Raise the Hammer

I'm just trying to determine if there's something in the above discussion that is overboard anti-driver or elitist... The article itself seems to me to be fairly positive while pointing out some better decisions the city could have made. The following discussion is mostly civilized, with some discussion about how we are supposed to behave in these lanes. I didn't participate in that facebook thread. How many of the other commenters here have? Hard to say - so what are we being accused of exactly?

I think most people understand the frustrations of having to commute to work by car (we've all been there, some of us still are there). But Hamilton has catered to every whim of through traffic in this city for decades, to the detriment of all residents (including through commuters who live outside the core but still pay very dearly through inflated tax rates caused by overspending on roads and under-performance of the city in terms of revenue generating growth - i.e. densification versus sprawl which costs more than it brings in)

Given the city's history, and its continuing habit of taking teeny tiny baby steps - like one millimetre at a time - toward balance - and then routinely pulling back out of fear of backlash from through drivers, I think it's understandable - and forgivable - for promoters of balance to be completely fed up by the overboard reactions (and the press given to them) after LESS THAN TWENTY FOUR HOURS of a year-long pilot.

Maybe I'm biased because I count myself among those who want balance, but it seems to me that most promoters of balanced transportation are arguing based on research, facts and observations of cities as a system, while those who push back against these changes are doing so mostly based on personal impact and a more narrowly focussed observation viewport: their own daily route.

I don't think that fighting about it is terribly productive, but leaving all the negative comments floating about unanswered might give a casual observer (a councillor for example) the impression that the majority of people hate the idea of the bus lane (or whatever other measure is being discussed)