Fred's been mayor less than 2 weeks and he's already showing more leadership than Bob did in 4 years.

thx Mr. McGreal

when will he complain about the cycling bridge over the QEW or that nobody except him has actually read the Rapid Ready report???

Seriously tho, great to hear even keel common sense from our mayor.

I'll bet Fred hasn't called and asked about All-Day-GO service though.

Seriously though, my cat shows more leadership than Mayor Bratina does. And he just sleeps all day.

Agree with everything Ryan just said. No to wonky scheduling, yes to an advanced-green-for-buses, and ecstatic to hear the Mayor showing some leadership.

restoring curbside parking and changing it to HOV are great ideas. Add a left turn signal into the macnab terminal and the bus lane will be almost perfect.

Which buses turn left from king onto james? can their routes be tweaked to avoid that turn altogether?

Or could an advance transit signal be executed at james to allow both left turning buses AND to allow macnab bound buses to go straight and then scoot across to the terminal all under one signal? It would suck to have to have two transit signals so close to each other.

I'd like to see the 2nd transit signal on James at Hunter. And the west curb lane of James be a bus-only lane from James to Hunter.

1 King makes that the turn to King (along with one or two mountain-bound buses). Should consider just sending them down through the McNab terminal's bypass lane…

Was just going to post that the left turn signal for buses should be at James, not MacNab. That kills two birds with one stone.

Agree with everything else - HOV, which includes cyclists, and moving the lane out from the north curb to allow parking back there.

Too bad nobody had suggested this sooner....

https://www.raisethehammer.org/article/1...

<> Mon - Fri 8am - 6pm Holidays Excepted

If cyclists were permitted to use the lane, wouldn't they get in the way of the other vehicles, especially if it becomes an HOV lane?

Comment edited by NortheastWind on 2014-12-12 20:44:23

I'm a cyclists and I tend to agree. While I think the super-wide regions of Main and King could easily accommodate a bike-lane, but I'd rather it be a pure bike-lane than making an HOV lane do double-duty for bikes - after all, the point is that the HOV give priority to the vehicles carrying the most passengers, it seems unfair to get the buses get stuck behind my slow-ass bike.

Of course, contingent on that I want to see a serious investment in making sure the side-roads surrounding King street are bike-friendly - Bay north of King, Hess North, Napier, King William, etc - make sure that bikes can comfortably travel in both directions on those roads without constant stops or danger.

Good point.
IF we re-paint the street we could accommodate a bike lane on the south curb.

7 foot parking lane on the north curb 10 foot bus lane Two 10 foot car lanes 5-7 foot bike lane on south curb

Complete Street done. Accommodating ALL users (which in Hamilton is considered anti-car communism)

Oooh, South-side bike-lane... I hadn't even thought of that. Would definitely keep the bikes out of the door zone of the parking lane. I like it. Although without the super-wide buffers of the York Boulevard bike lanes and without protection (we both know that's a non-starter) it definitely wouldn't be for the timid. Unfortunately it would probably end at Queen since the city would not accept less than 3 lanes east of Queen (truck route starts there), so you're basically driving past the mess o' driveways. I do wonder if the city would allow the bus-stop-lane to be only 7 feet wide... not technically a driving lane, but not really a full parking lane with bump-outs either since it's also the left-turning lane. But yes, a left-hand-bike-lane from Mary to Queen would be neat. West-of-Queen is probably a non-starter though because that's where the truck route begins and the city protects that like it's holy.

West of Queen would be no problem. Currently it's 2 lanes plus a bus lane, plus parking. We'd simply be moving parking back to north side and painting it a normal parking bay width instead of wasting a full 10 feet for parking. Cannon east of Victoria has proper painted parking areas.

Approaching Locke and from Locke to Dundurn we could either add parking onto the south curb as well, since an extra lane magically appears, or we could buffer the bike lanes through that stretch.

From James to Bay we could add bike symbols on the ground next to the street parking on the south side (so, yes door zone) Then from Bay to Dundurn have it in the south curb. A bike box at Dundurn gets riders to the north side.

Without the buffer we could still have knockdown sticks http://1p40p3gwj70rhpc423s8rzjaz.wpengin...

I think it's time for someone to start organizing HSR riders benefiting from the bus lane. Maybe a "Hey, I pay taxes too (and deserve convenient services)!!!" campaign would resonate.
Sadly, some of the most economically challenged (and maybe least likely to vote) riders may be paying a higher percent of their income in municipal fees than the drivers beside them. That doesn't seem to matter though. Chad seems to think no one without their own steering wheel does. Sad.

"I think it's time for someone to start organizing HSR riders benefiting from the bus lane."

Yup. It's time for those people who actually spend time daily on the HSR to be consulted. Right now, the only people in the discussion are a) the City, b) a paucity of merchants, c) lobbying entities such as the Chamber of Commerce, RTH urbanicity and d) those whose general anger has them tossing lit s&$t bombs in Comments sections.

At the risk of being shouted down because of my comparison, the general plight of regular HSR riders is akin to our poverty reality. The first has those with grand LRT schemes (regardless of their labels), the second, the 'poverty industry'.

The service resources being applied to the basic premise of a transit entity...moving people from Point A to Point B in a timely, humane and cost-effective way...are abysmal.

A great example: 7:45 on a weekday evening. A King bus departing the GO terminal is packed to the rafters before it even gets out of the downtown. (To be precise, two stops into its route.)

Why aren't these voices heard? Because they're too busy grinding out an existence to be able to advocate for themselves.

This is something that all LRT proponents need to grasp: the HSR reflects a particular range of demographics...and they're not the people who really care about what LRT is suggested to be capable of delivering...ten years down the line. (As a side point, take a look at the organizations pushing for their approach to transit: mostly educated, middle-class white guys. And no, I'm not going to apologize for this generalization. I'm using simple observational tools. You know, 'evidence-based thinking'.)

HSR riders need better service. (And here, I'm not even talking about 'expanded service'.) They need far more than they're getting presently...which has them being treated like cattle. They need more articulated buses. They need better frequency of buses.

Once again, as my father used to say, 'How can I trust you with the big things when you can't handle the little ones...?'

So true. Every decision we make in this city is based around the almighty car driver.

Great piece in the Spec today with excellent comments, common sense and proper concept of 21st century cities from the mayor, Sam Merulla, city staff and the new transportation boss.

Sam should step outside of Hamilton once in a while.

Has anyone actually asked the bus drivers for their opinion? I haven't read or heard any comments from them.

A good friend who is a bus driver loves it. Without the lane he says we'll be back to the good old days when he was late with the Delaware on a regular basis.

Apparently both St. Catharines and Brantford are lining up to get LRT too.

as is Burlington. Burlington is actually waiting for us to screw up our part in the Big Move (which we will of course because the big move is about transit, not more single occupant car highways) and they will propose to the ON government that they are part of the Hamilton area and deserve our portion of LRT funding so they can build the first LRT line in this area connecting their downtown with one of their GO Stations through many residential neighbourhoods.

And unlike Hamilton, they won't pay any attention to the 1970's club with their plethora of reasons why LRT can't work there. They'll build it and thrive. And we'll keep re-electing the 1970's club and having the most dangerous streets and biggest Code Red neighbourhoods in the province.

Whoa you're not kidding. I know Burlington is intensifying, has chosen to respect the Green Belt, and is therefore transitioning to building up instead of out. I also know that its Mayor and all Councilors were re-elected with a landslide 80-90%, a start contrast to most neighboring elections :)

Hamilton needs it far more. Don't screw up. But if it is ruined for you and we get it instead, sweet, I moved to the right city regardless. But seriously. Take it.

Comment edited by mikeonthemountain on 2014-12-13 23:29:13

Wow. If this goes through...I'm moving to Burlington.

Being late is a fault of whoever is designing the route, not the driver.

His alternatives are based on a premise that seems to have been missed here too. The report on the lanes will not be out until January. Cancelling or adjusting the lanes before the data is in is premature and it is less leadership then jockeying for dominance on the issue. Collins took it by publicly announcing he wanted to cancel them and Eisenberger pushed back with his alternatives. The right way would be to actually stick to the course they were on and not waste the time and money used on the study by making decisions before it is in. Discuss yes, decide? no. Hamilton does that too often and usually makes the wrong decision.

Collins wouldn't have made it public if he didn't have the votes to win.

Collins is going to win and set the tone with the old mayor and new councillors, as to how things really work and who wields the power at council. Eisenberger has made a political mistake for being on the wrong side of the first contentious issue to be introduced.

Everything old, is new again...

always makes the wrong decision.

Jason, is it tiring being so negative all the time?

@No It isn't tiring being negative. I am used to always being on the losing side.

Love how some councillors are already saying they'll vote to scrap the bus lane in January once the final report comes out.

The report could go on and on about how much more efficient it made transit along our busiest corridor, but these dinosaurs don't even care to hear what it says.

Also rich to hear from councillors way out in rural Flamborough near Cambridge how their residents are complaining about it. Get over yourselves. We're trying to build a city here. You don't mind everyone getting stuck behind your tractor on a country road. Surely you're fine with 1 lane of 5 being used to move the same number of people as the other lanes combined.

Comment edited by jason on 2014-12-16 22:17:39

It would be amazing if they restored north side parking and bumped the bus lane over.

However, it would also be pretty nice to make it an HOV lane and add a bike lane on the south side.

I think both are good ideas, it would be a shame to limit bikes on King though... Not just because I am a bike repair shop. Mainly because limiting bikes on our major down town streets just seems ridiculous.

I'm happy Fred is taking charge and I hope we can come up with a good compromise in time for spring. It would be so nice to see if everyone can use the lanes.

King could be more walkable if there was traffic calming and everyone shared the lanes. There is plenty of ways to get east and west in this city..... Just sayin.

PLEASE send in your thoughts to all of city council. They need to hear from folks like you who own a business along here. All they've heard from so far are the few businesses who relocated to Jackson Square.

There's a link here to send an email to 'all of city council at once.'

http://raisethehammer.org/council

We basically have one month to let them hear from the vast majority of citizens and businesses around here who do support transit and bike lanes, but have been too busy to send in their thoughts.