Comment 26054

By John Dolbec (anonymous) | Posted July 24, 2008 at 09:26:41

"Kill the messenger" if you like; but the basic point being that there is just not a strong concensus amongst business people on this issue, one way or t'other.

E.g. on Wed. AM, I had breakfast with two business people. A guy from Dundas/Hamilton West was adament that we needed two way streets. However, a downtown "store front" guy said that he and his neighbours on King William Street felt that the John/James conversions are simply "killing their businesses".

It is my job to reflect the broad concensus of the views of my members, as a guage of the will of business, my own personal views are largely irrelevant. When I have such sharp division of opinion, relatively evenly split, in my view, I must state that, organizationally, we are "nuetral".

The broad concensus is though that "one way or two- way streets" are not a "magic bullet" which will by itself revitalize downtown.

E.g. I have visited many cities which do have very vibrant re-vitilized downtowns that still do have "one way" streets - LA for one.

As to the Red Hill Parkway, there was no material lack of concensus amongst the broader business community; so we were definately not nuetral, and make no aplogies about that.

Sorry, if all that "offends" you folks; but the raw truth is that support for "one way" streets hardly universal, even amongst "downtown" store front businesses - so, we do agree that City Council neds to be cautious in proceeding with implemenation.

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