Raise the Hammer

Well much as I don't agree with a word of this, I hope you can keep saying it and hope that people can tolerate the different point of view.

A few points.

There is a lot to bring people downtown - there is the market and main library for one, which you even talk about in your post! There is dining with a variety and quality that simply isn't available anywhere else in the city, there is the AGH (and the private galleries), Copps, Hamilton Place and the convention centres. There is City Hall, both YM and YW (I suppose there's always the mountain or Flamborough Y, but for most people that's more of a trek than downtown). Those are many of the reasons I come east to downtown at least once a week. Let alone that I used to come downtown five days a week to work! Lots of people still work downtown and we all hope that the number will continue to increase. For employers it's the most convenient place to locate.

Most of the people I know who don't go downtown often, don't refrain because of traffic or parking or any of that stuff. They don't go downtown because they prefer to stay in their own areas, or downtown doesn't offer what they need. People prefer to shop and have fun in their own neighborhoods - I prefer to stay in the McMaster area, Ainslie Wood and Westdale because it's closer for me. The key for downtown is to allow it to build attractions that don't exist elsewhere - and that means supporting a vital community of merchants and businesses downtown, and supporting downtown residents. Let's listen to what they want for their neighbourhood, shall we?

No one blames 100% of downtown decline on one way streets, just as no one credits 100% of the slow revival of James Street to two-way conversion. But there is plenty of evidence that it's a factor, it's a factor under our control, and two-way conversion, let's face it, is what most people downtown seem to want.