Comment 80821

By Haruspex (anonymous) | Posted September 11, 2012 at 10:56:23

On August 13, Councillor McHattie planned to introduce a motion to “make the change from one-way to two-way traffic along the remaining 100-metre stretch of Stuart Street, north of Barton Street East,” then withdrew that motion. In the process, he struck a spark around a longstanding debate (crystallized in RTH’s First Principles but reinvigorated beginning with June’s “A New Vision For Main Street West” post, and subsequent essays about the shortcomings of existing implementation plans) that constitutes the “recent online surge in support for two-way streets,” And it was in the wake of that action that we saw the more ambitious motion, 18 days later.

I will not claim to know who was galvanizing whom. Neither will I claim to have no knowledge of the behind-the-scenes jousting and jockeying that went into this bill. I assume that both politicians went into this with eyes open. But it obviously ran up against the shoals.

IMHO, the most stinging contention that Dreschel puts forward is that there was provisional support for the motion, but that it was the perceived overreach of prioritizing Cannon and Queen that sank the issue. That was, I will assume, why the original Mary Street motion came forward so modestly.

Could two-way advocates have lived with a disciplined implementation commitment that would see 90% of the one-ways across the city converted within, say, two election cycles? What is the low-hanging fruit in this debate?

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