Quote:
Originally Posted by Andy6
It's perfectly reasonable to believe that opening the intersection to pedestrians will lead to significant traffic delays, more accidents and more injuries, in addition to being expensive and unlikely to produce any great benefit for downtown. It's certainly not "stupidity" and, in fact, reflects the "smart planning principles" of 40 years ago (which, at very least, leads one to suspect that planning isn't an exact science and that planners' current prescriptions ought to be taken with a grain of salt).
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Haha that is some beautifully twisted logic.
"Well, we know planners are dummies who get things wrong, we know this because the planners 40 years ago were idiots who screwed things up. Therefore, we should NOT listen to what the planners today are saying, and instead stick with the decision of the planners 40 years ago, who we know were idiots who screwed everything up." .......
Seriously though... the traffic delays - you guys are still talking like we're tearing down a freeway interchange or something. This is a normal intersection. It already has traffic lights. There's already a light cycle you have to wait for. How much difference could it really make letting people cross during said light cycle? I could see 5-ish minute delays. People wait twice as long to get through the Timmies drive thru in the morning so I don't see why they can't put up with the same wait to make our downtown actually seem like a downtown. If a few more people car-pooled or took the bus traffic wouldn't be a problem in the first place. You can watch cars leaving downtown at rush hour and 9/10 have ONE person in them. All those extra cars on the road clogging it up, because each driver needs his own personal chariot instead of riding with a buddy, and you want to blame traffic on a few people crossing the street?
Also the "danger to pedestrians" argument always makes me laugh because really, if that's your big concern, we should be making it a priority to design a city that is more friendly to pedestrians. That means traffic calming, narrowing streets and widening sidewalks, more controlled intersections etc, just generally prioritizing the pedestrian's comfort over the motorist which means low speeds.... It's sort of ridiculous to see people insisting traffic needs to plow through a busy area at top speed, inches away from where people are walking, and claim they're all about pedestrian safety. It's obviously about pampering drivers but very poorly disguised as being for pedestrian safety.
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