Comment 89479

By bikehounds (anonymous) | Posted June 11, 2013 at 08:40:00 in reply to Comment 89474

The point is, Hamilton does not need that many square metres of vehicular travel lanes. We can't afford them. Why do we have to talk about that 6200 number as if it's written in stone? We can eliminate some lanes. The cost to count cars and reduce the lanes on streets that are overbuilt is nothing compared to the ongoing "rehabilitation" costs that are already completely out of control. We built through-streets wider than 400 series highways back when there was real vehicular traffic in this city, with tens of thousands of daily commuters working in the North end, and a dream of even more people and cars. That era is over, but we've maintained a death grip on every possible lane, offering them up to trucking companies and through traffic to wear away at them at our cost. This unsustainable attitude will sink this city.

I don't know the exact cost of shutting lanes down but I'm certain it's cheaper than resurfacing them every 10 years. Imagine giving some of that road right-of-way back to the property owners. Picture Victoria Ave redesigned to accommodate the number of cars it actually carries - with one lane in each direction, a centre turn lane and maybe even a bike lane - and a few feet left over to give back to the front yards of the majestic houses that line that street. The result would be a street that people want to live on. Higher property values. More taxes. And getting around would be easier, because now you have an additional southbound option. Now multiply that effect by every overbuilt street in the city. How much would it cost to do this? Is the payoff worth it?

The problem is, without anyone with guts to ask these questions within the city, we may never find out the costs and benefits of this approach. We just keep repaving them as-is and crossing our fingers that someone or something will rescue us from the suffocating deficit in the roads budget. I'd like to hear the public works and councillors' ideas of how we are ever going to catch up on the rehabilitation backlog. It's basically impossible at this point. This year we are adding another 100 million to the backlog, AND we are building 25 million worth of NEW ROADS, guaranteed to come back and bite us in the ass later. They just announced an $18 million road road atop the RHVP hill, and there are dozens of roads currently on the "future widenings" list. It's insanity.

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