Some King St. business owners are ramping up their fight against the pilot project aimed at improving transit service on the street. Al Carbone, owner of the Kit Kat Italian Bar and Grill, held a press conference across the street from his restaurant at King and John Sts. Monday morning to appeal to the public to support his push for ending the pilot immediately. The project is scheduled to last until December, after which council will decide whether to make it permanent. But Carbone and some other businesses owners say sales are down as a result of decreased car traffic, and they can’t afford to wait until the end of the year. “We’d like the mayor to reverse it immediately. It’s hurting too many businesses all at once,” said Carbone, who told reporters his revenue is down about 50 per cent.“We can’t afford to lose every day. They want to do a pilot project for a year, I’ll do a campaign for a year.” The city installed the pilot in November in order to improve travel times and reliability for streetcars on King, which is the TTC’s busiest surface route and one of its most congested. New traffic rules restrict drivers’ movements, forcing them to turn right off of King at most major intersections. The city has also removed all 180 on-street parking spaces in the project area, which runs between Bathurst and Jarvis Sts.Carbone, who last week provoked the ire of many transit riders by erecting an ice sculpture of a raised middle finger outside of his restaurant aimed at the pilot, claimed the project had “destroyed” King overnight and turned it into a “ghost town.”The tag line for Carbone’s campaign calls on the mayor to end the “King car ban.” However, cars are not banned from King. When a reporter pointed this out, Carbone acknowledged, “they’re not banned,” but said the pilot was not “friendly” to cars. Carbone was also challen ...
|
