Comment 52097

By adrian (registered) | Posted November 23, 2010 at 22:39:07

This crossing point is heavily used by pedestrians, but is dangerous due to the high speed traffic moving up one-way Hunter street from the light at James.

You're absolutely correct that this is a dangerous location. The speed limit here is 40 km/hr but many vehicles - I believe most, but I don't have the data - average 60 km/hr up Hunter past City Hall. The posted limit of 40 seems to be because of the large number of pedestrians crossing here, but I have never, ever seen it enforced, and I have driven and walked this route literally hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of times.

To make the situation more dangerous, the angle of the street, and the plateau at the top, tends to cut off the view of pedestrians crossing at the top of the hill. Only a matter of time before someone is seriously injured or killed here, if they have not been already.

The Kent situation is absurd.

I would really love to see Hamilton adopt some of the policies that work so well in other cities. In this case, Rome is an excellent example. There, if pedestrians are crossing at an unsignaled (unsignalized?) crosswalk, cars are required to stop. All you have to do to make the cars stop is take a step onto the crosswalk. It's brilliant!

Of course, though that may work well in a large and densely populated (and trafficked) city like Rome, here in Hamilton, it probably wouldn't - we're exceptional.

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