Comment 28376

By tin can (anonymous) | Posted January 30, 2009 at 12:26:27

Doesn't TO use speed bumps to slow traffic on residential streets? Could do with some of that on my strip.

Strangely enough, when I drive throo Montreal, which is seldom, I don't find it difficult to get around, even on busy streets like St. Laurent, which is one-way, by the way, as is St. Urban. Montreal does have its wide central throughfares and expressways too, like Rene Levesque.

Montreal also has decent public transit. That too is essential to putting pedestrians on pavement. But when you actually want to do something "in" Montreal, it's best to walk or ride. Dragging two tons of metal around is work, not fun.

Parking's part of it. Too much available parking in downtown Hamilton, though you wouldn't know it listening to surburban drive-throos. When they talk about not-enough-parking they mean free parking, like at the mall, and forget the winter walk from the corner of the Limeridge lot. That's about as far as you'd have to walk from an available meter to the line-up outside Schwartz's on St. Laurent. The bus stop's closer, usually.

I have family in Montreal. For a while they lived within a block of St. Laurent. Great lifestyle, close to entertainment, work, outgoing people, but not for everyone. Suburban lifestyle can be good too, but it's not for everyone. Hamilton's biggest problem is that some want it to be all suburban, all the time. Downtown Business Ass. keeps talking about "bringing people down to shop." From the suburbs, they mean, and their intent is to make downtown more like a suburb, to attract people who don't live there and who state frequently they'd never go there. But downtown South Ont. is now Yonge St., Bloor St., Spadina etc. Cities like Hamilton have to focus on liveable communities for nearby residents.

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