would be one with surface transit routes that could be preserved, which again bodes well for Queen West.

    I also think that the European model of pedestrian malls should be explored, with posts that retract allowing for deliveries during allotted times. This meets the needs of the store owners while preserving the pedestrian friendly atmosphere during most times.

    GravatarComment by Mike Beltzner — September 4, 2008 @ 10:58 am

  12. I would love see some/more pedestrian streets – personally, I agree with Mike Beltzner; Yonge isn’t an attractive stretch to walk down.

    I’d prefer to see an area such as Kensington Market, which already has an exemplary pedestrian culture, take the lead and become permanently pedestrian-only (with allowances for deliveries to the neighborhood restos and stores during early morning hours etc).

    Ultimately it may prove easier to examine areas of the city where yes, there are a ton of people walking about and over-crowding sidewalks, but also where there isn’t as much vehicular traffic – that idea of closing any section of Bloor would be highly problematic for car traffic…

    I do like this idea of pedestrian malls – or more specifically, the city encouraging developers to create arcades for shoppers and window browsers alike to hop on and off pedestrian pathways rather than larger malls that would become time-consuming destinations drawing drivers such as the Eaton centre. Anyone know examples of such places in Toronto?

    q./

    GravatarComment by Qasim Virjee — September 4, 2008 @ 2:24 pm

  13. There’s the narrow strip between King and Front where the Rainbow Market Square cinema is. There aren’t very many stores there, though.

    GravatarComment by Leo Petr — September 5, 2008 @ 10:45 am

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL

Leave a comment

"));