[URBAN NOTE] On the new Yonge/Bloor pedestrian scramble.

[rfmcdonald]

Last year, I blogged about how the intersection of Yonge and Dundas streets was going to become a pedestrian scramble, a "pedestrian crossing system that stops all vehicular traffic and allows pedestrians to cross an intersection in every direction at the same time." There was some concern about how well that would work, if there would be accidents or confusion, but everything seems to have worked out nicely. Now, long-considered plans for a similar system at Yonge and Bloor have came to fruition at 10 o'clock this Friday past. The new reality is here.

On the corner of Yonge and Bloor streets, four mysterious boxes hang from the traffic light poles, wrapped in burlap and fastened with bailer twine. Tonight, workers will come and paint new white lines on the asphalt, leading kitty-corner to the opposite sides.

Then at 10 a.m. tomorrow, a technician will cut the twine, flick a switch and turn the corner of Yonge and Bloor streets into a "scramble" intersection. Forty times per hour, all automobile traffic will come to a halt, allowing pedestrians 25 seconds to cross in any direction-- even diagonally.

That works out to about 17 minutes per hour taken away from cars using the intersection.

At present, about 25,000 to 30,000 vehicles cross Yonge and Bloor during the business day; the same number as pedestrians who cross. The city, however, wants to encourage people to walk, bike and take transit, and discourage people from driving cars, says Bruce Zvaniga, the city's manager of urban traffic control.

"It's difficult for people to give up habits that we've had for a long time," Mr. Zvaniga says. "Toronto has been a city where motorists are dominant for a long time. We want to use these intersections to have people think about alternate ways of moving around the city. There really isn't enough room for everyone to hop in a car and move around the city."

Torontoist captured the new intersection's start.

At 10:01 a.m. this morning, one of the five green-jacketed police officers standing on the corners of Yonge and Bloor walked confidently but carefully into the middle of the road. The traffic lights at the intersection had just been deactivated, and were now blank, and, after stopping cars in all directions, he waved one direction of cars through, then stopped it, then waved through the other. It was a brief moment of forced acclimatization for the drivers and reassurance for the pedestrians waiting on the tips of the corners: another officer a few minutes earlier had joked to pedestrians that "you don't want to be the first one to be hit by a car." A second later, the traffic lights were all back on, a solid red for all drivers in all directions, and the little stickmen beamed white from every pedestrian signal box. Inside a stopped van, one male driver gestured to his female passenger back and forth across the intersection in front of him, explaining what this all was, and the pedestrians followed his lead.

Bloor and Yonge is now the city's second intersection in as many years to do the Barnes Dance (or scramble, or have a pedestrian priority crossing)—the first permanent installation was at Yonge and Dundas, last August. The news broke in the Star only this Wednesday, and on the first crossing, eager media almost outnumbered eager pedestrians: the first victims claimed by the new intersection were nearly a camera operator and journalist who lingered right in the middle well after the flashing orange hand had turned solid.

The intersection of Bloor Street West and Bay Street is apparently set to become the next scramble intersection in a year's time. While the scramble intersections might slow down the vehicular traffic that's always going to be there in large volumes, thank you very much Mr. Zvaniga, it will make my life as a pedestrian somewhat easier.