Comment 108686

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted February 02, 2015 at 14:02:27 in reply to Comment 108668

Surely you must realize that VICTORIA IS THE CAPITAL OF BC! That's a pretty basic fail of Canadian geography.

And the urban area of Hamilton is less than twice as large as Vancouver (which is all urban), not 10 times larger.

No matter what city is compared with Hamilton you'll object it is too big/too small/too hot/too cold/too rich/too poor/not on a lake/not industrial/not a capital/not near a big city/doesn't have an escarpment/too European/not in Ontario ...

The point is not whether there is a city that is exactly like Hamilton, it is whether something relevant can be learnt from other cities.

Vancouver is relevant because they dealt with "serious traffic" not by widening roads, building new roads, timing lights or in any way giving resources to cars (which Hamilton is STILL DOING), but by doing the precise opposite. And they ended up with an extremely popular, fast growing economically vibrant city where traffic has actually gone down. And yet, you wouldn't even accept giving less space to cars in Hamilton, for fear of traffic chaos and gridlock. What Vancouver (which had worse traffic) shows is that fear is unfounded and giving priority to cars in an urban environment (over pedestrians, cyclists, and transit) is precisely the wrong thing to do.

You may not know that Vancouver was actually in an extended economic slump from the 1930s to the late 1960s ... it's recovery really began in the 1970s about the time they made the "no more space for cars" decision.

Your comparison of James S with Main in terms of pedestrian friendliness, I assume, is just satire.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2015-02-02 14:06:54

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