Video of drivers ignoring King Street pilot has critic questioning police enforcement

Ataxi, then a black sedan, park in aTTC streetcar stop at King Street West and Peter Street.

A growling Maserati leads a stream of cars going straight through thatintersection, while at least two more vehicles make illegal left turns.

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Nearly every motorist in the one-minute-and-nine-second video is breaking the rules of the King Street pilot project, the city's high-profile attemptto improve streetcar service in the downtown core.

Not one driver, not even the driver filmed breaking the law right in front of a police cruiser,appears to get a ticket.

"Literally zero people obeying the rules. None," Pedro Marques, who recorded the videoand posted it on Twitter, says in the video.

Warning: At one point in the embedded video music plays that includes an explicit lyric.

Marques posted the video last Saturday night to criticize police enforcement of the pilot's rules.

"If nobody obeys the rules and the cops aren't enforcing the rules, we're going to end up back in the same gridlock," Marques told CBC Toronto.

When the city launched the pilotlast November, police staged a ticketing blitz that nettedthousands of dollars in fines. Butthe force seems to havebacked off from that level of enforcementsince then.

Officers can't enforce King rules 24/7, police say

Const. Clint Stibbe, spokesperson for Toronto police'straffic services division, said in an email to CBC Toronto that enforcement is occurringon King, but "officers cannot be there 24/7."

Stibbe admits there are problems on King Street, which faces"unique challenges," but saidthe problem is the same downtown as it is across the city.

"Violations like these occur on streets throughout the city, because drivers are not driving according to the rules," he said.

John Quarterly, driving on King Street Monday, criticized the pilot, calling it "all politics and no logic."

"This is insane. Nobody knows how to plan traffic flow inthis city," he told CBCToronto. "A kid could do better than this."

City data shows the pilot is providing benefits for commuters.

There's been a 16 per cent increase in ridership on King cars, while travel time has improved by four to five minutes during the evening commute in both directions.

Marques, a resident of King Street, said he supports the pilot but would like to see the rules for drivers be made "more intuitive," and enforcement be turned over to an agency other than Toronto police.

"Having streetcars be reliable again is great, Toronto needs reliable transit," Marquessaid. "But having cars basically disobeying the rules will put the project in peril."