Raise the Hammer

great piece Mahesh. I have been somewhat surprised at a few things in this whole discussion:

1. the very quick turnaround in which the BIA's submitted their response to the city after only being asked a month or two earlier what they thought of the plan.
2. the lack of publicized creative ideas/suggestions put forth in the BIA responses (they should be the last people on earth recommending splitting the line on King and Main and thereby ensuring that our one-way freeways remain forever)
3. the fact that this small piece of the IV has been spoken about so much considering it is simply one of a few options put forth in the transit study.
4. the fact that the downtown BIA had any objections to the King St LRT plan. it fits perfectly among the 4-5 lane King East. IV may have concerns about their narrow stretch, and rightfully so.

A couple of options that I've thought of would be:

1. have the LRT run in mixed traffic through the short stretch between Wellington and Catharine like in your photo shown above. The traffic signals at both Catharine and Wellington should be set so that the LRT has queue-jumping privileges into this short mixed traffic segment. I've heard people dismiss this idea because of the current level of traffic congestion through there would result in slowing down the trains. Remember, Main and King will be two-way. Anyone looking to just bomb through town in their car will NOT be doing it on King St anymore. The majority of traffic in the IV will be local traffic that actually wants to be there. Car addicted Hamiltonians will always find the quickest, shortest way to their destination and with the two-way conversion, those routes will included Cannon, Wilson and Main. Not King.

2. Another option is to leave King one-way westbound in this stretch with one car lane, one LRT lane and parking remaining. The other LRT line could use King William for this stretch.

3. Finally, LRT could be removed off of King altogether at this location and run along King William with a stop at Ferguson, before running back to King via Catharine and/or Mary.

There are plenty of options for LRT to exist in this neighbourhood and I agree with you that folks from the suburbs shouldn't be charged with making these decisions. How hard is it to think of a few alternatives such as the ones I've presented above. I'm not suggesting they are the best options. I'm sure other readers will have different ideas, but the point is, the public has only been told that the BIA's and one pawn shop owner don't want LRT on King. If the BIA's presented 20 pages of great alternatives, they need to get those ideas publicized. After all, they are the ones who will benefit the most from LRT (although I must state that I've never seen a study outlining the impacts of LRT on pawn shops, so I can't speak with authority on that issue).

Comment edited by administrator Ryan on 2010-01-25 08:32:58