By Denis Agar
Around the world, cities are experimenting with different, context-specific ways to solve their unique transportation problems.
One such experiment in Toronto started as a one-year pilot, but that pilot was successful enough that the project will celebrate its’ 10-year anniversary soon.
I think that pilot has some crucial lessons for Vancouver’s Hastings Street, and I’d love to tell you about it. But why now? The Metro Vancouver Alliance (MVA) is having their Municipal Election Assembly very soon, and I want you to go to it!
The MVA is a big, broad coalition of unions, faith groups, and non-profits. The intention is for all these groups to come together, focus in on one or two key issues, and demonstrate to the people in power that these particular issues have broad support. This year, the focus is on climate and housing, and there are four distinct proposals as part of that. They’re all great, and you should check them out.
I’m proud to say that one of MVA’s proposals this year is the subject of this post: The Hastings Street Pilot.
What was Toronto’s King Street Pilot?
In 2017, the City of Toronto had a problem. Their busiest transit street, King, was seeing transit ridership growth, driven by new housing construction. The problem was that this route was painfully slow – as slow as 6 km/h on the most crucial stretch. This was not acceptable for a street that moved 72,000 people per weekday on transit. The delay was primarily being caused by cars. A single car turning left could hold up 130 transit riders for an entire signal cycle.
To their credit, Toronto decided to try something pretty unusual in Canada.
In July 2017, Toronto council voted 34-4 to approve a one-year pilot of a new traffic pattern. On the most congested part of King Street, cars would not be able to drive straight or turn left. Their only option at the end of a block was to turn right. That would maintain local access for parking and business deliveries, but should vastly reduce congestion.
This pilot lasted for a year while the city gathered information on whether it was working. They spent $1.5 million on the whole project, which works out to being about three cents per transit trip (at 56 million trips per year).
After 16 days, a team of researchers found that transit became dramatically faster, almost instantly. Westbound streetcars’ travel time dropped from 23 minutes to 17 minutes on this 2.6 km stretch.
After a year, the results of the pilot were both positive and wide-ranging:
- Transit speeds: Car volumes dropped on King Street by a whopping 80%, which shaved 5-6 minutes off off the 2.6 km trip.
- Transit capacity: Improved speed and reliability frees up vehicles to increase frequency, which allowed for a boost in capacity. That was crucial because. . .
- Transit ridership: Ridership grew 16% to 84,000 weekday boardings by the end of the pilot
- Safety: 56% of transit users and 54% of pedestrians reported feeling safer after the pilot started, likely due to the enormous drop in vehicle traffic.
- Cycling: 68% of cyclists reported feeling safer on King Street, moreso than any other street user. (Cyclists were exempt from the turn restrictions that applied to cars)
- Noise: There was a 6-7 dB drop in noise levels in the Entertainment District. Traffic noise has a measurable link with health.
- Public realm: With 80% fewer cars on King Street, there was a lot of additional road space to work with! Toronto worked with designers to put a variety of different things in 18 public spaces – from chess boards to lounge chairs to patios to street trees!
- Business: Retail sales on the street did not see a notable drop, while the pilot area had fewer business closures than in other parts of the city. The number of people travelling to/from downtown increased by 3%, and transit carried that additional load.
- Traffic on other nearby streets: Car travel times on alternative streets have not changed more than one minute compared with before the pilot
The transit priority measures piloted in 2017 were made permanent in 2019, and they’re still in place today. By no means is the implementation perfect, and the city still struggles with compliance, mainly because Ontario does not allow automatic fines for drivers breaking the law. But on the whole, for the money spent, few cities have ever achieved this degree of improvement on such a variety of metrics.
New York has emulated Toronto’s success with its 14th Street busway, but up to this point, Vancouver has not drawn inspiration from King Street. Allow me to suggest a corridor where it’s desperately needed: Hastings.
The Hastings Street Pilot
Hastings Street through the Downtown East Side fails for all its users.
Transit riders regularly experience congestion through there, with TransLink putting it in their highest tier for passenger delay. Delays on this segment of Hastings impact riders of six routes, meaning one delay here can ripple outward to affect 69,000 trips per weekday.
Pedestrians and community members are injured and killed by cars here at a higher rate than on any other street in British Columbia over the last five years.
Emergency responders linking the DTES with the new St. Paul’s Hospital have to navigate congested streets, costing precious seconds that can ultimately cost lives.
Motorists almost never comply with the posted speed limit of 30 km/h, and ultimately have several other options to reach downtown.
As part of the Metro Vancouver Alliance, here’s what we’re proposing:
- Pilot a series of traffic restrictions on Hastings through the Downtown East Side – for roughly 4-6 blocks around Main Street.
- Cars would no longer be permitted to drive straight or turn left through an intersection – their only option would be to turn right.
- Cyclists, buses, and emergency response vehicles would be exempted from these restrictions
- Use some of the freed-up space on Hastings to add public amenities. Groups from the community could help design these new public spaces, which could include benches, planters, and more.
Based on the experience in Toronto, what can we expect to happen on Hastings?
- More people alive in the DTES. By reducing traffic volumes by 80%, there’s no question that lives will be saved over the course of the pilot.
- Transit will get better, and more people will ride it. Residents of the DTES will end up with better access to the resources they need, and transit will become a more competitive option for East Van and Burnaby Heights commuters
- A healthier environment in the DTES – less noise, less air pollution, and more public space for greenery and seating
- More people going downtown to shop, work and play – this was the experience in Toronto.
- Little or no change in congestion on parallel streets.
In addition to all these things, I think it will make Hastings feel less like a thruway, and more like a community street. But if that doesn’t come to fruition, or if it otherwise doesn’t work, it’s a pilot, so we can quickly and easily change it back to the status quo.
How can I support this concept?
We would love you to join us at the Metro Vancouver Alliance Election Assembly on the night of Wed, Sep 23 to demonstrate a groundswell of support!