Raise the Hammer

This is very true, but often very, very, very expensive to Complete Street a 1-way street (e.g. widening sidewalks, adding protected cycle track). An Amsterdamized 1-way Main Complete Street is possible, but would not easily be practical in our use case of needing to divert traffic off the King corridor (and current near-term Hamilton road design mentality).

Also Complete Streets is not always simple; it can also apply to a pair of parallel streets due to special considerations (e.g. the Main-King pair), e.g. wider sidewalks+cars on Main, and wider sidewalks+LRT+cycletrack(but no cars) on King.

In this concept, Main-King are considered as a single Complete Street with cycle track on only one of the two, and cars on the other. This scenario is not what probably will happen at first, but it's one of the many possible scenarios for our unique Main-King situation, too.

Simpler and cheaper to use new paint and signs to convert a 1-way to a 2-way street, complete with zebra crosswalks (and signalled pedestrian crossings in the long gaps between stoplights). Bumpouts can be added later. This is a much easier step-by-step progression to a Complete Street.

Yes, there is safety considerations. Right now, we have to race across between the car platoons which is simple for a seasoned person, but not something I would allow kids to do, especially when riding a scooter or bike. The habit of looking only one way before crossing streets, has put kids at risk on other 2-way streets and to cars exiting parking lots in the other direction, so we need to remove this habit as well, and provide enough zebra pedestrian crossings on a 2-way Main in the long gaps between stoplights. Punduts like to claim 1-way streets are safer because of this, but more of this is because there's fewer people plus very fast moving cars.

Converting a 1-way to a 2-way is a compromise. It doesn't Complete Street the street alone, by itself, but it makes it easier to gradually Complete Street cheaply, especially as cars start diverting via Barton or Burlington, or riding/LRTing/busing instead. We still have 5 defacto corridors (Burlingon, Barton, Wilson, Cannon, Main) even when eliminating most traffic lanes from King as in the LRT plan.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-12-10 13:00:16