Comment 92396

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted September 20, 2013 at 16:53:26 in reply to Comment 92378

Until recently, residents and local councillors (at least in Wards 1 and 2) were asking for pedestrian and cycle friendly streets and were consistently told it was not possible to make changes that would "impact traffic flow". There really is no doubt about it.

Now, my impression was that the engineers felt they were defending the interests of the (driving) silent majority who didn't come out to public information centres. However, engineers deciding that they know what people really want (better than the councillors, city policy and residents who actually do provide feedback) is not acceptable. As others have pointed out, traffic engineers traditionally didn't receive much training in designing for the needs of road users other than motorists, so that could also be a factor.

However, things do seem to be changing. And they will need to change if the traffic engineers do not want to become a constant impediment to implementing Hamilton's official transportation hierarchy and catering to the needs of residents and local businesses. Remember, engineering is about finding technical solutions to a problem someone else has defined!

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2013-09-20 16:59:46

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