Streetcar lane snarls St. Clair corner
Mayor Rob Ford may not win every transit battle, but he’s a good bet to fix the traffic trouble caused by the St. Clair Ave. streetcar right-of-way.
To make room for the dedicated streetcar line, St. Clair traffic is squeezed into a narrow lane each way between Old Weston Rd. and Weston Rd., including a stretch beneath a railway overpass.
The squeeze creates huge backups during rush hour, causes drivers to mistakenly turn into the right-ofway, forces trucks up onto the sidewalk to make turns and slows emergency vehicles.
Local business people say it’s also putting a damper on much-needed redevelopment in the area.
Local Councillor Cesar Palacio hasn’t been able to get the TTC to modify the right-of-way to improve traffic movement, even though he’s a TTC commissioner.
So he invited Ford (and us) to Old Weston Rd. and St. Clair to see the problem first-hand, which convinced the mayor — clearly no fan of streetcars or the right-of-way — that changes are required.
“It was never planned properly and we’ll have to fix it,” said Ford, who walked the area between Weston and Old Weston Rds. on Thursday with Palacio and officials from the TTC and transportation services.
“This is chaos,” he said, after watching vehicles swing from Old Weston onto St. Clair, where a concrete wall leaves barely enough space for smaller vehicles to complete their turns, and not enough space for trucks.
“The intersection is not safe, and there’s a safety issue all the way over to Weston Rd. If somebody breaks down in the underpass, you’re done. You can’t go anywhere and everything comes to a stop.”
It was one rare time Ford has talked to the Star since his election in 2010. He said his no-comment policy doesn’t apply to The Fixer.
Don Panos, chair of the St. Clair Gardens business improvement area, said westbound traffic sometimes backs up all the way to Caledonia Rd., and that emergency vehicles are forced onto the rightof-way to get around it.
We watched as several trucks try- ing to turn right from southbound Old Weston onto St. Clair had to drive over the sidewalk, due to the end of a concrete wall next to the tracks. The driver of one had to wiggle the truck back and forth several times to complete his turn, while a guy in the passenger seat jumped out and directed traffic to accommodate the manoeuvre by backing up. Bruce Clayton, a transportation services official also present, said changes to the timing of traffic signals at Weston and Old Weston could ease the problem, but not significantly. “Everything else is longer term” and involves modifications to the right-of-way that are the TTC’S responsibility, Clayton said. If Ford gets his way on this one, streetcars may yet have to share their lane with drivers on this short stretch.
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