Comment 30241

By Tecumseh (registered) | Posted April 17, 2009 at 22:59:20

I just read the entire report and I have to say that I found myself nodding my head in agreement all the way through. The loss of street parking on 5 or six blocks isn't enough to get me to say no to two-way conversion. LRT and two-way streets just work hand in hand so well, as they keep pointing out throughout the report. Note in the detailed drawings in the appendices that Main St. from Queen to Sherman would lose a full lane of traffic (down to two in each direction from five in one direction). Lots of room for expanded sidewalks with added trees.

Regarding the stretch of King in question, a very interesting note in the report was the third paragraph of section 4.3.2:

"An alternate concept would be to employ a 'shared use' design philosophy which is common practice in a number of European cities. The space between the reserved transit lane and the property line (the building face in many of the older areas) would be available to all users with limited signing and pavement markings and without a curb between vehicles and pedestrians. Extreme care would be required in the design details of features and materials."

Picture the LRT rolling down that stretch of King with cobblestone all the way from one storefront to the opposite side! Cars would be permitted, but as it works in European cities, cars would negotiate slowly through what would be a pedestrian dominated environment.

And the proposed solutions for the 403 interchanges are brilliant. Particularly encouraging was the reference to the Kirkendall Neighbourhood and McMaster Innovation Park studies at the end of sections 4.3.4. All in all a great report, almost identical to the vision I personally have had of how traffic and transit could work in Hamilton. Now all we need is for council to accept the recommendations!

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