Raise the Hammer

The whole truck route thing is a joke.

Nearly ever major street is designated as a truck route.

The point of a truck route is to define certain roads that trucks should use to get to/from their destination, or get through the city. Trucks are already permitted to drive on any street, including residential streets, to get to their destination - so long as they get off, and back on a truck route as soon as possible. So really, we should only be defining major arterial routes where we want to focus truck traffic. Seems like people at city hall don't really understand this concept. Instead they declare nearly every major street a truck route for some inexplicable reason - basically giving the trucks free reign to drive wherever they want.

Why is it Concession (tiny two lane with meter parking on both sides and a "shopping district"!), Fennell, Mohawk, Stonechurch, Rymal, and the Linc, are all on the truck route list? They all go east/west? Why don't we designate, say two of them: the Linc, and Fennell as Truck routes? Truck drivers can still use the other roads to get to/from their destination, so long as they take the shortest route possible.

By designating all these streets as truck routes all we're saying is this: Heading to Upper Ottawa/Mohawk? No no, quite alright, don't worry about driving along Mohawk, head down fennell if you want, or rymal, or stonechurch, or the linc, or drive along concession street if you'd like. As long as you get to your destination, we don't care how you get there. Use any of our east/west streets! The same is sadly true of our north/south streets: Garth, Upper James, Upper Ottawa, Upper Sherman, Upper Gage, Upper Wellington, Upper Wentworth ALL on the truck route! Why do we even bother having a list? We've listed nearly every North/south route on the mountain except West 5th!

I've used a mountain example because people assume this is a problem unique to the lower city, but it's really not.

This "truck route" is out of control, and should be SERIOUSLY cut down. Remember the purpose of the truck route: To force trucks to use dedicated routes through our city, and deviate from them only as little as necessary to get to/from their destination.

Naming every major street is a useless way to run a truck route. It's easy to concil approve a list of streets, but I have a feeling if they saw a map of this "truck route" they would realize that it's gone too far and provides no protection for residents at all.

Jen, I hope you win a victory here, I really do.