Comment 48

By adrian (registered) | Posted None at

I agree that Hamilton ought to take initiative and be a leader, and I also believe promoting environmentally-friendly practices is important. But I think implementing your idea would have some pitfalls and some unintended consequences. Businesses that rely on drive-thrus to serve many customers would require more parking to serve the same number of customers without a drive-thru - I'm sure creating more and larger parking lots is not what you intended. It would also have significant costs for businesses beyond the expense of altering or removing the drive-thru structure - for example, businesses that rely on a drive-thru to serve many customers without a space for parking would suffer greatly if they were forced to remove it. Your comment about obesity is also a little misplaced, as your picture of the Bank of Montreal drive-thru shows. Since many of your concerns relate to pollution and noise, a ban on idling would probably accomplish a lot. As for the congestion on some city streets (the Tim Horton's at Wellington & King is another great example), I'm not really sure what could be done. If people were forced to park, it would probably be even worse. The real problem is really our dependence on cars, as a previous article here pointed out. But there's another initiative that Hamilton could take that also makes sense as the birthplace of Tim Horton's and it relates to many of the businesses that have drive-thrus: a tax on disposable containers, like the cardboard Tim Horton's cups you see littered all across the city. Why can't we move to a system of reusable containers, perhaps even install dishwashers in these places along with an exchange program for the cups?

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