Comment 32658

By frank (registered) | Posted August 07, 2009 at 11:58:59

Jay the only problem with that is you'll still have the traffic on the road screaming past you going 70. I just finished watching a documentary on the Big Dig (incidentally our company supplied a lot of the material and labour for that job) and I can quote several policians and city managers stating that livability and the joining of neighbourhoods by removing the 1960s highway down the centre of the city was the main motivation for such an expenditure (we're talking 1 billion 500 thousand US dollars).

The Spec has bought into the drive thru mentality - you order, drive to the window and pay, get your food and you're done in a few minutes. Many people (including our city planners) apply that to daily living even though it's completely unrealistic. City engineers don't design roadways with the thought that down the road the infrastructure will have to support various modes of transport and the reason they don't is simply because in the short term they MIGHT not see the fruit of their labours. What bothers me is that even though we as designers and engineers are supposed to design for the future needs of the users, I have yet to see a revamped cross section for Hamilton's arterial roads that adequately addresses the issues of mixed transportation using the same corridor, whether it's LRT or bike networks.

Amidst all that they continue to allow sprawl, stupid ("Smart" my rear!) centres, and turn their backs on research and demonstrable success in other communities that could be used to turn Hamilton into a place other cities can look to for experience on how to design a 21st century transportation network rather than a place to reference when discussing what not to do...

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