Raise the Hammer

"It might make sense to determine ahead of time which streets the citizen's panel should consider and which should be decided by the neighbourhood or ward with the support of the councillor and advice of city staff (traffic engineers)."

This makes perfect sense to me. For one, any group of people getting together to do anything is going to waste a lot of time needlessly unless they are given clear direction as to their purview, and what exactly they are supposed to decide. Also, city-wide committees should not be deciding every single issue that really only affect one neighbourhood, or one street: that’s not efficient, and that’s going to lead to bad decisions that don’t reflect the needs of the area.

Your idea to allow residents of streets to decide whether they still want to live on something classified as an “arterial” and therefore designed as such makes a lot of sense, too. Hunter has no business being an arterial, but I don’t live on that street so I’m not 100% confident about that. Let the property owners on the street decide that- if they are businesses who want more traffic of every type and so want to be an arterial, good for them; if they are residents who want to be able to relax about letting their kids play on the sidewalk, who am I to say otherwise? I’ll drive down another street if what they want to collectively do with their properties impedes my ability to drive the speed I want to.

Question for anyone: have there been petitions from residents on one-way streets to convert them to two-way (or the other way around, I suppose)? This one seems like a no-brainer to me. Firstly, I can see a few concerned neighbours being very able to convince people on their street that they would be better-served being able to drive east as well as west out of their driveways. Secondly, what could the municipal government really say if a petition from 70% of the property owners on Birch arrived calling for it to be converted? “The speed of traffic in front of your homes also impacts the people speeding by your homes, so we need to consult citywide”?