[junius]

Originally Posted by Metro-One

So you want all of the bikes, trams, pedestrians, local traffic and cross regional/commercial traffic all sharing the small east/west road network in the area?

the streetcar, if built as shown, will likely take away 4 traffic east/west lanes off of the surface streets, never mind the impact of stations and more pedestrians (don't get me wrong, the streetcar and more pedestrians is a good thing at surface level). Then add in all of the eventual traffic calming measure put in place in the area plus new bike lanes and other possible developments (which are also good at surface level), the fact that the tram will also be crossing the remaining east/west streets with hopefully frequent trains, is it not a good idea to keep the ducts to manage all of the cross regional traffic, commercial and shipping vehicles with a growing population? Not to mention emergency vehicles can use them to land at the base of a possible new hospital on Main and Prior directly from downtown! Not to mention that most of the few streets left that are not touched by the streetcar are far from major arteries. Also, the streetcar is going to be local service, so it is going to have very little impact on vehicles originating or people traveling to area far from its reach, and also, don't forget transit is not an option for everyone!

So essentially to recap, it looks as if in the near future we could be loosing up to 4 lanes (or more) east/west for the streetcar (along pacific Boulevard, Powel and Cordova, a possibly loss of lanes along Quebec/Columbia street, more traffic calming and bike lanes and you people want to take away a further 6 lanes of traffic by taking down the ducts?

Am I the only one here who sees why it would be wise to keep the ducts and funnel as much vehicle traffic as possible into them to keep the streets below as traffic free as possible for the new trams, bike lanes, pedestrians living there, etc...?

You are very assumptive about what I believe. My point was very specific and it was that adding population downtown will not increase car trips.