Here are 3 different futures for King Street

Toronto city staff are looking for feedback from the public Monday evening on three proposals for the re-design of King Street in a pilot project that will see an overhaul of the arterial road from Bathurst Street to Jarvis or Parliament Streets.

All three designs focus on transit, dedicating lanes of traffic to streetcar flow."The overall objective here is toprioritizethe transit movement," said JenniferKeesmaat, the city'schiefplanner.

• 'Transit first' King Street redesign to be made public

"A lot of people, quite frankly, have given up on transit along this corridor,"Keesmaatsaid. "It's the most rapidlydensifyingarea of the entire country and yet the transit service is pretty compromised."

See the three proposed plans below.

Alternating Loops

In the alternating loop model streetcars are given priority, with separated lanes in the centre of the street for both eastbound and westbound streetcars.

It is referred to as an alternating loop because everyother block vehicle access is limited to local traffic, meaning delivery vehicles, taxis and people who work and live on the block. The alternating blocks will have full public access. No vehicles will be able to make a left hand turn, crossing the streetcar lanes.

In this model there is alsoextended "bump outs" on the sidewalk on the alternate side of the street being used for vehicle access, giving pedestrians more space.

Separated Lanes

As the title suggests, this design provides physically separated lanes for streetcars. This model keeps vehicles on King Street moving in both directions, but vehicles still won't be able to turn left and stopping curbside will be forbidden.

Unlike the alternating loop design, this model doesn't include additional space for pedestrians, instead keeping the sidewalk portion of King Street as it is now.

"This option means that you have servicing and loading happening right along the street side," said Keesmaat. "You no longer have street-side parking but you in fact, might run into a scenario where one car stops to drop someone off and all the other cars are stopped behind it because they don't have a way out."

Transit Promenade

With the transit promenade proposal, pedestrians would be given preference on the King Street corridorstretching from Bathurst Street to Jarvis or Parliament Streets.

"Imagine the sidewalk doubling," Keesmaat said.

It also includes accessible curbside boarding for streetcars at all stops along the street, and dedicated streetcar lanes, though they won't be physically separated.

Public consultation

Keesmaatsays the alternating loops model is her favoured option, addressing both pedestrian and transit needs.

Still,she says "all three options have merits."

Coun. Joe Cressysays all three options would make a big impact, something he says the city needs with some 900,000 people in the downtown area every day.

"It's not working for streetcars, it's not working for drivers and it's not working for pedestrians," Cressy said.

But, he says, he's concerned that the third option will mean drivers are backed up with just the one lane of vehicle traffic.

"You know what that's going to do, the minute a taxi pulls over to let someone off, it's going to back everything up for everyone," he said.

The city is hosting a public consultation session on the proposed changes to King Street Monday at Metro Hall from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.

You can also tweet feedback to the cityusing #KingStreetPilot.