Main Street Functional Design 3

Pedestrian safety is a significant concern with the expectation to cross 8 lanes of speeding traffic with limited visibility at the Main and King intersection of streets. Changes to pedestrian crossing at this intersection MUST be investigated, planned for and delivered as planning for ZERO changes due to LRT construction is not an acceptable outcome.

Understanding cost must be considered given an entire intersection revamp through LRT construction community safety cannot be the sacrifice made. No changes planned at this intersection given the construction means we can expect continued exclusion, safety challenges and inaccessibility to Gage Park. A staple that adds vibrancy, community connection and city integration to nature supporting the health and well-being of Hamiltonians.

Past build performance of LRTs indicates we can expect to live in continued safety and accessibility hazards for 5+ years as construction is not expected to start until 2024. Benchmarks of the Eglington Crosstown which will take 13+ years to complete and the KW ION which took 5 years.

Given the $4.3M investment in the Hamilton Children Museum to deliver a Barrier-free facility I would expect there would be a similar commitment to make this addition to the City of Hamilton accessible to ALL communities across Hamilton.

In the Crown Point West community alone there are 177 households and 57% of those households having children. This community is effectively segregated from Gage Park with 8 lanes of traffic to cross in a complex disaggregated crossing. This poses significant risk to community members and visitors seeking to cross particularly those with children, strollers, pets and people with mobility issues. The triangular sliver to stand in front of the Pizza Pizza location is no more than 60cm width limiting safe crossing which requires community members to stop as there is not a continuous crossing over the 8 lanes of traffic.

I strongly urge alternative solutions to be considered to deliver safe, inclusive outcomes for this pedestrian crossing in Hamilton.

Alternative options could include implementing a light driven pedestrian crossing at the Glendale Ave S street or allowing for continuous pedestrian crossing across all 8 lanes of traffic.

Add a light activated pedestrian crossing at Glendale Ave S and eliminate pedestrian crossing at the King & Main intersection to create a safe accessible inclusive crossing to Gage Park

Has the city considered introducing DIAGONAL CROSSINGS ...e.g.
opposite City Hall, on Main Street (Summers Lane). Such crossings exist in many cities across the world and I have used them...very efficient and time-saving for pedestrians. Montreal introduced them some years ago.
This is a Question and a Suggestion!

There is alot of traffic on Ashford because of the hospital on Maplewood and little plaza at Main and Ashford. There are ~15 children under 10 in various houses on this street, and since there is no buffer between the sidewalks and the roads traffic calming measures on the intersection are needed before one of the kids gets hurts. A large bump out or planter at Ashford/Main, PLUS CONVERTING ASHFORD TO ONE WAY, will make it safer for kids to be in front of their own houses.

In my opinion, adding bicycle lanes to an already complicated road way is a recipe for disaster. Ever since the reduction of lanes I have noticed a significant increase in driver hostility, when the two way modification comes into place that will only poor gasoline on the fire. Forcing cyclists into that deadly cocktail would be a mistake.

When a city like Oulu in Finland, where cyclists and drivers co-exists significantly better than here, takes significant care to segregate main roadways and bicycle lanes, that should indicate that trying to force cultural change of this magnitude to a community that has no clue how to share roadways is a big mistake and probably will lead to serious injury if not death.

While I welcome the changes coming to the downtown core main roadways, I also acknowledge the geographical restrictions the city has to contend with in trying to apply these changes, but this further reinforces my idea that trying to jam too many different commuting networks in the same bottleneck will not be successful.

Bicycle lanes have the benefit of a small footprint and the city should try to look for ways to establish a network that isn't directly tied to the existing road network, the rail trail and lower volume streets like Charlton and Herkimer are perfect examples of this, where cyclists can still go about the city in functional ways without putting themselves at significant risk. I often use these lanes mentioned above to make my way to University Plaza in the west end from Downtown core and I feel completely safe doing so. If I were forced to use main street I would feel like my days are being counted.

Is there something that could be done to improve safe cycling access to/from the gateway to Gage Park through the intersection? i.e. from SB Gage Ave to the park entrance, it requires "taking the lane" which many would not be comfortable doing.

If i'm understanding this diagram right, the reason we don't have cycle lanes going to Gage park is that the sidewalk here is wider, and there is not room for buffered lanes on both sides, and redoing the sidewalk would require a lot of construction + utility relocations.

Could we switch to having a bi-directional cycle track on one side of the road?

Since the sidewalk on the south side is already wider in the eastern part of the project, i'd put the cycle track on the north side (maybe take 10-15 cm off each travel lane to add a bit more space). This would allow for cycling access to Gage park and bike lanes on Gage, without turning Main into only 1-lane each direction.

To make the transition from cycle-track to north-south bike lanes work at Sherman, i'd use a pedestrian + bike scramble so that people can cycle diagonally across the intersection instead of having to do an awkward 2-stage crossing and requiring space to wait in the intersection. Could do the same at Gage to facilitate park access.

Could this driveway be closed off? There is access from the Wentworth St S already.

Could this driveway be closed off? There is access from the rear alleyway already.

Could this driveway be closed off? There is access from the rear alleyway already.

This Shopper's has 46 parking spots already, plus 4 on street spots on Garfield, and has four (4) entrances to the parking lot. This should at least be reduced to two (2), one (1) on Sherman, and one (1) on Garfield. If a bicycle lane is on Sherman on the East side in future, this entrance should be closed and the parking lot entrance should be on Main St instead (vehicles crossing *hopeful* bicycle lanes in one direction is safer than crossing bi-directional lanes.

Why only one crosswalk here? Are we happy making people wait a full light cycle coming from the East?

I think there should be two, and one of them shoul line up with the big grand walkway coming out of Gage, for symmetry.

Its not described but is this going to be a tighter turn radius? It is very much needed; with no right-on-red, there are two lanes of space to help big vehicles make the turn without it.

Is there a way we can have a 'next train' display here? Some people (i.e. young kids and their dads) love to watch!

A whole block of existing driveway... how can people safely walk here when every part of the sidewalk is for cars to drive on?

Curb radius should be tightened

Eliminate this driveway; it causes conflicts near an intersection, and the property already has access via Prospect Street.

Cut this driveway in half and add a barrier, force drivers to park EW instead of pulling in and backing out into traffic and accross the sidewalk.

Can this access be eliminated? The property also has access via Springer Ave

Cut this access in half

As much as i like curb bumpouts in general, I think the obvious long-term plan for this area has to be a bike lane on the north side and reconstructing the sidewalk on the south side to accomodate a bike lane as well. Do these bumpouts make that harder / more expensive?

Extend median to create a pedestrian refuge

Tighten this curb radius at Ashford SE corner.

Do we need more parking?

Eliminate one of these driveways; the property already has access via Blake and does not need two wide driveways.

the sidewalk here is sloped allowing drivers to pull onto the sidewalk, but the driveway has been fenced off; lets take the opportunity to eliminate the curb cut entirely.

All of the commercial + residential buildings here have onsite parking lots. We absolutely do not need onstreet parking and should instead have a bike lane.

Excellent!

Eiiminate this access near the intersection; Shoppers already has driveways on both Sherman and Garfield, as well as another on Main and driving access around the back of the building to connect the two parking lots.

Can this access be eliminated? There is alleyway access at the rear of the building.

I want to swear. Curbside parking for a Shoppers drug mart?! The have 50 parking spots on the site, which is already a pretty sad use of land for an urban setting. How can we possibley justify giving curb parking to this? Absurd.

Eliminate this driveway access; the propety already has an entrance off of St. Clair.

Extend the median to create a pedestrian refuge

Can we eliminate this driveway? There is access to the parking lot on Holton Ave

Narrow the driveway access here to two car-widths, instead of the whole frontage.

Remoe this second entrance; if we don't have protection here it puts cyclists at risk in the intersection; the shop here already has an alternative entrance on Main as well as a large driveway frontage on Holton

The plan has this frontage all wrong, there are two separate entrances with a fire-hydrant in between

The SE corner radius on Myrtle should be tightened

Curb radius needs to be tighter on Sandford Corners. With bike lanes, cars have to pull out further anyways so they don't need the space.

Curb radius on Burris SE should be tightened

Eliminate the driveway here; the property has access off of Burris