Raise the Hammer

Who is this 'Got it!' and when are they speaking in Hamilton next? Can't wait to see them in-person and luxuriate in their oratory skills...

swoon

Hess Street school is another one. Wow. A 5-lane truck freeway blasting past right out front. I'm not sure if the HWDSB remembers that Hess St is still open, but it's pretty sad to see the condition of the property and the dangerous streets surrounding it - Queen, Hess and York.

Well said. I think this type of involvement is needed to shake things up. Look at the sad state of cannon St. How is the two way conversion if that coming along?

I'm confused @HMstudio....whose well are you rattling in? And I'll say it before anyone else does...I must be one of the ignorant masses. However, I do know that busy streets, like one-way Cannon, make it difficult for business to thrive as well as endangering individuals when everyone is rushing to the next green light. Tanya, your article makes me want to go back in time...

I'm compelled to contribute this from the Ward 3 Residents' Association Facebook group discussion of this very topic:

As for slowing traffic down - it is a stupid idea. The children should be in school not on the street when school is operating. Before school and after school there are traffic jams because of students being picked up and let out, so there is no need for signage. It would slow cars down needlessly, causing more air pollution, thereby increasing the asthma and cancer rate. Do you really want that?

I think you have to weigh the risks involved in doing something like slowing the traffic down, when there are factors already lowering the speed limit. Compare the risk of the accident which you described with the risks of increasing asthma and cancer rates as well as the increase in road rage with the risk of such an accident occurring. By lowering the speed limit, you actually tempt dummies to race through and create stress in drivers who will eventually behave like the rivers in Toronto.

will eventually behave like the rivers in Toronto.

I guess that this is a reference to "Forests and Sands" by the Scottish band Camera Obscura, though I'm not sure I understand how it relates to traffic and school zones ...

"But if the blood pumping through my veins could freeze Like a river in Toronto then I'd be pleased"

Same old claims - we need faster (ie: larger, more subsidized and less regulated) roads to combat pollution caused by cars. Seems logical.

On a similar note, would any taxpayers be willing to double the size of my the Doors Pub, cover half the price of pints and hire a few more servers to cut down on wait time? Oughta cut down on drunkenness, right?

You should join the Beasley Neighbourhood Association which is actively working on turning the block around Dr.Davey school on Ferguson, Wilson and Cannon into a SCHOOL SAFETY ZONE. www.ourbeasley.com

I will get in touch with them, thanks. I only hesitate to do so because I live in Landsdale.

Tanya - great piece. Cannon is a grotesque and unsafe urban highway. The plan is to keep it that way. This, in spite of the fact that at least 3 schools are located at its curb. Hess, Sir John A., and Dr. Davey. If there are others, please add them. Two-way re-conversion is one of the simplest projects to implement, but it gets zero attention from Council and staff. School zone signs, flashing lights, crossing guards are not the answers, although they too should be implemented.

As I'm fond of asking, "What's your favourite one way street on the mountain?"

Right, there isn't one. And that's because?

East 31st

randonguy

Why is it your favourite? What's your second most favourite?

The city has made it repeatedly clear that they have no interest in making Cannon and Main 2-way... what I can't help but notice is that they also seem to have no interest in making those streets safe.

Look, there are many fast streets. I'd argue that the usual comments about streets on the mountain is kind of a red herring, because outside of rush-hour the traffic on Rymal or Garth is every bit as fast and scary as the traffic on Main and Cannon.

But you know what is different? What's next to the roads. Name me one high-speed street on the mountain that has the sidewalk directly adjacent to a live traffic lane, without even a grassy boulevard giving parents a moment to rescue their kid darting into the street. Where the ramps of the driveways occur in the same space parents are pushing strollers? There are parts of Cannon where it seems like businesses have their entire frontage sidewalk sloping into the road.

Urban highways happen just fine without one-way streets, it's just most of them aren't as obvious as our Main and Cannon with their one-way signs. But you know what doesn't happen in most urban highways? Pedestrians standing not three feet from traffic going at 50 kph. That, to me, is the big difference. Sidewalks next to a highway.

Many of Ontario's actual regional highways do have sidewalks... with a ditch separating them from traffic.

I mean, look at the 403 Bridge to Westdale - when it was built, it had a live traffic lane next to pedestrians. When the city put in bike lanes, they first tried little meaningless plastic bollards. Since then, the city has upgraded it to proper Jersey barriers. Now? That walking path is comparatively safe.

Of couse, we can't line all of Cannon with concrete barriers. It would make street-side parking impossible, for example, and coverage wouldn't be perfect anyways because of the aforementioned driveways. Also it would be prohibitively expensive.

So what can we do? We can slow traffic down, obviously. We could at least put some space between the live traffic and the pedestrians with more parking lanes and bike lanes. We could take out a lane of traffic and add some grassed boulevards like occurs on every high-speed street in the suburbs. We could do something instead of just having a sidewalk next to a highway.

Walking on Main, King, or Cannon is never a pleasant thing.  I suggested to the previous Ward 2 councillor that a  cost effective way to make walking on these streets (I was specifically referring to Main St but I think it would apply elsewhere) would be this: Allow parking on one side of the street at all times (yes, even during rush hour) except overnight for street cleaning;  when there wouldn't be a lot of pedestrian or vehicular traffic anyway.  This would create a "buffer zone" where a pedestrian would get some isolation from the rushing traffic.  In my opinion, even during rush hour, this would not cause undue hardship to the motoring public.  (To prove my point, the other day there was a collision at Main and Wellington at 5:30 pm.  All but one eastbound lane was obstructed by emergency vehicles etc. and yet the traffic wasn't even backed up to Ferguson.) I received a reply saying he would pass it on to the traffic department which led me to believe that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. To make a long story short, this a quote in response to my suggestion. "The matter of traffic calming on Main Street is more complex than simply closing down a lane.  Our Traffic Engineers have to deal with road capacities and traffic volumes.  Rush hour in large Cities is always problematic, and often solutions that seem simple are in fact not.

Finally, the volume of messages received by my office makes it impossible to be immediately and thoroughly responsive, which is regrettable."

Nowhere in that response did it give any mention of concern about pedestrians. I love the 2 way conversions that have taken place and from what I've witnessed, I don't think that traffic has been severely impacted.  The pedestrian experience however has improved considerably.  I want to believe that eventually all of our downtown streets will be converted to 2 way. Ah but I think I'm dreaming in technicolor.

"Walking on Main, King, or Cannon is never a pleasant thing."

I walk King and Main on almost a daily basis and don't have any problems.

How often are you walking these streets?

Still not convinced that it's the Indy 500 on one-ways. 2-way streets are not the silver bullet everyone thinks they are. Haven't seen John, James South or Wilson/York turn into happening places as a result. In fact on Wilson I hardly ever see cars going from east to west. Guess it's because they all parked and are walking around, right?

How about this.. James North & John North: These two-way reversions were performed with equal lanes given to each travel direction, and street parking was increased. What do we see here? Businesses flourishing.

Locke: Once a speedway, we calmed the traffic and added street parking and what happened? They became comfortable pedestrian spaces and businesses flourished.

Have you looked closely at James and John south? And Wilson? Why do they still suck? Because the conversions were barely conversions at all. All of them still have more lanes going in the "old" direction than they do in the "new" direction. And none of them has ANY street parking. In other words, they still act as one way thoroughfares.

You are right - it's not just about the direction of travel. As the original commenter pointed out, it's about calming the traffic and creating a buffer. Bike lanes, parked cars and wider sidewalks are more important that travel direction - but travel direction DOES help. Two way streets also help people to reach their destinations without backtracking and doing unnecessary loops.

Comment edited by seancb on 2012-02-07 10:42:39

Living right off of John South, I can say this:

• The 2-lane conversion here is not helping anything retail-related. We aren't flourishing here.
• Of course there's more lanes going north than south since that's how the Jolley Cut and John used to be. In most areas it's 3 lanes wide. How would you fix this? Remove a lane for the people heading to St. Joes, the courthouse, TH&B, downtown, the east end, the west end? Make 2 lanes going south to get out of the core and up the mountain?
• There is street parking everywhere off of John and James. Forest, Young, Catherine, Agusta, St. Joseph, Walnut... they all have bumper to bumper parking. Further to this, there's really no need, on John anyway, for street parking. What do you need to go to - the gas station? The tattoo parlour? The mental health building? the building for metaphysical research? the garages? the convenience stores?

James, on the other hand, has lots of business. But again, there's plenty of side-street parking and parking lots to use instead.

Sorry, but I disagree with your post. Most of the "sucking" 2-way conversions aren't due to the way it was done or the outcome - it's because there isn't anything there that people need to go to.

The street parking serves not only as parking but as a buffer zone to make it more comfortable to walk on the sidewalk. If the street is designed to move cars quickly, and the sidewalk is terrifyingly close to this traffic, then people will tend not to walk there. And people visit businesses on foot. Cars don't shop.

You could have framed your question the same way in regards to Locke and James North back before their renaissances - why would we put stop signs and street parking there when there are no businesses to visit anyways? Well - we did it and the businesses moved in. Ryan did a nice brief write up on Locke history here.

If we have no businesses and services, shouldn't we be asking what we can do to change it? Rather than designing to support the current state?

As for James and John South, these are my thoughts...

1. The Jolley Cut. Do we need two downbound lanes? The speed limit is 50 - how many vehicles go slower than that? Why does anyone need to be passing people? The cut should have much wider sidewalks, bike lanes, and a buffer between people and cars so that it's comfortable to use it as a pedestrian/cyclist friendly access. There would still be plenty of room for two upbound lanes (so no one gets stuck behind a climbing bus) and one downbound lane. I wrote about this here.

2. John South. Two lanes in each direction from st. joseph's drive to Young Street. A pedestrian light at Augusta. Two lanes in each direction with on street parking (off peak hours only) from young to King. We already have this north of King.

3. James South. Two lanes in each direction for the length of it, with on street parking wherever there are businesses (I suppose Bold to Charlton). We could take one side of parking away for each rush hour.

Simple enough - and it would have great benefits to the streets. If you live in the area you know what it's like to try to walk across John at Augusta. It's ludicrous... the street is built to encourage speed and that's what we get. Despite my consciousness of what it's like to walk and bike around there, when I'm behind the wheel I also go too fast (not over the limit, but too fast for the comfort of pedestrians nearby) because it's hard not to when the street is designed to support speed so well.

Some might cry that there will be traffic mayhem - just like when the two way conversion was planned. But there wouldn't be. The intersections would be simplified. But most importantly, the traffic volume would not stay fixed. If John was a little bit slower, some people would use claremont instead (a grossly overbuilt and underutilized access that is wider than the 403 in some parts), and some people would use the Linc. And those of us who actually live in corktown will no longer be bending over backward to give way to the people who simply drive through our neighbourhood. Aren't you sick of catering to them at our cost?

I think people aren't driving west on Wilson because Cannon is still a huge westbound highway! Why didn't they convert both streets at the same time?

PS I drive west on Wilson. Sometimes.

Closing down lanes is impossible due to the absolute chaos that would ensue.

Look at trying to get in or out of West Hamilton now that the two 403 bridges have been half out of service since summer.

Heck, if I need to go to the bank I leave the night before and don't make it back till dinner time the next day!

Imagine, closing lanes on Main and King. Flat out impossible.

Seriously! Plus, they had the right lane of King closed near victoria park and the left lane near hess for months and I for one got sick and tired of being stuck in gridlock all the way from hess to catherine every evening while 3 people try to merge. I was consistently 1.5 minutes late for my tv shows every night!

To Tanya Ritchie, If you are so concerned about the traffic in front of your child's school to the point that you feel compelled to write an article about it, then it confuses me why you would hesitate to accept the invitation to join the Beasley neighbourhoods campaign to make a school safety zone in and around Dr. Davey on the grounds that you reside in the Landsdale neighbourhood. I would think that contributing to their efforts would solve your issue with children's safety and that what they are trying to do directly impacts you. We have to stop letting neighbourhood boundaries regulate how much effort we should put forth in solving a problem that is obviously city wide. I'm sure the Beasley neighbourhood association would love to have you as an active member since you seem to be knowledgeable in the area of neighbourhood improvements. From what I hear the Beasley Neighbourhood Assoc is doing a great job!

Thanks for your encouragement. I'll push aside my insecurities and power on!

These arguments kind of fail when you look at the failure of Barton Street. Something bigger than just traffic has to happen. When you ghettoize a nehgboorhood like Ward 2/3 filled with new immigrants and the poor it fails. Nothing at all to do with 2way streets.\