.DON MILLS CROSSING TRANSPORTATION STUDY

Don Mills Crossing Transportation Study: Phase 1
and increasing delays for all street users. Flemingdon Park has one of the highest proportion of
pedestrian activities in the transportation area of influence, but overall lack of midblock crossing
and very long crossing distance create uncomfortable walking conditions.
Discontinuous facilities or circuitous road systems are responsible for longer walking distances
to access transit services or local commercial or activity centres despite the fact that the core
transportation area boundary radius is less than 800 metres around the Don Mills Road and
Eglinton Avenue East intersection. Despite existing poor conditions, the area has a high
potential to improve the share of active transportation as one of the ways to address local
vehicular congestion conditions.
4.6.3 Existing Pedestrian Conditions
For a pedestrian the quality of facility is critical to enticing them to walk or access transit. The
quality of pedestrian facility depends on distance of crossing, traffic volumes, speed, separation
between traffic lanes and sidewalk, size of sidewalk and other urban design elements that
makes walking comfortable. New method of estimating risk (Safety Indices developed by
Federal Highway Adimistration, USA) and level-of-service, LOS (Originally developed by
Charlotte NC to estimate Pedestrian LOS and later adopted by City of Ottawa and other cities)
were used to quantify the existing safety and quality of pedestrian facilities in the core study
area. Exhibit 4-26 summarizes the result of these analyses. Pedestrian on major arterials
experience very poor level-of-service (LOS E) due to poor street and built environment
described earlier. The majority of crossings require higher pedestrian priority to improve safety
conditions. The worst intersection is Don Mills Road and Eglinton Avenue East which requires
significant redesign of intersection geometry to improve pedestrian crossing conditions.
4.6.4 Future Potential Opportunities
Despite poor walking conditions, potential of converting short trips to walking and cycling is high
in the study area.
For instance, Exhibit 4-23 displays average distance travelled and speed by a typical person. If
comfortable facilities with acceptable level of service and complete street policies are applied for
active transportation users, the core transportation study area has the highest potential of
walking and cycling to reduce automobile dependency and provide healthier and affordable
choices for shorter trips.
Exhibit 4 - 23 – Typical Walking and Cycling Distance
City Planning, Transportation
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