Comment 101788

By KevinLove (registered) | Posted May 29, 2014 at 13:07:27

One small quibble: A better use for back alleys may be for deliveries only, with the street on which the businesses front being car-free. That was the highly successful formula for making Yonge Street in Toronto car-free in the 1970's. As well as, of course, a gazillion highly successful car-free streets in Japan and Europe today.

Allowing cut-through "rat-running" car traffic through downtown is profoundly disfunctional and highly dangerous.

As we have seen from the Medical Officer of Health data recently posted on RTH, 93 people are killed in Hamilton every year because they are poisoned by the lethal air pollution put out by car drivers. An additional 395 people in Hamilton are poisoned by car drivers every year and injured so seriously they have to be hospitalized.

Children, the elderly and hospital patients are particularly vulnerable to being poisoned by car drivers. Every year in Hamilton children suffer 15,510 asthma symptom days and an additional 279 children suffer acute bronchitis attacks due to being poisoned by car drivers. Health care costs due to people being poisoned by car drivers are $511 million every year in Hamilton.

Mode shift away from car driving by making walking, cycling and public transit the fastest, easiest and most convenient way of travelling from A to B eliminates these lethal poisons and saves lives, injuries, the suffering of sick children and serious health-care costs.

Due to its high concentration of people, downtown Hamilton should be a high priority area for eliminating cancer poisoning of its population by effective mode shift policies.

Comment edited by KevinLove on 2014-05-29 13:07:54

Permalink | Context

Events Calendar

There are no upcoming events right now.
Why not post one?

Recent Articles

Article Archives

Blog Archives

Site Tools

Feeds