Raise the Hammer

This appears to possibly de-facto require a Main 2-way conversion, due to the pedestrian-only International Village.

Some key considerations I can think of for Main 2-way

• Problem to solve: Nicer pedestrian-optimized 3-lane 2-way Main with center turning lane might be capacity constrained (wider sidewalks and bumpouts) in a James Street North treatment of Main.
• Problem to solve: Compromise car-optimized 5-lane 2-way Main would bring speeding cars next to narrow sidewalks

Some key considerations I can think of for King 2-way

• Curb lanes with speeding cars could make walking on King more uncomfortable than today.
• On the other hand, the single lane nature, plus pedestrian-only IV, could provide a traffic calming influence
• Design elements will need to de-tune speeding on King.

There will appear to be some compromises but lots of the hang-wringing by anti-LRTers are echoes of the people complaining about the James Street North 2-way conversion. This is going to frustrate a lot of car drivers (and possibly myself included) but I am extremely thrilled about the urbanization potential of making King/Main less attractive to cars -- increasing pedestrian/bike/transit use.

This has happened in other cities, to great success. But as a car driver, I know this transition will be challenging.

We need to run www.streetmix.net on these possible scenarios to for Main/King between Downtown/Gage. Personally, I consider the corridor as a single 9-lane street modal assignment problem

So that automatically means we don't /necessarily/ have to make both cycle-friendly and pedestrian-friendly, and technically, one of the two could become the more pedestrian-friendly. This might mean ONE of the streets will have a status quo of today's narrow sidewalks, and the other streets could be MUCH more pedestrian friendly.

While I'm mixed on this, this is definitely (for me and many) far better than today's status quo, in my and many other people's opinion, although there are many who do not agree (In fact, there are dissenting opinions even among LRT advocates, how Main and King should be treated) -- this post is my own personal opinion only.

For myself (and apparently, many near me), I will be happy to tolerate taking 5 minutes longer to drive to the 403, if it means James Street North on King/Main between DT-Gage with nice sidewalk/cycle/transit(LRT) infrastructure, more jobs, vibrant businesses, and no shuttered store fronts. Many of us are in!

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2016-03-24 16:57:21