The answer is yes, Toronto needs Pedestrian only streets.
Places that come to mind for pedestrians zones & car free zones.
- King street near Spadina
- College near Bathurst
- Church street
- Parliament street
- Liberty Village
- Kensington Market
- Ossington Ave between Dundas & 8. Queen.
- Roncesvalles Ave
- Parkside Drive
Church Street in Burlington was so successful that twenty years ago it was expanded to include a fourth block.
Look at that main picture 15 cars among people many times over that. It makes no sense!
Toronto needs to actually START the “war on the car” that conservative nimrods have been railing on about and WIN it.
I loved seeing the Tram move though the crowd. Trams integrate very well with pedestrian areas in a way that busses or cars never can. The crowds were making way as the tram trundled along because the rails tell everyone exactly where to move to clear the way.
That kind of movement through crowds happens every day in major cities in crowded tourist areas. The big benefit is that when there’s no tram on the tracks, people can walk there and use the space. This isn’t true for car/bus streets where the space needs to be kept clear at all times for safety from the erratic vehicles on rubber tires. Rails FTW.
Agreed, integrated tram lines at street level would work perfectly in Toronto (as they do all around the word).
Toronto just needs to take some streets with tram lines already in them and turn sections of these streets into car free pedestrian zones. Half if not more trams have boarding zones within a full traffic lane already.
Toronto being toronto through would probably screw it up, turning a non issue into a issue, with pedestrian barriers and over engineering of some sort.
