By John Sewell

We all know the problem. You side with what you think is a good cause, and then you find there are conditions that generally negate the good you were hoping to do.

That's the bind supporters of the reserved right-of-way for St. Clair Avenue West streetcars are now in. They are being asked to carry baggage that transit supporters usually have no use for, namely maintaining current levels of commuter car traffic on St. Clair West.

Maintaining two lanes of traffic for car commuters on St. Clair is one of the key recommendations approved last week, and it's the contortions needed to maintain those two lanes that cause all the trouble. As city officials revealed in the last month -- well after the year of public consultation had been completed -- to build the ROW and keep the two lanes of traffic, sidewalks on both sides of the street will have to be narrowed, and curbside parking must be removed during rush hours.

The sidewalk narrowing will occur at 26 intersections between Yonge and Keele, and according to my count, that's narrowing sidewalks at about two-thirds of all the intersections in that stretch of the street. It means cutting down street trees as well, but the number has not been calculated.

The objectors -- most merchants and many residents -- have complained about the impact of the ROW plan on sidewalks for months, but it's as though they weren't heard until the last moment. At the hearings last week the politicians jumped to attention and passed a strange motion "that the preservation of the current sidewalk width on St. Clair Avenue West be made a key guiding principle in the detailed design work."

They went even further in their embarrassment, and asked staff to refine the plan "to guarantee that ... no pedestrian space be reduced."

You can't have the ROW, the commuter traffic, and maintain the current sidewalk width -- there isn't enough space. Nevertheless, staff have been asked to present a plan at the three-day council meeting beginning on Sept. 28 showing how it can be done.

There's another embarrassment for those who think they're on the right side in supporting the ROW. City officials are clear that with the ROW and two lanes for commuting cars, it's impossible to make room for bike lanes. Opponents to the ROW had presented a plan that showed how there could be priority for streetcars and bike lanes if one forgot about serving commuting cars, but no one heard that until last week, when the politicians asked for a report on "the possibility of incorporating a bicycle lane on either the transit or vehicular Right of Ways."

Those are not solutions. Telling bikers to ride on the streetcar tracks is ludicrous -- it's hardly a way to have streetcars increase their speed. And as we know from Spadina Avenue, giving bikes the occasional 12 inches of space in a car lane is downright dangerous. There isn't enough room for the streetcar ROW, two commuter lanes, and bike lanes unless you narrow the sidewalks even more.

Those who have opposed the ROW are the ones who favour a solution that reduces commuter traffic and gives priority to transit and bikes. It makes sense. The car commuters don't add anything useful to the street. They don't shop there, and if the space for their cars is being maintained, there's no reason for them to take transit. It wasn't really clear until now, since these points only came into focus when the politicians realized that there weren't easy ways to deflect the objections, but the streetcar ROW doesn't offer anything to local residents or businesses. It may look good in principle, but in the real world it's not good enough.

There's another problem. The streetcar ROW is built on a false premise. The TTC argument has been that streetcars are unnecessarily delayed by cars on the tracks. But Richard Gilbert, a strong advocate of transit, a former Toronto councillor and currently a high-level consultant on urban issues including transit, has just filed his report testing the premise about delays. He did it riding the St. Clair streetcar with a stopwatch.

Gilbert's study found that traffic delays eat up about 5 per cent of the total trip time from Yonge to Keele, but traffic signals account for 16 per cent of the time, and loading and unloading passengers took up 21 per cent. He thinks the big gains in total trip time can be achieved by better traffic-light co-ordination and better loading and unloading strategies. He points out that the proposal to give left-turn cars advance green lights will slow down streetcars and probably negate any gains made otherwise.

Gilbert thinks the ROW proposal will damage the retail strips and urban fabric (that's the main argument of opponents like me) and he opposes it.

Will any of these arguments carry any weight come Sept. 28 when city council votes on the proposal? Probably not. There is extraordinary pressure being exerted by the TTC and others to get this ROW approved, and sadly, many councillors think that as a matter of principle they should be doing what the TTC wants rather than looking at the evidence, balancing out the interests, and acting reasonably.

John Sewell was mayor of Toronto from 1978-1980.