Transit pilot taking toll, say King St. business owners
With foot traffic low due to chilly weather, and new rules restricting vehicle traffic on King St., some businesses say they are feeling a strain.

TheStar.com
Nov. 26, 2017
Alex McKeen

Two weeks into the King St. transit pilot, some businesses on the main Entertainment District artery say they are starting to feel a strain from the lack of private vehicle traffic on the road between Bathurst and Jarvis.

“The whole neighbourhood has suffocated,” said Laleh Larijani of the bakery Forno Cultura. “We can have transit solutions that don’t impact businesses so much.”

The one-year pilot, which began November 12, aims to ease travel for streetcar riders on the city’s most congested route by restricting through-traffic of private vehicles.

Taxis are allowed to travel through intersections between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m., but ride-sharing services like Uber and Lyft are not.

Larijani said her business has had between 50-100 fewer customers each day since the beginning of the pilot, with a drop in sales of about 20 per cent.

“The truth is that at this rate our business that has been growing with be out of business within a year,” she said.

With enforcement of the pilot rules by Toronto police in place, some transit users are noting a smoother commute via the King streetcar.

Larijani and some fellow business owners said this improvement to transit has come at the cost of threatening their operations — and the vibrancy of King St. in turn.

“Our sales dropped when it comes to Uber (Eats) and the delivery services,” said Dan Gunam, owner of the restaurant Calii Love at King and Blue Jays Way. “The majority of restaurants on King West, they suffer,” he said.

In the meantime though, especially as the weather cools, Gunam fears business will slow as fewer people will be able to drive directly on King and park there.

“Toronto is driven on the weekends by people coming in from outside the city,” he said. “If they can’t find parking it becomes a headache.”

Gunam said he thinks businesses would have had an easier time with the pilot had it been introduced in the summer, giving customers some time to get used to the rules while the weather still permitted walking.

Kate Carisse, manager at the King St. location of Waxon wax bar agreed that the summer would have been a better time to introduce the new rules. Still, her business hasn’t suffered much in the last two weeks.

“The first couple of days for sure there were no-shows,” said Carisse, whose business centres around appointments. “People were confused about where to park.”

Now business seems to have settled, Carisse said, and the streetcars are great for her own commute to work. “Getting home is quicker,” she said.

Larijani said food and beverage businesses, which comprise much of the pilot area, are particularly susceptible to the change.

“In the food and beverage industry after a few months of losses you have to close,” she said.

Though Larijani welcomes improvement to transit within the city, she thinks business owners on King St. weren’t adequately consulted about the pilot’s parameters. Running the pilot during rush hour only, she said, would have been one option that business owners may have found more palatable.

She wrote to the mayor and city council last week, and she’s cautiously optimistic that the mayor will be willing to sit down to hear business owners out.

The Forno Cultura team plans to canvas neighbouring businesses starting Monday to build up a “unified voice” in the absence of a King St. Business Improvement Area.