[URBAN NOTE] "New Queens Quay is lovely but potentially lethal"

[rfmcdonald]

Edward Keenan at the Toronto Star argues that Queens Quay has some serious design flaws.

The rebuilt Queens Quay Blvd., re-opened in June after extensive reconstruction, is a new kind of street in Toronto. Paved partly in coloured stone, featuring wide walks, a separated bike track and a streetcar right-of-way, it’s interesting and beautiful, as some of my colleagues have noted. Shawn Micallef even wondered in these pages, “Are we allowed to have something this nice?”

Unfortunately, right now, it seems to me it’s also kind of a death trap. People on it are constantly playing a dangerous game of “whose lane is it anyway?”

Out observing the road on Monday, I quickly became aware that a solid majority of people have no idea how to drive on it. It was almost comical to hum “Yakety Sax” in my head: drivers stopped suddenly, staring head-on into the eyes of other drivers; performed panicked, undercarriage-scraping, Dukes of Hazzard-style jumps off the streetcar right-of-way; did confused three-point turns through intersections and across bicycle and streetcar lanes in an effort to find their proper lane.

[. . .]

At Lower Spadina, car after car quickly and confidently turns left eastbound into the streetcar right-of-way before swerving back dramatically back toward the proper lane. There, they sometimes meet face-to-face with drivers going in the other direction — some of whom have turned wide out of a nearby driveway, others swerving out into oncoming traffic to go around taxis stopped for long periods blocking the only westbound lane.

At York St., things get even more confusing. There are two eastbound car lanes, one on each side of the streetcar tracks. The south one, meant to provide local access to buildings on that side, is paved in stone, and many car drivers correctly entering it suddenly think they are in the bike lane. Many stop in confusion, blocking lineups of cars following behind them in the intersection. I saw half a dozen cars reverse into the intersection and into the actual bike and pedestrian paths to turn around. Cyclists approaching from the east meanwhile, also tend to think it’s part of the bike lane, and pedal aggressively into oncoming car traffic. There are no markings or signs indicating what kind of vehicle should be in the lane or which direction vehicles in it should be travelling.