Raise the Hammer

It would be good if we could, but even a billion dollars from the province doesn't seem to convince many people here that we need to lessen the grip of automobility on our City.

With regard to the LRT "debate" it has become a sad reality that the NoLRT lobby has been successful in shifting the discussion away from connectivity and shaping the form and geography of growth to improve livability for the many into a narrow discussion of "economic benefits" derived mainly from land development, the jobs tied to it, and rising real estate values. I'm not dismissing the need for assessment growth to strength our tax base, especially if it comes from efficient, compact, infill development and sensitive redevelopment along the corridor. But fighting a bitter fight to win sometimes causes people to lose sight of the real challenges to overcome for long-term success, especially if the benefits are to be felt broadly and inclusively ...

We're losing sight of the big picture and part of that comes from trying to appease entrenched lifestyles and habits. You can't improve transit connectivity and maintain road capacity and privilege easy and convenient automobility thru the core. So yes, doing something about the one-way expressways thru downtown makes sense. The proposal to make Main Street two-way as part of this made sense, except to people who want to maintain the green-wave, which only exists thru inner-city neighbourhoods. It ends at Gage Park in the East and at Westdale High School in the West.

The irony when driving during the day is you can whip thru most of the City for the most part and then hit congestion at the edges. Why? because you can't really do the green-wave with two-way traffic. Until we break through that barrier in the mainstream of Hamilton thinking and priorities we are doomed to our one-way expressways and all that comes with that: 4 and 5 lanes of traffic rushing in packs and exceeding 60km/h when needing to change multiple lanes to make right or left turns, etc.

The middle-ground, for now and not that i particularly like it, is a road diet that leaves key east-west arterials one-way to maintain the green wave, but reduces the number of lanes and creates wider sidewalks and/or dedicated bike tracks. But we need to kept pressing on the core and surrounding inner city as part of holistic shift in thinking about how the City should function and why people might want to live and spend time in the places along the extended corridor of the B-line, which is in effect most of the older, lower city.

Comment edited by RobF on 2017-04-08 11:50:15