Comment 99849

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted April 04, 2014 at 14:24:10 in reply to Comment 99834

Indeed, walkability and humanized streets have been a top priority of the DNA for the past four decades. I was on the board for six years, including a couple of years as vice president. I hope other board members will join in to describe their experiences.

The bottom line is that until recently (I hope) even sustained efforts to get change at street level met with both passive and active resistance. The usual tactic on behalf of some staff was to ignore reports and requests, sometimes for years, until pushed to respond by our councillor. The eventual response was either to suggest yet another study, or to explain why city policy or cost or best practices meant nothing at all could be done. More recently, even proposals (like two-way conversion) that are not opposed by staff have been rejected, delayed or watered down at Council level by those councillors who believe that downtown neighbourhoods don't deserve the same livable streets as their own residents enjoy.

I really am optimistic things are changing, and the real stubborn, blinkered, resistance has now moved up to the council level, which is a big improvement. There are some really top rate people in traffic engineering now, but it is hard to change such an engrained culture all at once.

Here is a more detailed explanation of what we have experienced in Durand that I contributed last year:

http://www.raisethehammer.org/comment/83...

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-04-04 14:31:37

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