Raise the Hammer

The street parking serves not only as parking but as a buffer zone to make it more comfortable to walk on the sidewalk. If the street is designed to move cars quickly, and the sidewalk is terrifyingly close to this traffic, then people will tend not to walk there. And people visit businesses on foot. Cars don't shop.

You could have framed your question the same way in regards to Locke and James North back before their renaissances - why would we put stop signs and street parking there when there are no businesses to visit anyways? Well - we did it and the businesses moved in. Ryan did a nice brief write up on Locke history here.

If we have no businesses and services, shouldn't we be asking what we can do to change it? Rather than designing to support the current state?

As for James and John South, these are my thoughts...

1. The Jolley Cut. Do we need two downbound lanes? The speed limit is 50 - how many vehicles go slower than that? Why does anyone need to be passing people? The cut should have much wider sidewalks, bike lanes, and a buffer between people and cars so that it's comfortable to use it as a pedestrian/cyclist friendly access. There would still be plenty of room for two upbound lanes (so no one gets stuck behind a climbing bus) and one downbound lane. I wrote about this here.

2. John South. Two lanes in each direction from st. joseph's drive to Young Street. A pedestrian light at Augusta. Two lanes in each direction with on street parking (off peak hours only) from young to King. We already have this north of King.

3. James South. Two lanes in each direction for the length of it, with on street parking wherever there are businesses (I suppose Bold to Charlton). We could take one side of parking away for each rush hour.

Simple enough - and it would have great benefits to the streets. If you live in the area you know what it's like to try to walk across John at Augusta. It's ludicrous... the street is built to encourage speed and that's what we get. Despite my consciousness of what it's like to walk and bike around there, when I'm behind the wheel I also go too fast (not over the limit, but too fast for the comfort of pedestrians nearby) because it's hard not to when the street is designed to support speed so well.

Some might cry that there will be traffic mayhem - just like when the two way conversion was planned. But there wouldn't be. The intersections would be simplified. But most importantly, the traffic volume would not stay fixed. If John was a little bit slower, some people would use claremont instead (a grossly overbuilt and underutilized access that is wider than the 403 in some parts), and some people would use the Linc. And those of us who actually live in corktown will no longer be bending over backward to give way to the people who simply drive through our neighbourhood. Aren't you sick of catering to them at our cost?