Comment 86705

By jason (registered) | Posted February 25, 2013 at 08:02:06

Without a doubt the thing I most appreciate about Toronto is how it has refused to give into all the "gridlock, the sky is falling" cries over the years, and has maintained vibrant neighbourhoods with main commercial streets by continuing with the complete streets of the past.

http://www.phillytrolley.org/toronto/ima...

Hamilton, which has freeways ringing our city for easy movement for anyone in any suburb, or Mountain location, still refuses to give our old commercial districts a fighting chance. Instead we have too many car lanes, and crazy parking restrictions everywhere. Most cities simply line both sides of the street with parking with the odd loading zone reserved and that's it. Here, I'm convinced we won a deal on 'no parking' signs many years ago and just started slapping them up everywhere.

Toronto, which has no freeways in the entire area between Etobicoke, the DVP, Gardiner and 401 has maintained the urban nature of it's retail streets. When I go to Toronto these are the hoods I hang out in. And not surprisingly, it's not gridlocked, save for bad weather or special events downtown. Hamilton would be wise to add 24-7 parking to as many streets as possible in the lower city - residential and commercial streets. And of course, given our proximity to industry, especially on east end streets like Parkdale, Kenilworth etc.... it would be wise to line these streets with nice trees planted in large, open planters. Make urban living attractive, get rid of unnecessary zoning regulations, make sidewalks safe and with all the new interest in our urban hoods, the retail areas will slowly come back......if we let them.

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