Comment 37780

By TD (registered) | Posted February 03, 2010 at 14:25:33

Mark,

I don't have time to address your entire comment, but I take considerable issue with one statement in particular.

"I drove my Toronto girlfriend on an illustrative cruise from McMaster to the Stony Creek Dairy for an ice cream and then back to Mac a couple of years ago without stopping for one red light en route in either direction. Because such a thing would be impossible to do in Toronto, she was completely amazed that such a thing was possible at all; and I didn't hesitate to tell her that we could probably have done the same kind of trip north and south through the city's major routes as well. Be proud of what your traffic planners have accomplished to date."

First of all, let me point out that this is no longer likely to happen. Traffic lights on Main St. near McMaster are no longer synchronized to the extent they were before. I'm not sure if this is true along other stretches of Main or King, but it is true for the west end. If I recall correctly, the reason for this is because synchronized traffic lights are dangerous to pedestrian traffic, and McMaster is obviously an area with a high volume of pedestrians. In any case, on the relatively rare occasions I find myself driving through Hamilton, I usually hit more red lights than I would have a couple years ago.

Second, I live in the downtown, and I don't own a car. Accordingly, I have no reason to be proud of our traffic planners; on the contrary, I am deeply disappointed in them. Hamilton is a great city to drive through, as you point out. That doesn't make it a great city to live in. To me, Hamilton's car culture is one of the most frustrating aspects of this city. Your comment is another symptom of it. Why on earth should I be proud of how quickly someone can drive through my city? Could you imagine a resident of Manhattan being proud of how fast he could drive from Jersey City to Long Island? On the contrary, he'd be proud of how fast you can get from Battery Park to Harlem -- faster by subway than by car. When public transit in Hamilton is faster and more convenient than driving, then I'll have some pride in our traffic planners.

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