Comment 29709

By Urban Guy (anonymous) | Posted March 25, 2009 at 10:50:13

Though I am in favour of looking carefully at the usefulness of the "naked street" concept for certain parts of Hamilton, I want to express concern about the "throw away" comment by Jason in his comment above regarding closing Hess Street to traffic.
On the surface it may appeal to some for reasons they believe in. On the other hand, focussing too much on a small area and effect a "small" change there can have VERY serious consequences elsewhere. The closure of Hess Street at Hess Village is a case in point. Its closure would have serious impact for vehicular movement and possibly incrementally further degrade the air quality in the lower city and compound congestion.
Refer to a street map of Hamilton. Observe the street pattern, particularly the one way streets. Hess Street is the only north bound street between Locke Street on the west and Bay Street on the east which has traffic controls for crossing Main Street and extends north to King Street. That's a long way!
If you live in the Durand neighbourhood (bounded by Main, James, the Mountain and Queen Streets) your movement if wanting to go west is severely compromised. Extensive detours east to Bay, or winding through narrow residential streets south of Main to get to Locke, are not only time-consuming, but also mean using more fuel to go farther and travelling along narrow streets where children play increases the danger and pollution in this residential area.
So, if changes are to be made to Hess Street between Main and King, changes also have to be made in the traffic flow and control in a much wider area. This situation will be further exacerbated when proposed development occurs on the Bay at the foot of Hess Street.

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