Quote:
Originally Posted by adamuptownsj
I missed this. I grew up partially in Fundy Heights and have much less animosity towards suburbs than some people on here. People like yards, cars, and privacy. I personally prefer living in walking distance to work and the pub. That said, this connection between the lower west and Reversing Falls is the best you're going to get. There is not a need for 'cycling infrastructure' across the bridge. Like someone mentioned above, every cyclist in Saint John is too busy lobbying for bike lanes to actually ride their bikes. It's a 4 lane controlled access highway. Should it have been built where it is? No, it should have been much further north. Are we going to re-route it now? Also no. We have to live in reality.
Who is going to 'transform the area' when the area is an eroding cliff? Not private developers, and I hope to God not taxpayers. Saint John's skyline is about to get a boost from a bunch of 6 storey projects in the vicinity of St Joseph's, and Fundy Quay. Developer attention is otherwise focused on Millidgeville. Is the municipality supposed to build condo towers and operate doughnut chains? The ferry trip is once a day. No one is going to open anything to service that schedule. The terminal is truck-oriented and is distant from the populated parts of the Lower West. Any kind of commercial development should be where people live and work. Market Place would benefit from some integrated development, being close to the port workers, community center, and most local small business. With AIM gone the area is much more appealing and safe.
I am on record here advocating improvements to the Shoreline trail, including extending it to the ferry terminal/Harbour Passage, and have brought the city CAO over there to explore it in person. Lower West will need committed investors to build out the vacant land that's already serviced, prove it's viable, and grow the population before taxpayers should be on the hook for things like you suggest. Saint John is still struggling to cope with being designed for many many more people than we actually have-- I believe we have the most miles of road per person in any city in the Maritimes. If a Three Sisters level, serious developer wanted to do what you said, I'd be skeptical it would happen, but fully supportive. But you seem to want things to just kind of happen.
Replaced? With what? The feds, province, and city just sunk a ton of money into keeping it going. It's a strategically important highway. How is that 'inappropriate'? Torches and pitchforks would be completely justified if the city proposed shrinking it to two lanes. We are in the middle of a multi-year experiment with a two lane bridge and it doesn't work at all. I do not even want to address the ferry thing for the third time this year. If you think some kind of Navy Island parking lot/ferry terminal going to Long Wharf would see a bunch of people suddenly stop driving the extra ~5 minutes/taking the bus, IDK what to tell you. Improve the Harbour Bridge Express transit line instead.
You keep coming up with these crazy proposals that take nothing about population and commuter patterns into effect, let alone geography, using the name of the city's development agency. Saint John is on the cusp of a new neighbourhood plan for the north end, Millidgeville and the East Side are doing well, good success from Lower Cove Loop to Coburg St on revitalizing the South End, and has a booming port. I am not a downer by any means, other than on the ability of government to execute effectively, and the viability of 'we should just [...]' planning, with no regard for cost or practicality.
There are legitimate connectivity issues between the Lower West and the city center, which can be addressed with better transit service and connectivity down Douglas/Chesley for pedestrians and the elusive cyclists. I literally just posted about improving Reversing Falls Bridge in the context of the Harbour Passage announcement.
It's also unfair to compare the rural ferries to this. If bridges were viable, believe me, the locals would prefer bridges. The alternative is making people drive up to an hour out of the way. Demanding an urban ferry that would just be a third option and would take longer than the bus, accounting for getting there, is apples and oranges.
|
I really think we should wait and see what the plan is for the Harbour Bridge walking path according to the map the city revealed, before we write it off. Widening the surface of the top of the bridge is not an impossibility. Walking between Lower West and Uptown shouldn't be such a long, indirect route... a Harbour Bridge walkway would improve that situation immensely. I don't think it's unfair at all to compare the costs of a pedestrian ferry in the city to rural ferries at all btw, especially if we're saying pedestrianizing the Harbour Bridge is not viable (not that I agree). A Ferry wouldn't just be about getting from point A to point B, it's about being on the harbour, the journey would be every bit as important (if not more) than the destination. The ferry would be somewhere between the Digby Ferry and Bayshore Beach and Uptown, not between Navy Island and Long Wharf, which would be pretty much pointless. Many residents and tourists alike would take that ferry just to get out on the water and cross the harbour. Should we wait until the West Side has a higher population, probably? But it's definitely an attainable goal for the city one day.
You call my proposals crazy, and you can think that if you want. I don't think there's anything crazy about building more 10-20-30+ storey residential buildings in Saint John. But, the only way to get that done is to attract more developers to come and invest in ambitious projects here in Saint John. I think it makes all kinds of sense to build higher on the West Side and South End, because these two areas have some of the best seascape views in the entire maritimes. Simply put, ocean views = $$$. There's many other areas in this city where building 10-20+ storeys would result in amazing ocean views, too. Maybe you need to get out of Saint John more and see how things are done in the rest of the world, because it's not that crazy at all to suggest that Saint John could embrace taller buildings, and transform the city in a positive way.
I think you get me wrong, if you think I expect such a future to suddenly materialize and be built and paid for by the municipal and provincial governments or something, because that's not what I'm suggesting. I'm simply saying the city should do more to be friendly to developers who want to build higher, and do more to pursue relationships with such developers who can make this future possible... there's all kinds of policies and incentives the city and province can come up with to attract developers to build taller buildings in the more central areas of Saint John, especially areas close to the ocean like the West Side.
I think it's great that you're advocating improvements to the Shoreline trail, including extending it to the ferry terminal, and even went as far as bringing someone from the city over there to check it out. However, I don't understand why you'd be opposed to a Dunkin' Donuts opening up shop at or near the ferry terminal, if you're all for improving that area. Obviously, I did not mean that the city of Saint John should buy into an operate a Dunkin' Donuts Franchise
there, but I certainly wouldn't scold them or say it was a waste of time if they tried to find partners to make it happen. I think you're completely underestimating how many port workers would go there before, during, and after their shift. Moreover, I think you're underestimating how many people from the West Side would walk or drive there, or people from the rest of the Saint John Area for that matter. It's not a far walk for many, and is an incredibly short drive for most. I think most people would rather go to a Dunkin' Donuts near the Digby Ferry Terminal, beside the sea with ocean-views, than one at Marketplace West. The Ferry doesn't just run once a day in the summer either... it runs twice a day. Regardless, I think it would make a steady profit as the only Dunkin' Donuts in the whole province, at a unique seaside location beside Port Saint John.
As for Fort Dufferin being nothing but eroding cliffs? Have a source?
All I could find on the development that was not approved for there years ago was
this from a site similar to this one:
"*
The rezoning of about 6.72 hectares of land at 475 City Line/Fort Dufferin Rd. to high-rise multiple residential to permit the development of condominiums by a Toronto-based developer. The project would see three high-rise buildings, up to 12 stories high, built at the coastal end of City Line and next to the Partridge Island breakwater."
From what I understood, the development was shut down because of traffic concerns, parking concerns, and other typical NIMBY stuff that projects get shut down for in Saint John, and not because of eroding cliffs, but I'd certainly be interested to find out more about the erosion claim. Could you share a link? As for the Belyea arena site, what's the issue there? It's certainly not eroding away. Those are just two sites, there's lots of other sites around West Saint John that would make very attractive high rise residential development opportunities for investors.
None of what I'm suggesting here is crazy, just different from the conventional Saint John development that many of you have bought heavily into. There's all kinds of things the city can do to promote taller builds, increase density, and keep the city core and suburbs growing simultaneously. Just never would have thought there would be such pushback to big ideas on a forum called "skyscraper page".
Prev
Linear Mode
