Tour buses are getting a free ride on parking
Buses can occupy curb lane for up to half an hour at a time, but it’s all legal
If an unimpeded traffic flow is as important as the city claims, why are tour buses allowed to create perpetual traffic jams on Yonge St.?
It’s likely anyone who drives downtown has been stuck in the gridlock on northbound Yonge, north of Queen St., and cursed the city tour buses responsible for it.
The double-decker buses park in the curb lane, right in front of Yonge-Dundas Square, to pick up and discharge tourists hustled by agents who set up shop in the square.
As soon as one pulls out, another pulls in. It squeezes two lanes of traffic into one, just south of Dundas St., where the pedestrian scramble crossing already stops traffic on Yonge for more than a minute at a time.
We’ve been getting complaints about it for at least five years, most recently from Miguel Aguayo, who said the buses “contribute to traffic congestion while waiting for customers.
“I’ve seen them forcing cars out of the curb lane during morning rush hour, as well as at other times,” he said, adding that a bus lay-by near the square would be a good solution.
We first wrote about it in 2010, after criminal lawyer Frank Addario sent us a note expressing frustration at watching the huge backups from his office window overlooking Yonge.
We returned for another look and saw nothing has changed in five years, even though the city told us at the time it was looking at alternatives for bus parking.
On Thursday afternoon, northbound traffic backed up all the way south to Queen St. while a bus squatted in the curb lane. We watched as a parking enforcement officer walked by and ignored it.
By the time we got back to the street from a fourth-floor vantage point, the tour bus had left and another had ducked into the same spot, where it idled for about 20 minutes.
Here’s why they get away with it: parking enforcement says the buses aren’t ticketed because they’re allowed to stop and pick up or let off passengers, however long it takes. The tour bus operators are official tenants of the square and pay the city for the right to use the curb lane as a pickup point. The traffic snarls are officially sanctioned.
When we reported on it in 2010, transportation services told us it would look at alternatives, including a lay-by carved into the sidewalk. But it has yet to happen. What’s broken in your neighbourhood? Wherever you are in Greater Toronto, we want to know. To contact us, go to thestar.com/yourtoronto/the_fixer or call us at 416-869-4823 email jlakey@thestar.ca. To read our blog, go to thestar.com/news/the_fixer. Report problems and follow us on Twitter @TOStarFixer.