Project Area: King Street between Bathurst Street and Jarvis Street

Project Length: 2.7 km (1.7 miles)

Participating Agencies: Toronto Transportation Services, Toronto Transit Commission

Timeline: Pilot period ran November 2017 to July 2019

Cost: Approximately $1.5 million (CAD)

Goals

Improve transit speed, reliability, and capacity: Move people more efficiently on transit.

Activate the public realm: Improve public space along the pilot corridors.

Economic development: Support business and economic prosperity through improvements to transit operations and the public realm.

Overview

Toronto aimed to prioritize people and transit by improving the speed, frequency, and reliability of streetcars by prohibiting car traffic along a downtown stretch of King Street. This project launched in November 2017 as a one-year pilot.

At the time the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) launched the Pilot, the King Streetcar served 72,000 daily riders, making it one of the city’s busiest transit corridors. Despite this, slow speeds, poor reliability, and overcrowding characterized transit service along this route. By designating a downtown section of King Street a Transit Priority Corridor TTC and Toronto Transportation Services aimed to transform streetcar service for an initial one-year period.

Design Details

Following an extensive public outreach process, through movements for most private vehicles were prohibited at signalized intersections within the project area. The City converted the curb lane from a second traffic lane into dedicated spaces for cyclists, taxis, and freight vehicles. TTC also moved several streetcar stops to the far end of their blocks, freeing up new public space. This led to the creation of two parklets, ten temporary public space installations, and 21 bike parking and bike stations.

Keys to Success

Data Collection: The City and its partners, including universities and research institutions in Toronto, undertook an extensive data monitoring and evaluation effort to measure the Pilot’s performance on each of its three goals. TTC published a monthly dashboard to publicly track metrics such as transit reliability, ridership counts, travel time for streetcars and vehicles, multimodal traffic volumes, and economic sales data. This commitment to open data was essential for demonstrating the Pilot’s success and securing the political support to make the Transit Priority Corridor on King Street permanent. The annual summary report is available here.

Ongoing Community Engagement: Throughout the duration of the Pilot period, the City worked closely with stakeholders and local businesses to make continuous refinements and address any concerns. Examples of adjustments following public input include signal timing changes, parking discount vouchers, and data-driven traffic enforcement.

Outcomes

Transit ridership increased 11 percent on weekdays within six months of the Pilot’s launch. Reliability also improved, with 85 percent of streetcars arriving within four minutes westbound during morning commute hours. Travel times on transit also fell four to five minutes on average. In July 2019, Toronto’s City Council voted to make the King Street Pilot permanent.