Raise the Hammer

And Jim...

Before you respond, let me point out, I don't mean the silly notion of all streets in the entire grid from Windsor to Quebec City becoming Amsterdam/pedestrianized or whatever -- even German have their revered Autobahns and there are freeways through Netherlands. People still die from traffic deaths, yes, but far lower over there than here.

But let's point out the dramatic Complete Streets related elements already part of the 2011 LRT submissions, with several pages of the submission showing wider sidewalks, curb bumpouts, sidewalk trees, annd in some parts of King, only 1 car traffic lane. This is a great opportunity to install a safer throughfare. Let's consider Gage Park and Hamilton Downtown are only 30 minutes walk apart, yet most prefer hopping into the car because it's so car-optimized a corridor. This will over time, rebalance the modal mix along this route.

The LRT plan PDFs are very slow loading (they are very "blueprinty") but almost shocking of a change. (example screenshot1, example screenshot2, both with "widen sidewalk to 2.5m" notes in them). This is quite an adjustment, but also a great opportunity to make the corridor safer for all modes of transportation.

See, the templates slides, already designed, show that the LRT is one of the biggest street re-taming project in Hamilton ever -- I do not advocate jaywalking on the LRT route though. People will have to cross to get to the LRT stations too, and cross at many points halfway between stoplights, so there will be a lot more crosswalks (And we'd advocate for clear zebra ones + crosswalk signal).

Ultimately, King isn't going to be a high-speed throughfare anymore, with LRT-prioritized signalling and extra crosswalks, and that finally re-inserts a pretty safe crosstown corridor all the way between downtown and Gage Park, and a good recipie for business revitalization & re-pedestrianizing a revitalized King/Main corridors, especially with population re-densification downtown, etc.

But let face it, people will always jaywalk. But it only take a few braincells to stare at the 2011 LRT plan diagrams (which most are being reused, with some updates) and realize that cars are going to move much more slowly in the LRT corridor if those plans are followed, especially considering the wider sidewalks.

It's really not rocket science. There are many ways to improve Hamilton from many POVs, and heck some people think LRT is a downgrade for them (especially if they own a car) -- 6-lane RHVP (an improvement to many, an abomination to others) is technically/theoretically an independent change than the King corridor between Downtown and Gage Park. I've generally avoided getting into that controversy.

The LRT advocacy is unavoidably linked to corridor revitalizations due to the virtue of the 2011 plans, as you can see from the screenshots of the LRT plans.

It will really, really, really slow down my car, which I often speed to the 403 onramp to the Aldershot GO station. But with allday GO and allday LRT< I don't need to take the car anymore. And with more businesses reopening with a nicer pedestrianized corridor already marked into the 2011 LRT plan diagrams, it's a fair trade for a revital.

Hey -- I'm not stepping on RHVP, nor many other aspects of Hamilton you might defend -- I'm just defending the LRT corridor and one of our advocacy's objectives is to not let the 2011 plans get watered down -- and rather, advocate to enhance it where appropriate.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2016-01-11 11:42:55