City of Hamilton General Discussion Thread

[Innsertnamehere]

I mean you can doom and gloom about it, but Downtown seemed busier this week than it has in years.

Office works are also returning big-time now, if not quite to the extent they were pre-covid.

GO is restoring peak-hour services on the Lakeshore line to pre-covid levels since commuting patterns have returned again into Toronto.

Remember that work-from-home existed before COVID - it wasn't uncommon for people to work 1 day a week at home in 2019. Now it's just 2-3 days instead and a bit more common than it was, but almost every office has returned to multiple days a week in the office.

Hamilton's Office Vacancy rate has also proven surprisingly resilient through COVID, seeing it's vacancy rate barely increase compared to drastic vacancy rate increases elsewhere.

While parking needs to be accessible downtown, you don't need parking in front of every business and definitely don't need 5-lane roads cutting through the city. Olympia Club has likely had issues leasing out because it fronts onto a 5-lane highway, not because it's not car-accessible enough. It's a balancing act, you need to encourage to take alternate modes of transit if they are available to them but also ensure that parking is accessible for those who need it. And those who need it don't need a high-speed highway cutting through the middle of the city to access it.