The PM Peak.
In the pm peak the traffic through Ward 30 takes Eastern Avenue from Front St in the office tower release, to Eastern Avenue to Kingston Rd to Scarborough.
Traffic from the core also takes the Gardiner to the Lake Shore Boulevard to Carlaw and up to Eastern to Kingston Rd to Scarborough.
The Leslie Street closure has made this apparent.
Now that Leslie is closed or clogged, all that Scarborough traffic flows up Carlaw to Eastern to get to Kingston Rd to get to Scarborough.
The congestion on Carlaw is a foreshadow of what is to come as doubling of density proceeds. When Leslie opens again in the spring of 2015, the pressure on Carlaw will end, Carlaw will become a less used street and become again, more like a neighbourhood street that it was a year ago.
But this will be illusion.
Increasing density of population along the Avenue Queen Street and Avenue Carlaw will - is - creating more traffic volume on all the area streets - the continuation of growth in the city of Toronto in general is leading to higher volumes of traffic generally - congestion is getting worse.
Within this understanding is the idea that the capacity of roadways actually increases congestion over time.
The capacity of the 6-lane Lake Shore Boulevard is actually creating more traffic volume on the Lake Shore Boulevard than it can handle - that overburden volume is then funneling up Leslie and Carlaw - the only two egress point north through this area that escape to a fast Avenue - up to Eastern Avenue, to Kingston Rd, to Scarborough.
How do we stop this?
I say we make Eastern a Complete Street. 'Calm' Eastern from Power street to Queen.
Please Comment.
View No More Gardiner Expressway East in a larger map
The complex Eastern Avenue bridge over the DVP presents a special problem within this idea - please ask about it in comments in order to evolve this discussion.
mh
Is there any support from city hall to make Eastern a complete street?
ReplyDeleteInteresting question.
DeleteComplete Streets is City of Toronto and Provincial policy. Every street that is structurally upgraded (reconstructed) is supposed to be re-made as a Complete Street in the process; yet more often than not, this doesn't happen. In my experience - to this point in time anyway - one lost parking spot is enough to derail the policy. Car centric lifestyle voters seem to be very passionate votes - but they not the majority of voters by any stretch.
That said, time waits for no one. The proposed development at Riverside Square (Streetcar Developments) proposes to add to the connectivity of Eastern by creating a Muti-Use path across the Eastern Avenue Bridge (http://ward30bikes.blogspot.ca/2014/08/masters-of-industry-south-riverdale-to.html) --- and with the off-loading lane at the Western Bakery no longer in use by the Weston's, and Mid-rise proposed there as well - a proposal to extend the Eastern Avenue Bike lane from Logan to Broadview seems to be assembling around it some momentum.
I would suggest that right now, everyone should let candidates for Council know you think we ought to move on this in the next term. Residents of Ward 32 (East of Leslie at Eastern Ave) might tell their candidate for Council that they think the Eastern Avenue Bike Lane should be extended east of Leslie over to Kingston Rd as well.
Michael Holloway
Captain, Ward 30 Bikes