Study indicated minor delays for streetcars

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Delays of less than a minute on the Dundas streetcar will spell the end of an experiment in permitting parking on Dundas Street West between Dovercourt Road and Sterling Road, the Toronto and East York Community Council decided Tuesday.

Councillors voted to return the rush-hour parking prohibition along the stretch of Dundas in October, 2009 - over the objections of local BIAs, who came to the council to say that the permissive rush-hour parking has helped boost the stretch of retail significantly.

"Our vacancy rate went from 19 per cent to 12 per cent, mainly due to the improved parking," said Sylvia Fernandez, President of the Dundas-West Business Improvement Area. "It's not just the parking, we've done a lot of work, created murals, done banners. Now, we're being called the 'new cool.'"

The community council, however, bowed to a study from Toronto Transportation Services and the Toronto Transit Commission, showing that the congestion between the hours of 7 and 9 a.m., and 4 and 6 p.m., was leading to a delay of 51 seconds on average for eastbound streetcars in the afternoon, and a delay of 20 seconds for westbound streetcars in the morning. The delays fluctuated more dramatically, however, with the slow-down ranging from 6 per cent to 40 per cent.

Fernandez and others raised questions about that study. She said the unusually bad winter last year combined with this year's transit strike meant there were likely other factors than just the on-street parking.

Ward 20 (Trinity-Spadina) Councillor Adam Vaughan said the doubt raised was enough to simply make the parking rules permanent.

"Clearly the experiment that was brought to us by the BIA has worked," he said. "Business are filling up, activity has returned to this strip... and there's a 20 second and 50 second delay in the streetcar. Get over it. The reality is that congestion is quite often caused by new businesses attracting new customers and new activity to a neighbourhood."

Local Ward 18 (Davenport) Councillor Adam Giambrone, who also chairs the Toronto Transit Commission, supported removing the on-street parking, but moved an amendment to only do it after 11 months. At that point, he said, the Toronto Parking Authority might have been able to find a suitable off-street parking spot.

"That will give us time - the Toronto Parking Authority is in negotiations currently to ensure that we are on track to get the parking someplace else," he said.