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By downtowninhamilton (registered) | Posted June 02, 2012 at 08:41:08
I've been reading (and re-reading) this article and the comments since it was posted.
The pictures look great. It's nice to see trees, medians, parking, and people walking. But...
I don't think it would, or could work. That's not to say it shouldn't, but I forsee problems.
Turning a stretch of Main St into 2 way with 1 lane going either way just isn't feasible. It would cause a lot of backups and congestion. It would just make me avoid going through that part of the city - doing the exact opposite of the intention (slowing down, shopping, etc).
There's no turning lanes. As tim said, the backups from that, buses stopping, cars letting people out/picking people up, utility or emergency vehicles, would cause more slowdowns. And if there were resurfacing work, sewer work, it would essentially shut this strip down.
There's plenty of businesses along this stretch, but nothing I would ever shop at. Some places we stop at (we will walk from St. Joe's to Dairy Queen in the summer to get an ice cream treat or Tim's on a cold winter night), we may go to Wimpy's for a bite, we also walk to Select Video to pick up a movie or a game, sometimes I get my hair cut at First Choice in that same plaza - but there's a lot more I don't need (the gay bathouse, the multiple beauty salons, the convenience stores, the doctors/dentists, the women's clothing stores). Would I be more inclined to shop along this stretch if there were men's clothing, a shoe store, a hardware store, electronics store, or something else? I don't know.
One other thing. I know it's just an illustration, but what kind of trees would be getting planted? As you can see they already obscure the store names. Would they need to be cut down at some point for growing too large?
I get off the Main St E ramp during the week for work. It's a broken ramp. It's unsafe. Although never witnessing a collision here, I've seen the aftermath and many near-miss situations. I've had to do the NASCAR-style passing to get from the ramp over to Dundurn South before, although now I usually just work my way up to Locke and double-back along Charlton. I usually just stay in the leftmost lane until the incline, then gradually move over lane by lane until I get up to John.
So, after the long-windedness, it's nice to see people thinking out loud about what we can do with our streets and our city, but something along the lines of maybe, say, 3 lanes heading East, 2 heading West (or maybe even just 1 heading West) with bike lanes would be best.
PS - I was denounced on another post for talking about putting barriers up to keep pedestrians and bikes safe. This stretch here has just that but nobody is talking about the price tag of it!
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