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The statistics bear it out. Spadina is one of the slowest routes in the city with an average speed of about 10 km/h. According to É«É«À² Region Board of Trade data, it is also one of the least reliable routes in the entire system, with only 53 per cent of trips maintaining their scheduled separation from other streetcars.

Fortunately, Spadina is fixable. What’s more, unlike other projects in the city, improving the Spadina streetcar could be a real change to transit in downtown É«É«À² that won’t take years or billions of dollars.

The largest source of delay will be no surprise to Spadina streetcar riders: traffic signals. What might be more surprising to riders is that roughly half of the signals do operate with active Transit Signal Priority (TSP), which means the streetcars can adjust the signal timings to their advantage. As they should; a streetcar can carry up to 130 people. But the way things are operated today often means streetcars still wait longer than cars for a green light.

The good news: it can be easily fixed.

Currently, at minor intersections along Spadina, streetcars can extend green lights by up to 30 seconds. But at major intersections such as King, Queen, Dundas and College, the priority signal is not normally used at all. The lowest-hanging fruit would be to enable Spadina streetcars to extend those green lights as well, while also compensating cross-streets to avoid additional delays to intersecting streetcar and bus routes. The city already does this at a handful of other busy intersections to reduce impacts of signal priority.

One problem, though: Spadina is a wide road and the system has to give enough time for people to cross the street. Once a walk light starts, the system can’t do anything to make a green appear for the streetcar any sooner.

A solution might be found in Europe, where streets with tram lines are designed for pedestrians to cross the street in stages, and pedestrians can briefly wait safely on an island in the road median. These islands can be built on Spadina by taking advantage of the existing median, replacing left-turn lanes, or slightly redesigning the street where needed.

Another problem is that at most intersections along Spadina, where there is a dedicated left-turn signal for cars, cars go first even when a streetcar is waiting.

But left turns are a waste of precious green light. A 12-second left-turn phase might move a dozen cars. The same time given to through traffic moves hundreds of people on streetcars, in cars, on bikes, and on foot.

At major intersections like College, Dundas, Queen, and King, scrapping left-turn phases would speed up through traffic on both Spadina and the cross streets. Drivers still have options: make a U-turn at quieter intersections or Spadina Crescent, or simply go around the block.

If European cities can ban left turns on tram routes entirely, surely É«É«À² can do without a few.

The final major change Spadina needs is about how fast streetcars can move through intersections themselves Currently the TTC requires streetcars to stop at track switches, even on a green light, then proceed at 10 kilometres per hour. It’s in response to historical derailments that were related to the dated switch design. The speed restriction can be eliminated by adopting the modern control systems and switch designs used on virtually all trams around the world, which would save nearly half a minute per intersection.

But arguably the biggest improvement to service on Spadina doesn’t require any infrastructure at all: dispatching streetcars more evenly from terminals. Data analysis has shown that this is a particular pain points to be rectified.

The TTC can meaningfully improve service to riders on one of its busiest routes with minimal financial cost and in a very short time. We saw huge ridership gains with the King Street streetcar pilot. Spadina can be the next streetcar success story.