‘Poison pill amendment:' Councillor slams changes to King Street proposal
City council has voted to temporarily reopen a small portion of King Street to vehicular traffic while effectively killing a proposal from an east-end councillor to allow vehicles along a longer portion of the corridor.
Coun. Brad Bradford had proposed allowing vehicles to travel between Spadina and Church streets while construction on a nearby downtown intersection forced the rerouting of streetcars, calling it a 'common sense solution.'
However, during a meeting on Thursday city councillors voted 16-5 in favour of an amendment tabled by Mayor Olivia Chow that specified that personal vehicles would only be allowed to travel along the portion of the transit priority corridor where both streetcars and buses 'are not currently in service.'
That, in effect, means that vehicular traffic would only be allowed along a much smaller portion of the corridor between Yonge and Church streets.
The change will be in effect while watermain work results in the closure of the intersection at King and Church streets and the rerouting of streetcars.
That work is expected to be complete sometime later this summer.
In a message posted to social media following the vote, Bradford said that Toronto had a chance to 'relieve the gridlock choking east-west traffic downtown.'
Instead, he said that Chow moved a 'poison-pill amendment' that made his motion 'meaningless.'
He said that reopening King Street to traffic but only along a one-block stretch won't benefit drivers and wont help reduce Toronto's gridlock.
'Torontonians expect us to put their needs ahead of petty politics. And they deserve the truth,' he said. 'We should be solving problems and helping Torontonians go where they need to go.'
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