A Toronto city councillor wants to look at whether it's time to get rid of streetcars on Queen Street.
Currently, buses are serving the 501 route until September because of construction.
Michael Ford wants to use this time to conduct a two-week study comparing different modes of transportation and collect data on service levels, customer satisfaction, and general usability of the road.
His proposal will be considered by the Public Works & Infrastructure Committee today. It was added to the agenda at the last minute. Ford won't be at the meeting due to an unexpected personal matter.
In a letter to the committee Ford says:
"Good morning Madam Chair and Members of the Public Works and Infrastructure Committee,
Unfortunately due to an unexpected personal matter, I will be unable to attend today's meeting.
I wanted to quickly share my reasoning for bringing forward this proposal to study modes of transportation on Queen Street.
As I mention in the summary, to date much of the comparison we have available to us is anecdotal. The last time streetcars were removed for any significant amount of time, in 2002, there was no data collection to compare service levels, customer satisfaction, or general usability of the road.
We have all heard the debate over streetcars in our City. Streetcars offer a number of benefits over buses – they are able to transport significantly larger numbers of passengers, their larger size also allows for quicker boarding and exiting, emission levels are lower, and the new streetcars offer accessibility unavailable on any of our other surface vehicles. At the same time, buses are more manoeuvrable should there be an incident on the road, have less weather related issues, and should they prove to be a better service option, are relatively easier to procure, and would allow for deployment of the new streetcars on other routes, which would also get more of the old streetcar stock off our streets.
City Council and City Staff are currently undertaking a number of pilot projects in the downtown core to determine what options are best to make our streets vehicle and pedestrian friendly, safe, and moving efficiently. I am looking at this potential study to further that goal, to see what is best for local users, and for my residents who wish to access the downtown core, be it by car or by transit.
I have heard some local residents have voiced concerns that streetcars have been removed for this construction project. Unfortunately, again, we have no hard data showing one vehicle is better than the other. The collection of the data in this report would allow us to make a decision based on information, rather than on politics.
I understand that a 2 week period is very narrow and may not give us everything we are looking for, however it is a starting point, and will allow us to decide if this should be explored further."