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St. Clair Avenue's streetcar dilemma
With a daily passenger load of 32,000 riders,
the line's capacity is spreading thin

STAVROULA MEDITSKOS
Jun. 1, 2003

When the city unveiled its Official Plan to Torontonians last summer, one of the few selling points most people agreed on was the need for a revamped transit system.

The system, according to city staff, would be especially beneficial in major transit corridors, where more intensive development would likely occur. The result would be more people living along major transit routes and thus more commuters, planners told residents who packed community council chambers across the city.

While the Official Plan is awaiting final approval from the provincial government, the new transit policies may become a reality along St. Clair Avenue much sooner. The 512 St. Clair streetcar operates on St. Clair Avenue West between Yonge Street and Gunns Road, just west of Keele Street. During peak travel times, the streetcar carries between 45 per cent to 57 per cent of all people travelling on St. Clair.

Only the 510 Spadina Avenue streetcar carries more passengers per route kilometre. With a daily passenger load of 32,000 riders, the streetcar's capacity is spreading thin, so the streetcar tracks are slated for replacement in 2004 as part of the city's state-of-good-repair program for arterial roads.

That, in addition to St. Clair's priority in both the Official Plan and the Toronto Transit Commission's Ridership Growth Strategy, has made the decision about what to do with the tracks an increasingly important one that could affect the city's transit future.

One proposal would see the creation of a six-inch raised platform similar to that on Queen's Quay that would discourage drivers from driving on the tracks. Another is leaving the tracks unchanged.

The other solution, which is seemingly favoured by most city councillors and staff, is constructing streetcar-only lanes in the centre of the street.

According to a city staff report, giving streetcars the right-of-way along St. Clair Avenue would not only shave six minutes off the 35-minute commute from Yonge Street to Keele Street, it might even convert motorists who use the route into TTC passengers.

"It's pretty key because the Official Plan calls for a growth in the city by an extra million people in the next decade and the whole premise of the Official Plan is transit," said Ward 15 councillor Howard Moscoe (Eglinton-Lawrence).

"We can't do it unless there's an extensive public transit network put into place, and St. Clair is the first piece of that network. Moving the St. Clair streetcars onto an exclusive right-of-way is equivalent to building a subway," added Moscoe, also chair of the TTC.

Constructing a right-of-way streetcar route between Yonge Street and Caledonia Road would cost about $7 million, and an extension to Jane Street another $13 million.

Mitch Stambler, the TTC's manager of service planning, said although it's difficult to say exactly how much ridership would increase along St. Clair, other similar projects have boosted ridership.

"The other street on which we've established a right-of-way for streetcars - and that's for Spadina Avenue - there was a quite pronounced increase in ridership on the route, almost overnight," Stambler said, adding ridership on the 510 Spadina streetcar increased, despite a downward trend in ridership.

Lorraine Csenge, president of the St. Clair West Residents Association which represents newer subdivisions near St. Clair and Keele, believes local residents might use the streetcar more often if the ride was quicker.

"We're at the end of the line. Normally for me to go down to Yonge Street, I'd count on a good half hour, sometimes 45 minutes depending on what time of the day you're travelling, so for sure people would like to see it a bit faster," she said.

"It'll probably help car traffic as well once people get used to it, and hopefully it'll get more people taking the streetcar because I think that's the main problem. I do both. I take the streetcar and drive, and sometimes when you drive you can't get anywhere," she said.

St. Clair is one of the city's few avenues wide enough to support both regular traffic lanes and exclusive streetcar lanes. In fact, it was originally built that way to accommodate dedicated streetcar lanes which helped boost commercial and residential development until the 1930s, when they were removed by the city as a Depression-era make-work project. Since then, the streetcars have operated in mixed traffic - something Stambler thinks impedes transit efficiency.

"We can do amazingly good things with transit if we're just given the opportunity to perform to our max, and we can't do it when we're operating in mixed traffic, where a streetcar has no more priority than one car with one little person in it. It just can't work," he said.

Ward 22 Michael Walker (St. Paul's) thinks otherwise. As one of four councillors whose ward runs through St. Clair Avenue, Walker is the only one who opposes dedicated streetcar lanes. He said the absence of left turn lanes would force trucks and cars to detour into residential neighbourhoods and disrupt residents.

"Also, if you have a breakdown on St. Clair it's only one lane if the street breaks down. It'll be terrible for business," he said, adding he wants to keep the tracks just the way they are.

"I think a far better use of $20 million is to buy 40 buses and improve the routes where buses are already working," he added.

Local merchants such as Michael Di Sapia share similar concerns. As owner of Di Sapia Opticians, Di Sapia said permitting streetcar-only lanes would deter shoppers from visiting St. Clair West.

"Our shopping district here is mid to high end. We have quite a few bridal shops, high-end clothing stores, and people do not come pick up their bridal dresses and suits by TTC - they mainly come down with their cars, because they come from the suburbs," he said.

"If we make it difficult for them to travel down here and find parking and get through the traffic, we're going to scare them off - and that's what's going to end up happening because you're eliminating two lanes of traffic by making exclusive streetcar lanes."

Di Sapia, who grew up in the area and whose family has spent 25 years in the Corso Italia business district, said there are alternatives to streetcar-only lanes, such as restricting lanes to streetcars during rush hour, restricting on-street parking or replacing streetcars with buses.

"We don't need to have this concrete wall built through our street and separate the north and south. It's just not going to work, in our eyes."

Although the TTC has not ruled out those options, Stambler said they are not feasible because drivers often disobey bylaws, signage or painted markers on the street, especially during rush hour.

"We're looking for anything as long it can work. We want to make it reliable, because a lot of non-commuters probably choose to drive because they think the transit system is not reliable," he said.

Given the opportunity to extend the St. Clair streetcar to Etobicoke - something council has agreed to review - Moscoe said most people, including merchants, will eventually accept the streetcar-only lanes as a viable transit solution.

"I think merchants have to be assured their businesses will improve significantly. It's happened everywhere in the world. A classic example is Strasbourg, France. The same debate took place. It was a heated election issue, the LRT won and it's now in place and it's the best thing that ever happened."

"It has the potential for being a major line."

The city begins conducting an environmental assessment of the plan in June.

This is part of an occasional series of articles on the transportation challenges facing Toronto.