Raise the Hammer

Regarding the theoretical concept of bikes-only Sundays I suggested as a possibility, that's with Supercrawl-style barricades. That's not mingling at all, just modal sharing. Perhaps this is what Jim got confused by. Also the suggested pedestrianization of IV is just a tiny fraction (few blocks) and doesn't mingle LRT with pedestrians. And when I mention "mixed traffic" with LRT, that's cars sharing lanes with LRVs for just a few block section (ala TTC streetcar style). Would really slow things down for that few blocks, though, but it isn't mingling pedestrians with vehicles! Just because I advocate multi-use trails in tame corridors (like the waterfront, shared between pedestrians and bikes).

Only if sufficiently revitalized enough by then -- and creates more business (e.g. popular enough that businesses profit more) and there's sufficient Sunday diversion capacity. James St. N was very dead 20 years ago too. It's still a commercial artery but an obviously tamer one.

Obviously, such revitalization attempts can be problematic (e.g. Barton Village) and that's one of the goals of residents to prevent such. Today, both Main-King are in relative terrible shape business-wise relative to history norms, though early signs of promising revitalization potential is occuring already (like Vintage Roasters, The Kitchen Collective, Limin' Ridge, replacing vacant/shuttered shutterfronts or opening adjacent to them).

I (and my spouse, plus some volunteers) have talked to some of them about their opinion of the LRT, like Vintage Roasters, the newcoming businesses are looking forward to the LRT, while some established ones are more worried. We've even found that places like restaurants and coffeeshops were far less worried than, say, a bowling alley that relies on out-of-town bowling club members who need nearby parking. Two coffeeshops, including Vintage Roasters on King, were commenting they were planning to do a coffeecart to the tired construction workers (clever!).

They all like the idea of a James/Concession style revitalization (obviously, exact details are unknown, like how many trees, or how many extra signalled crosswalks are added, but similarities abound in wider sidewalks, sidewalk trees, curb bumpouts, more signalled pedestrian crossings, etc). The very thing you have on Concession Ave, on the mountain brow. There's only one traffic lane in each direction through Concession BIA.

If Jim is okay with what is essentially an enhanced variant of a James/Concession style revitalization (and with more crosswalks too) then I'm not sure we're disagreeing on much for specifically the LRT corridor? (even if we disagree on other things). Obviously, I'd want more sidewalk trees than there are on Concession, and find a way to fit bikes without too many compromises (e.g. renarrowing sidewalks, or making drivers even madder), but those are details, relatively speaking.

(...Certainly a cycle track topic will come up (on either Main or King) or enhanced connections to an upgraded Cannon cycle track, but this isn't a "mingling" disagreement as this is a modal separation...)

Keeping pedestrians and cars apart also means adding more safe crossings (more signalled crosswalks & clearer ones at them), and that's also what's being advocated in the LRT corridor. We can't 100% prevent jaywalkers, but we can do things to (1) encourage people to take crosswalks by adding more of them, and (2) reduce the death rate of those who don't. You can already see that instead of 4 traffic lanes, there's only 1 traffic lanes specifically in the specific section between downtown and Gage Park (I'm not talking about other parts of the LRT route, for the sake of this argument). So vehicle count AND vehicle speed is greatly reduced on this section of King (while still moving more total people, obviously, thanks to the LRT capacity) WHILE also simultaneously there are more crosswalks. So it becomes easier to walk around. Enforcement helps. Overall, the risk of a pedestrian accident goes down. Perhaps this is what you are attacking as "mingling", but read again -- people are encouraged to follow the law and take crosswalks. But we cannot be a police state and get a perfect zero-jaywalk record. (Incidentially: This is one element of partially what Vision Zero is about -- while not everyone agrees with all goals of Vision Zero, many residents and businesses here are agreeing on the taming aspect and revitalization aspects).

More legal signalled pedestrian crossings just like Concession BIA at the mountain brow.. I'd be surprised if you even disagree on that.

There are many crosstown arteries that some traffic management will be needed. There's Barton, Cannon, Main (east of Gage Park), King (west of Delta), and Wilson (east of Sherman). There isn't enough good pedestrian capacity anymore (sidewalks & ease of legal pedestrian crossings) like there used to be historically, and that is very bad, and the LRT is simply helping reinstall some of that separated pedestrian capacity again, even totally ignoring that mingling subtopic.

Unless it's your preference that King between Downtown and Gage remains a high speed multilane car throughfare with lights still synchronized to the cars rather than the LRVs, and often with sections of more than 500 meters between traffic lights for legal pedestrian crossings? That's where lots of the disagreements historically are often occuring, I think.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2016-01-12 14:55:08