Raise the Hammer

Awww Moylek! You stole my second point! In most major cities around the world it's not an 18 wheeler that rolls up to deliver the goods. It's a far smaller truck...

Ryan wrote: "Think about it: in what self-respecting city anywhere in the world can you drive through the city on downtown streets faster than you can drive around it on a bypass highway? It's an embarrassment."

EXACTLY! I watch Top Gear, a British motor enthusiast show (yep I'm a gearhead) and I regularly see the streets of London in the show. Narrow, mostly pedestrian friendly with small "lorries" making deliveries. A bike lane shared with buses (which they absolutely hate because the bus drivers are ignorant) and bumper to bumper traffic on 2 lane roads. Sometimes you see the 2 lanes in each direction separated by grassy medians and other times streets so narrow you can't drive two cars beside each other but they're still not one way... The downtown streets are by and large cyclist friendly and slow moving. They have crosshatched intersections to stop bozos from blocking them on reds (which happens far to often here) and lots of speed cameras. They once did a race through London using a speed boat on the Thames, public transit, a bicycle and a vehicle...The car DIDN'T win!

The problem isn't necessarily the streets themselves it's the way they're built/connected/utilized. Take Burlington Street...anyone drive down it regularly? how about on Wednesday after work? Some truck driver must have had a load shift on the loop to TO bound QEW and tipped over closing the ramp...what if that was some other local street? It's potholed, the bridges themselves are starting to come apart... That road should be well maintained and kept as truck access to the waterfront area, Wellington and Wentworth should no longer be one way and that would discourage trucks from using it as a bypass route...

For those of you worried about deliveries to businesses...here's a plan for you! Use the airport lands to build warehouses for the various chains...in fact, business idea for you...offer a warehouse much like the Ippolito warehouse on the 403 North Service Road in Burlington with daily or every other day delivery service at night with smaller trucks...that's how it's done in other cities! You'll be at the front of a new wave of service.