A new proposal from the TTC is asking the city to create a reserved right-of-way for streetcars along a section of the King Street route.

The plan is an attempt to break up the congestion plaguing the area, considered the city's busiest route, carrying 48,000 riders on a typical weekday.

Although the exact area is yet to be determined, reports say it will likely be somewhere between Bay Street and Spadina Avenue. A two-month pilot project would take place during the summer of 2008.

If approved, a single lane would remain open to taxis, cars and deliveries, alternating directions on each block. Otherwise, no other motorists would be allowed.

"We're having real problems accommodating the passengers we have and we have to get serious about moving people through the city," TTC chairman Adam Giambrone told CTV's Desmond Brown.

Heavy traffic in the area often forces streetcars to cluster together, which creates gaps in service and causes streetcars to bypass stops.

"Really it's about who's right," said Giambrone. "One person in a car or a hundred people who are sitting there twiddling their thumbs on a streetcar and can't move?"

Right now drivers are not permitted on streetcar tracks from 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m. The TTC wants to get rid of this bylaw, saying no one obeys it and it's rarely enforced.

Instead, the report asks the city to:

  • Work with the province to expand the use of red-light cameras to discourage illegal left turns, and stopping and parking violations;
  • Expand the designated no-parking and no-standing period by an hour, to 7-10 a.m. and 3-7 p.m.;
  • Designate King a "transit priority zone" between Dufferin and Parliament streets, doubling fines for traffic and parking violations; and
  • Consider building taxi lay-bys so cabs no longer block curb lanes around Bay Street office towers.

Giambrone estimates the King Street project will cost approximately $200,000. This will include temporary barriers, possibly planters, rubber curbs or wooden walkways.

"With any service as frequent as every two minutes, there is no way to effectively manage and ensure reliability on a route operating in mixed traffic, an environment over which the TTC has no control," says the report, which was approved by the TTC on Wednesday.

The report also discusses previous steps taken to make King more streetcar-friendly that have proven to be unsuccessful. It says left-turn bans at several intersections have reduced delays, but are still ignored by drivers.

The TTC has also assigned 30 per cent more than the standard number of streetcars on the route to help balance loads, but they won't be available until the end of the decade.

The proposal comes less than a week after the TTC's announcement for a $6 billion plan to build seven light-rail corridors that will crisscross Toronto, which still has no firm funding strategy.

With a report from CTV's Desmond Brown