Raise the Hammer

Walking on Main, King, or Cannon is never a pleasant thing.  I suggested to the previous Ward 2 councillor that a  cost effective way to make walking on these streets (I was specifically referring to Main St but I think it would apply elsewhere) would be this: Allow parking on one side of the street at all times (yes, even during rush hour) except overnight for street cleaning;  when there wouldn't be a lot of pedestrian or vehicular traffic anyway.  This would create a "buffer zone" where a pedestrian would get some isolation from the rushing traffic.  In my opinion, even during rush hour, this would not cause undue hardship to the motoring public.  (To prove my point, the other day there was a collision at Main and Wellington at 5:30 pm.  All but one eastbound lane was obstructed by emergency vehicles etc. and yet the traffic wasn't even backed up to Ferguson.) I received a reply saying he would pass it on to the traffic department which led me to believe that maybe it wasn't such a bad idea. To make a long story short, this a quote in response to my suggestion. "The matter of traffic calming on Main Street is more complex than simply closing down a lane.  Our Traffic Engineers have to deal with road capacities and traffic volumes.  Rush hour in large Cities is always problematic, and often solutions that seem simple are in fact not.

Finally, the volume of messages received by my office makes it impossible to be immediately and thoroughly responsive, which is regrettable."

Nowhere in that response did it give any mention of concern about pedestrians. I love the 2 way conversions that have taken place and from what I've witnessed, I don't think that traffic has been severely impacted.  The pedestrian experience however has improved considerably.  I want to believe that eventually all of our downtown streets will be converted to 2 way. Ah but I think I'm dreaming in technicolor.