Quote:
Originally Posted by trueviking
You miss the point. It's not about what is at the corner specifically. It's about connectivity between areas of downtown.
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13,000 people work at portage and main every single day. The entire population of Steinbach. To suggest opening it to pedestrians is for tourists is simply wrong.
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Connectivity for pedestrians does
not require opening Portage and Main. There is a route for that traffic which works perfectly fine today. On the forum there is talk about the need for more grade separation between high volume vehicle routes and how LRT is superior to bus rapid transit as it is grade separated. This is the same thing for pedestrians, we have a grade separated crossing already. It is no different than what you see on the Vegas strip which has many times higher the foot traffic than Portage and Main will ever see. If grade separation is so pedestrian unfriendly why do so many people walk the Vegas strip every day?
Quote:
Originally Posted by DonaldSmith
Why isn't there gridlock when all other intersections are open to pedestrians?
You also understand that other lanes are open when people are crossing. The whole intersection doesn't stop for pedestrians. Pedestrians would cross when people would be sitting in their cars at red lights anyways. The change would have a minimal impact.
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Only opening the north-south flow would have minimal impact to traffic. The north side east-west flow would stop around 10 lanes of traffic with the left turn lanes on Portage Ave already accumulating vehicles past Fort/Norte Dame most of the day. The west side north-south flow would cause issues with the south to west traffic flow. There is already no north to west traffic at the intersection. The south side east-west flow could be the other one with a smaller scale impact. The east to south traffic flow does stack up however it could be managed.
Opening Portage and Main to pedestrians is likely to cause large scale implications of vehicle flow through the entire downtown core and as a whole make it less pedestrian friendly as what were once quiet intersections see increased traffic volumes as people look for ways around the new congestion at P&M. It is very short sighted move with almost no actual meaningful impact.
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