Raise the Hammer

A Proposal for a City-Wide Fair Safety Trade

• Pedestrians die in Lower City due to fast streets.
• Car drivers die on Mountain due to lack of barrier on LINC freeway.

Here's a bargaining idea to save many, many lives in Hamilton.

• Add safety barrier to LINC which will also add (inwards) two extra lanes, for 6-lanes
• and Turn most Lower City 1-way streets into more pedestrianized 2-way streets.

This will save many lives.

I'm appealing to the whole spectrum here. Classic car owners, People Streets people, conservatives, hipsters, car-lovers, students, families. We may sometimes hate each other, but we must to work together to save lives.

October 19 may provide infrastructure improvements necessary to increase safety on LINC. From a practical perspective, virtually nobody here wants people dying on the streets in any form.

I'm aware that people are dying too often on the LINC due to the narrow median, cars crossing the median. The safety improvements to reduce deaths may involve expanding inwards to install a median barrier. That adds 2 extra lanes of traffic by expanding inwards (no outwards nature-destroying widening needed!). Viola. 6 lane LINC that's no wider than the original.

Yes, not all of us were for the freeway, but it's there now, it's useful, it provides a StoneyCreek-Dundas bypass nowadays (reducing crosstown traffic on Main-King, as traffic fell when LINC+RHVP finally got connected). Yes, not all of us is for loosening our belts, but not all of us are for 2-way streets either. However, we can be persuaded by major initiatives that is bundled with safety.

It could be a good bargaining chip to get more councillors working together.

In exchange for converting almost 100% of the Lower City 1-way streets to pedestrianized 2-way streets, we gain a 6-lane ring road around Hamilton. Everybody in affected wards gets something that benefits their ward. Work and run with that.

Safety improvements on LINC = 6 lane LINC (because of needing to add asphalt inwards to a median barrier). Less car drivers dying in Mountain, less pedestrians dying in Lower City.

A Fair Safety Trade

• Mountain gets 6-lane LINC with good median safety barrier.
• Lower City gets Main/King/Queen/etc 2-way with upgraded brick sidewalks/bumpouts/ped features etc.

I'm not sure I 100% like my own idea. But it saves so many lives everywhere! Less people dying. That is not a "deal with the devil". Better vitality and businesses downtown, too. (See what James St N became after it became 2-way). It is a special situation where both cases literally provides sufficient taxpayer return just merely by all the lives saved, the business and commerce improvements, etc. Lower City should be a destination, not a crosstown route.

Funding may be available after Oct 19 (#elxn42) for this infrastructure bargaining clip. If the money's there, let's do it. Let's also market it as a big bundled safety package, in addition to the usual benefits, to make the package more appealing to the whole city on average, so we don't all have to block each other. We're less likely to oppose another ward's changes if there are changes that we want in our own individual wards. Many could be happy with this safety perspective, on top of all the other benefits.

Comment edited by mdrejhon on 2015-10-16 12:59:43