Quote:
Originally Posted by Monctoncore
From the picture pierremoncton posted, it looks like they are planning to have Westmorland similar to Downing, which would be interesting to see.
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An interesting observation.
Actually, there is an opportunity here (with a reconstructed street grid south of Main Street) to turn
every street in this precinct into low speed shared pedestrian/vehicular thoroughfares just like Downing Street is envisaged to be.
None of the existing streets between Main & Assumption really have high traffic volumes. They are all short connector streets serving only local businesses and parking lots. Most vehicular traffic in the downtown stays on Main or Assumption, or travels on the grid north of Main Street. As such, we are gifted with a great opportunity here to be creative in what to do with this section of the downtown core.
Imagine
all these streets being purposefully narrow and acting mostly as pedestrian conduits, but also allowing local vehicular traffic, both for residents and also for passage for service and delivery vehicles. These streets could still have some on-street parking, just like it currently exists for Downing Street. Now imagine each of these streets properly landscaped and lined with medium/high density town homes and apartment buildings with street level retail & restaurants. It could have an ambiance like a modern day version of old town Quebec City............
Of course, such a plan would displace
all of the surface parking as it currently exists south of Main Street, but this would be a good thing really. There is no question however that all of these parking spots (and more) would have to be replaced. This is Moncton after all, and people
still would want to have the option of being able to drive downtown to soak up the atmosphere and to go to events at the Capitol Theatre and at the events centre. As such, any redevelopment plan like this would have to occur hand in hand with the creation of several multilevel downtown parking garages. This is a mandatory precondition for this type of radical revisioning of this precinct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Monctoncore
They also have a weird half circle off of Foundry, it looks like it would be right through the current parking lot..
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Yeah, I don't know what's up with that. I don't think this vehicular loop would accomplish much (aside from occupying space), and, as far as I'm concerned, this is where I would like to see the main downtown parking structure to be built since it is also close to the events centre, and easily accessible to the events centre via a tunnel under the CN mainline.
I recopied the image from pierre's post just so people can refresh themselves on the concept.