In June 2015, the City of Toronto completed the reconstruction of Queens Quay Boulevard, transforming an underused waterfront street in downtown Toronto into a hallmark destination. The reconstruction of Queens Quay converted a wide two-way, four-lane car-centric street with center-running streetcars into an asymmetrical two-way street with a side-running transitway and dramatically expanded bicycle and pedestrian space along the waterfront edge. The complete reconstruction of the street above- and below-ground seized the opportunity to upgrade utilities and infrastructure while rededicating the street itself to prioritize active users. Queens Quay is now a place to go to rather than travel through.
History
In June 2006, Waterfront Toronto—a public advocate created in 2000 by the Governments of Canada, Ottawa, and the City of Toronto—held a design competition for the Queens Quay Waterfront Revitalization project, inviting a number of firms to rethink the corridor as a high quality public realm for all users. The competition winners, West 8 and DTAH, proposed a connected waterfront promenade on the south side of Queens Quay, a reactivation of the street coinciding with intensive redevelopment efforts.
Project Development
Waterfront Toronto conducted a years-long and thorough public consultation process, beginning in 2007 and continued throughout the project lifecycle. Community engagement strategies included public meetings, public drop-in hours, workshops, waterfront tours, and stakeholder meetings.
One of the earliest strategies for reimagining the corridor occurred in 2006, when the City closed the Eastbound traffic lanes for Quay (pronounced “Key”) to the City, and opened the interim space to active users, placing 2 km of temporary lawn cover and a row of geraniums. 250,000 people came out for Quay to the City, during which the City surveyed active users (71% of whom supported making the reconfiguration permanent) and observed traffic operations to determine whether the reconfiguration could meet traffic needs effectively.
Following the 2006 design competition, the City of Toronto and Waterfront Toronto partnered to complete an Environmental Assessment of alternatives for the 1.7 km corridor, determining the feasibility of removing a traffic lane in each direction, expanding pedestrian and bicycling infrastructure, reconstructing areas around the streetcar tracks, and exhaustively upgrading below-ground infrastructure. Concurrently, the Toronto Transit Commission completed an environmental assessment of mobility needs and opportunities to extend transit east from Union Station to the waterfront. The outcome of those assessments demonstrated that reconfiguring the right of way to prioritize active travel modes and upgrade infrastructure could forge important mobility connections while accommodating current and future traffic demands. The Environmental Assessment was approved overwhelmingly by the City of Toronto in 2009 and Ministry of Environment in 2010.
Design & Construction
The street, formerly configured as two roadbeds, was reconfigured from four lanes of vehicle traffic to two, shifting all private motor vehicle traffic to the former north roadbed. Free of vehicular traffic, the south side of Queens Quay now hosts a side transitway, a broad pedestrian promenade, and a new bi-directional bikeway, which filled a gap in the Lake Ontario Waterfront Trail. The transitway carries streetcars in both directions, between vehicle traffic and the waterfront promenade. New boarding platforms were constructed at stations to allow easy, barrier-free boarding to new low-floor streetcars. New landscaped sidewalks on the north side of the street with significant green infrastructure, including connected tree pits, encourage more on-street activity and are attracting new businesses to the street. Along with the installation of high-quality furniture and a signature “wave deck” along the water, these design elements have transformed this important transit corridor into a marquee urban place.
Street design was focused on providing a space in which pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit have priority. Turns across the transitway are permitted only during protected phases from dedicated turn lanes. Where vehicle traffic crosses the transitway and pedestrian promenade, the intersection is raised to alert motorists that they are entering an active space, and must expect the presence of transit vehicles, people walking, and people bicycling. An optimized signal system was implemented at the same time as reconstruction, allowing active transit signal priority with extended green signal phases, pedestrian and bike signals, as well as audible warnings.
For motor vehicles, a primary source of delay before the project was curbside access and loading activity in travel lanes, now accommodated in periodic “lay-bys,” or pull-out spaces for short-term stopping and loading. Dedicated turn lanes, coordinated signal timing, and freight management have also simplified traffic operations in the corridor.
Outcomes
Since project completion in the summer of 2015, the corridor has seen almost immediate positive impacts. The Queens Quay Waterfront has hosted large-scale public events, bolstered local economic activity, and increased pedestrian and bicycle traffic. The new design is immensely popular among visitors and is successfully serving street users, especially those walking, bicycling, and taking transit.
The new Martin Goodman Trail bikeway sought to close a key gap in the bicycling network and provide a safe, low-stress, and fun place to ride. Before and after bicycle counts between 2007 and 2015 show a nearly nine-fold increase in people biking on Queens Quay. Average weekday bike counts show as many as 6,000 people biking the corridor each day, making it the highest volume corridor in Toronto.
The project team has continued to study and make small modifications to the street to address emergent issues. For example, cars were observed turning in some cases onto the transitway, which is already raised above street grade. Additional signs and markings were installed to guide motorists directly into the correct travel lanes. The team has also continued to study bicyclist movements and yielding behaviors, and has added blue bike boxes at signal-controlled locations, with pavement markings alerting people biking to yield to people walking.
The Queens Quay Boulevard reconstruction project shines as a demonstration of how Edgefront Street contexts can be prioritized for people walking, biking, and riding transit. Through sustained collaboration and bold thinking, Toronto has recaptured an auto-oriented street as a place for people.