Raise the Hammer

Couple of points...

1) You say that the reasons for businesses locating onto James and John aren't related to one to two way conversions... I drove those streets every day to get to work and noticed that under one way status, business sprung up and died frequently. What I've seen take place since then is a multitude of business spring up and stay. Also, I believe if you ask the business owners whether or not two way conversion has affected their business in any way you'll find a much more positive answer. It's all in how you word the question.

2) You cite studies from the 30s-60s...at that time vehicles weren't driving at the speed or volume that currently exists downtown.

3) If your prime directive is to facilitate vehicle traffic then of course the answer is to keep one way streets. Quite honestly, that's not what I nor many others want. I'd rather have much less vehicular traffic downtown. And - I don't care if your mountain residents are unable to jump in their cars and race downtown and back in 20 minutes. Tell them to take the bus! I don't drive thru their survey at 60+ km/h so why should you be allowed to drive through downtown residents' at that speed?

4) If you complain about the watermain repairs that you have to do in your ward, perhaps you should ask the TOE department what the state of the watermains and sewers downtown is. Then you'd find much less reason to complain! The watermains and sewers downtown are near or past their service life and need to be re-lined or replaced in the near future, the cost of which blows both your ward's watermain repairs and the downtown's two way conversions out of the water! Another thing you could try is make sure that the inspectors who are supposed to check the contractors' work as the project is being done know what they're looking for and make sure the repairs get done properly...that way you wouldn't have to worry about returning to repair areas that have been "fixed".

Just some ideas...