Comment 87687

By simonmangan (registered) | Posted April 05, 2013 at 15:50:43

Excellent article. I grew up in London,England and walked,cycled,subway-ed, bus-ed and drove a van as part of my job for my first 30 yrs. London did not get the same level of urban planning as Paris and lacks its boulevard system of mass horse transit, so it reached saturation point a long time ago.

London's solution to reducing congestion (and its massive $ cost) was to reduce 'traffic'.If you physically cannot fit more cars on a road, the only way to make the cars flow better is to have less cars on that road. Car drivers are intelligent and make decisions about their journeys. So the mayor changed their habits, a toll to enter the centre of London, insulting parking rates, bus lanes, bike lanes, speed humps, and bump outs just to slow you down. It cost, maybe $50 a day to use and park a car, but you were getting over-taken by buses and bikes travelling for $1 or free. Now all you see in town are work vans and taxis and the 1%-ers.

This little ramble is relevant to your article in that the concept of 'life-sucking-grid-lock' being attached to complete streets will in itself reduce traffic. If downtown becomes 'un-driveable' drivers will simply 'go round' on any of the multiple 'ring roads' QEW, Burlington St, Linc, 403. I have never lived in a city, anywhere in the world, where the quickest way across town is through the city centre in a car, except maybe Dakar. It seems undesirable, and putting such a heavy investment emphasis on cars discriminates against those that cannot afford to run one, who are therefore more likely to live in the 'walkable' neighbourhoods, most affected by these ugly incomplete streets.

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