Raise the Hammer

why is Council so reluctant to give all our lower city streets a chance to succeed?

You havn't figured that one out yet ... They are scared it might take 5 minutes extra to get to work.

Drivers have more votes than developers.

Cop out!

I drive pretty much everywhere. I want two conversion now!

There would be the inevitable loud complaints. But seriously, how many people would do more than grumble a bit and adapt? How many would even grumble about it?

exactly. It would literally add perhaps 2-5 minutes on a complete cross town trip...which, by the way, is already quicker via the Linc/Red Hill or Burlington St. People are creatures of habit. Add 4 minutes to their Main St route and they'll suddenly wonder why they haven't been using the Linc or Burlington St all this time. Get on with it.

so what?? Someone who lives in the Annex in TO gets off the Gardiner or 427 or whatever, and drives there. I missed the memo that stated it's now a human right to have a cloverleaf freeway ramp in front of every single house.

If you live at Mohawk and Garth how do you get there? If you live at Rymal and Upper Ottawa how do you get there? If you live at Main and Cootes how do you get there?

You get off your closest freeway and you DRIVE there....on a two-way street in all of these cases. Somehow the world hasn't come to an end because someone living at Main and Cootes doesn't have a direct freeway ramp to the 403.

Comment edited by jason on 2012-07-06 15:11:32

Nobody asked for a freeway. You are inventing a crises that doesn't exist

Sorry but why is this even a problem? Take whatever street you want to go west. Take Barton. Cannon. Wilson/York. King. Main. Jackson. Hunter. Burlington St E to the QE for all I care. This is a pretend crisis that in no way shape or form justifies killing downtown streets so you don't have to lie awake nights wondering how you're going to go west on Burlington St.

PS congrats on learning how to spell "continuous".

I liked the name so I took it. Might as well spell it correctly. Besides if you live in central Hamilton you are local traffic and you are allowed to drive on streets you pay for

Anything west of Burlington's effective terminus at Wellington/Victoria is like a 4KM drive from the King/Main bridge QEW/403 ramps. That's hardly an odiously long journey to drive on 2-way traffic. Even if traffic crawls along at only 20km/h, that's a worst-case scenario of a 12-minute drive from the expressway to your destination, and that's assuming you've decided to always use the 403 to get to these western destinations and ever take Burlington Street to get to stuff that's more easily accessible from there.

The comment was made that Burlington could be used as an alternate to Cannon not that it might be slower. Please try to be honest when you troll me. I never said it was better or worse to use Burlington but the argument made was that it was a faster alternative when in fact it isn't an alternative at all

Squeaky Wheel + Development Charges + Jobs + Expanded Tax Base = Two-Way Grease. The equation is theoretical on a website, but quantifiable in real time on a construction site.

That and the city is cash-strapped and is probably unable to enact a larger campaign of two-way conversions. Hence the sad little simulacra, like a remedial pedestrian piazza that will replace metered parking with food trucks and allow banks to open the patios they've been unjustly denied for so long. The City has always been big on fast-tracking half measures.

Morelli says it might be doable eh? Well he won't get Ferguson on side because we've spent enough on the downtown in his view. I hope I'm wrong but I don't hold a lot of hope that Morelli will champion this or any other cause.

Oh, I think he'll champion it for the right kind of supporter or the right kind of support.

But championing things requires effort, commitment, and political capital. Not things that Morelli is noted for, no matter how much support is involved.