Comment 113338

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted August 07, 2015 at 10:04:30

The top priority, as strongly recommended in the Metrolinx BCA and the McMaster report, is for the City to commit to re-designing the 800 m wide corridor in a way that will ensure the new LRT is as successful as possible.

And that meets not trying to hang onto the current auto-centric high speed cut way multi-lane one-way design that is so antagonistic to residents, pedestrians and businesses along the street. Recall that when the bus lane was put in shop owners claimed that King was so unpleasant that customers wouldn't even cross the street to visit their shops!

And this means:

  1. Two-way conversions to make it easier for motorists to navigate downtown and calm traffic. This will be essential during construction and very important afterwards.

  2. Wider sidewalks with more street trees and buffers (e.g. extra parking, bike lanes). The streets have to be pleasant to walk on and 1.5-1.8m sidewalks right next to traffic are just unacceptable in a downtown core!

  3. High quality urban design standards. No more street-killing surface parking, no more one storey strip malls and blank walled Shoppers Drug Marts with their entrances on surface parking lots.

In other words, we need to plan for and build the sort of city we want and that LRT is suited for. Not stick with the auto-centric design and standards of 60 years ago.

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