A car free King street downtown has not been ruled out by commissioners on the transit board.  TTC chair Karen Stintz put forward a motion yesterday, saying she believes the board needs to find out what a car free King Street would mean for the existing transit network as well as for area residents.  “In the past, the TTC has tried to propose a transit only corridor on certain areas and we found that unless we get the buy in of other stakeholders than those proposals aren’t successful.  So what we’ve done,” Stintz explains,  “is we’ve approved a motion that it go to the works committee in September, and the works committee will then make a decision on whether they think this proposal makes sense to proceed.”

The idea was revived by TTC CEO Andy Byford as a way of improving service on the King streetcars, which he says are the busiest in the entire transit network.  He says about 57,000 people take the King streetcar everyday.

A similar idea was proposed in 2007 by then TTC chair Adam Giambrone.  Mayor Rob Ford has voiced his opposition to the proposal saying his preference is for more subways.