Raise the Hammer

Indeed. Thanks, Jason. I am not pro- or anti-bus lane. But I am definitely for informed and well-considered decision-making. Not waiting for the staff report, not exercising due diligence - knee-jerk, reactionary governance - might get our councillors elected again in 4 years, but it will not move us forward and build the foundation for a prosperous future.

bingo. That's exactly the priority for too many of them. Re-election. Not Hamilton. Term limits would be so nice.

Term limits would be so nice.

No, they would not be. Extremely undemocratic.

FYI, here's the map helpfully posted on a restaurant just around the corner from Jason's business (on King, just east of Catharine).

Jason's delivery staff and customers approaching from the east are compelled to needlessly circle seven-eighths of the King-John-King William - Catharine block in order to reach his shop. And when they leave, they're compelled to continue south on Catharine and circle back along King to get to John if they are heading north.

The one-way design of Catharine Street is completely unnecessary: the street is three lanes wide and the traffic on it could easily be accommodated in a single southbound lane. This one-way design needlessly increases traffic on King Street in precisely the area of greatest congestion.

Why is Chad Collins not agitating for two-way reversion of Catharine in order to improve traffic flow along King?

Exactly when did Munipical Councillor become a career anyway?

Historically this work was done out of civic duty by professionals on a part time basis hence the need for evening meetings etc.

What would the Resumes of Chad Collins, Tom Jackson or Terry Whitehead, to name three, list beyond their careers in politics. They have to ward heel. Screw Hamilton as a whole. They NEED to get re-elected. This is their job. Their career.

And your point being?

The issue is more of voter apathy, not lifer councillors. If the electorate continues to vote in the incumbent, and this is upsetting, you should work towards voter education and try to help boost turnout, understanding the issues, understanding the candidates, and so forth.

It's an easy target to blame the councillor. If the councillor is good, they should continue to get voted in, right? I know, I'm being a bit naive here but you get the point, I hope.

Get rid of the bus lane! Let's face the facts, it didn't work. The data supporting it in the first place was terrible. The "bus lane project" is actually giving the downtown core a bad name. We are trying to force people to take a bus by increasing congestion. It's not the right approach. Even with these dedicated lanes how much time do you really save on the bus?

I travel on the GO bus into Toronto all the time from downtown. This new bus lane has only saved me 2 minutes off my total trip into Toronto.

Its not worth the bad press. We need people form the outskirts to want to visit the Downtown on a regular basis.

Nobody thinks the bus-lane was well done. The only spot RTH readers disagree with council is that the Bus Lane could be *fixed*.

King Street can run fine on 2 lanes - there were parts that were 2 lanes *before* the bus lane.

The problem isn't the design of the bus lane, the problem is that city staff thought they could slap down some white paint and call it a day instead of doing the work of figuring out light timings and special signals to get traffic through the smaller space.

And ultimately, I think the MacNab Transit Terminal is a big part of the problem. The re-build should have never been in-place, it's always been a bad place for buses. The city could have bought any number of conveniently-located block-sized parking lots and kept the Mountain buses off of King.

I agree with the McNab thing. They could have left the buses on the south side of King. The buses turning on McNab appear to me to be the sole cause of the bottleneck between Catherine and James. I do not understand why they changed it except the discussions at the time about making Gore into a pedestrian Mall. But since the development of the south side of King is turtled, in hindsight that seems to have been a bad decision.

I drive down King west of Bay every day and there has been no appreciable deterioration of traffic between Bay and Dundurn when I drive there.

To me the problem isn't a bus lane, it's overall vision and piecemeal planning.

Comment edited by CharlesBall on 2014-12-12 11:23:08

Sure, it's nice when people from the outskirts visit downtown but what we truly need is more people LIVING downtown. And that means building streets that are comfortable to walk on and live beside. Which means fewer active vehicular lanes. Which means we need to provide alternatives to car travel. Which means transit lanes and bike infrastructure.

You're right. It's the fault of those who choose to live outside the core why the bus lanes are so bad.

When houses in the core have basements taller than 6 feet, have quiet, safe streets, polite and friendly neighbours, have all the amenities, maybe more people will come back. Expecting everyone to just move there because you want them to is a nice dream.

Since I sent this letter to council I have received 2 responses. A brief positive acknowledgement for the new Ward 1 councillor Aidan Johnson, and this:

The city had embarked on a citywide transportation study. I believe the experiences of the bus lane is data that would be useful feeding into the study. It is my opinion that a comprehensive approach to meeting our public and private transportation needs, should be completed before broader community consensus is established. LRT, Rapid Ready and bus lanes > are all components that should be incorporated into the study. An informed decision is a good > decision and that is why the scope of the study needs to be city wide.

Respectfully, Terry Whitehead

A bit disappointing because the last time I a wrote a transit themed letter I got a fantastic rambling response from Mayor Bratina that even mentioned the Big Dig, of all things, as something that could work for us. I regret not sharing this at the time.

yaaay, more studies.
In Hamilton, that's code for "an excuse to do jack-all for another 40 years".