“Is it happening?” asks a middle aged woman of touristic persuasion. This question is immediately followed by a twitter of delight exclaiming, “Oh yes, there they go; right through the middle.”
It seems that the newest attraction at Toronto’s ever-changing intersection of Yonge and Dundas is the intersection itself. As of Thursday morning, the Times Square meets Piccadilly Circus appearance of our city’s busiest crossroads can claim one more famous likeness with the addition of a Shibuya-styled pedestrian scramble. For 28 seconds of every traffic light sequence pedestrians can pretend they’re ScarJo in Tokyo and cross the intersection whichever way they feel. But this isn’t just a clever ploy to attract more people to Yonge and Dundas Square and the new AMC theatre, it’s part of the city’s initiative to ensure, as councillor-on-hand Kyle Rae explained to a gaggle of TV cameras and microphones, “Pedestrians come first.”
Watching the intersection for a while before the press conference begins, it’s pretty clear that in this section of the city anyway, pedestrians rule. Not only can they cross during every light sequence — with the north-south and east-west traffic as well as with their own scramble sequence — traffic is restricted to driving straight through in each direction as both right and left turns are prohibited. Theoretically, the restrictions for cars and relative freedom for pedestrians means traffic shouldn’t be a concern for anyone on foot.
With this kind of people-conscious initiative, maybe it’s time to adopt a new terminology for crossing the street. In this case, it seems that traffic is crossing the sidewalk. After all, as the city’s public works chair Glenn De Baeremaeker explains, “The reality in this intersection and many intersections in downtown Toronto is that there are more people than cars. For every car that goes through the intersection, 10 people go through. It makes sense for intersections like this to give pedestrians priority to cross the street.”
Scramble intersections, or pedestrian priority as they’re less excitingly called, are nothing new. Japan has something like 300 of them to help manage that country’s super-populated downtowns, while Los Angeles had a few in the late 1950s. Closer to home, Montreal and Calgary have made use of them in recent years. It’s not entirely new to Toronto either. There was a trial scramble at Bay and Richmond in 1953, as detailed in a recent Torontoist post.
Still, the long history of this innovative intersection doesn’t preclude a certain amount of confusion. There were a number of police officers on hand to answer questions and keep the peace as time-tested urban behaviour was turned upside down. The city even brought in people serving as demo crossers to draw crowds into the new territory like so many lemmings. But all the attention to making the public aware of the new situation still didn’t prevent a van from getting caught up in middle of the intersection just as Rae and the other officials made their ceremonial crossing.
While the pedestrian priority designation sounds like a welcome phrase for public space activists and groups like Streets Are for People, De Baeremaeker concedes that it is not intended to be anti-car. “The better and easier we make it for the public to get out of their cars and walk to go shopping … or walk to get to work means there are fewer cars on the road jamming them up,” he says addressing the small crowd in front of the Eaton Centre.
As for the intersection itself, it will be even more beneficial for cars in the three other proposed areas (Bay and Dundas; Yonge and Bloor; and Bay and Front) where they are actually allowed to turn right. When pedestrians get their own chance to cross the street while all traffic waits, obviously there is far less chance of anyone being hit by a car. When cars have their own opportunity to make right-hand turns without trying to navigate through a steady stream of pedestrians, there is no opportunity for them to take stupid chances or risk close calls with people darting out to beat the light.
Theoretically, this should also benefit cyclists as there would be no need for cars to obstruct bike lanes or those precious inches between traffic and curb as they wait for a chance to turn right. I mean it’s frustrating enough dodging right hooks, but I can’t count how many times I’ve either had to unnecessarily navigate out of the bike lane or wait though a light while someone attempts to redirect their vehicle by 90 degrees.
But maybe Rae is correct in his insistence that the intersection is more about making drivers aware of pedestrians. Whether or not the additional traffic signal improves vehicle and pedestrian mobility, those 28 seconds are a rare moment where drivers and walkers have no choice but to consider each other’s existence.