Hamilton Roads

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by TheRitsman

Or you could just ban trucks over 4 axles in the lower city, which is what they've done starting next month.

Or let the industry that may benefit from a more "efficient" route to the 403 pay the cost.

(I do agree it doesn't make sense economically, financially, socially, and environmentally from the city's perspective... We're aiming to get the west harbour area to be more of a people place! A truck-only road would not help with that any more than will keeping a large rail freight yard in place, but it will take time, creative thinking, and stern policies)

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by TheRitsman

Or you could just ban trucks over 4 axles in the lower city, which is what they've done starting next month.

What fraction of trucks driving around downtown are 4 axle?

[TheRitsman]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

What fraction of trucks driving around downtown are 4 axle?

I'm not sure the exact percentages but on a road like Main, King or Cannon when I've been around during the day it seems that 50% -75% of truck traffic is above 4 axle, so we should see a significant decrease in the number of trucks travelling through downtown.

I think a huge part that people haven't been discussing enough though is the impact on our roads and by extension our taxes. Road damage is not a linear function, so getting the heaviest vehicles off our downtown roads will see a not insignificant impact on road wear and tear.

[Innsertnamehere]

Those vehicles will increase overall mileage on municipal roads though as they will detour on Burlington St, RHVP, and Linc, which the city all has to pay for. It won't save the city any money on road maintenance and will in fact likely increase costs as there will be more mileage overall on municipal roads.

The good thing is the freeway network is generally built to a higher standard for wear than local streets, so they are designed to handle it more. Think about how much of Burlington St. is concrete paving to deal with the heavy truck traffic. Freeways are built with much deeper road bases as well to handle increase wear.

It will make downtown's roads wear a lot slower though, yes.

Generally the biggest benefits will be reduced road noise downtown and slightly lower traffic levels.

Once the city finally transitions to electric buses, downtown will be worlds quieter than today.

It's hard to believe how different the core will be in 10 years with LRT, way less road noise, dozens of new residential towers, etc.

[bigguy1231]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Those vehicles will increase overall mileage on municipal roads though as they will detour on Burlington St, RHVP, and Linc, which the city all has to pay for. It won't save the city any money on road maintenance and will in fact likely increase costs as there will be more mileage overall on municipal roads.

The good thing is the freeway network is generally built to a higher standard for wear than local streets, so they are designed to handle it more. Think about how much of Burlington St. is concrete paving to deal with the heavy truck traffic. Freeways are built with much deeper road bases as well to handle increase wear.

It will make downtown's roads wear a lot slower though, yes.

Generally the biggest benefits will be reduced road noise downtown and slightly lower traffic levels.

Once the city finally transitions to electric buses, downtown will be worlds quieter than today.

It's hard to believe how different the core will be in 10 years with LRT, way less road noise, dozens of new residential towers, etc.

The problem with the freeway network in this city is that it was underbuilt and usage is well above the capacity it was built for. As a result the wear and tear is accelerated requiring more frequent maintenance.

No doubt about the downtown being quieter in the future. It's being turned into a residential neighbourhood. They will be even less reason for anyone outside of the downtown to want to go there in the future. Places like Upper James and Centennial Parkway have more going on than our downtown as it is right now.

[TheRitsman]

Originally Posted by bigguy1231

The problem with the freeway network in this city is that it was underbuilt and usage is well above the capacity it was built for. As a result the wear and tear is accelerated requiring more frequent maintenance.

No doubt about the downtown being quieter in the future. It's being turned into a residential neighbourhood. They will be even less reason for anyone outside of the downtown to want to go there in the future. Places like Upper James and Centennial Parkway have more going on than our downtown as it is right now.

The mental gymnastics required to think that Upper James and Centennial Parkway are destinations. I mean, people do their essential shopping at the mega-corporation big box stores, but nobody is making the trip from Burlington, Grimsby, Brantford to Centennial Parkway my brother in Christ. Saying that downtown is becoming a residential neighbourhood because condos are being built and trucks are being banned is such a nuts equivalency I can't even begin to understand it. Downtown continues to be the economic core of the city, and it's failure in the late 20th century is part of the reason that Hamilton is in such an economic struggle right now. As downtown rebounds, the city's economic future looks brighter.

Call me when they move Art Crawl or Supercrawl to Centennial Parkway lmao.

Related to road wear, I disagree. I guess there will be far less. More truck traffic will occur on Burlington St which was in large part designed for this type of traffic, and is underutilized as a result of the shortcuts through the city. Moving truck traffic onto Burlington St and the highways that are built for high quantities of truck traffic means far less asphalt to rebuild. Even if it needs to be replaced more often, it's physically less asphalt taking more traffic meaning it will cost us less.

Not to mention the human costs, of healthier air where people live, and safer streets letting less neighbours downtown to be crushed or killed.

[Innsertnamehere]

Im personally very excited about trucks being banned, I don’t think many people are really opposed to it, just realistic that it won’t save the city money in road wear. If the Linc and RHVP were provincial roads like they really should be, it would save the city a ton.

I also wouldn’t say Hamilton’s municipal freeway network is over capacity, generally. Burlington St is actually substantially under capacity, by a huge margin. The Red Hill is the only one that really has any form of capacity issue and even then it’s usually only weekday rush hours.

And yea, LOL at centennial becoming the cities “downtown”.

[SFUVancouver]

I'm also very pleased to hear that heavy trucking will not run through downtown and adjacent urban neighbourhoods. I walk along Cannon street daily and the amount of heavy truck traffic (and by that I mean single and double-trailer rigs) is simply remarkable. Each traffic signal cycle at Wentworth and Cannon has at least one, and frequently two or more heavy trucks turn onto Cannon and I can't begin to guess the number of times I've seen them run red lights to initiate their right turn when the opposing pedestrian crossing signal has already changed.

The heavy trucks also produce a disproportionally large amount of traffic noise along Cannon, as the timing of the lights mean they typically have to come to stop each block in an air brake-assisted commotion and then accelerate from a standing start. The local air pollution associated with this is also very noticeable (the smell of exhaust from the worst offenders can linger for a long time).

To be clear, this isn't local trucking, but rather primarily single- and double-trailer bulk transport trucks. The road wear and tear of which is overwhelmingly disproportionate to local trucking and regular vehicular traffic (as the excellent table TheRitsman posted above indicates).

I can appreciate that the truck operators and the industrial customers they serve will hate this change. Inconvenient as it will be, it's simply not acceptable to have heavy trucking run through the downtown of a city. When a highway ring-road system has been built (at tremendous public expense), it is appropriate to restrict heavy trucking to this system.

[TheHonestMaple]

Originally Posted by SFUVancouver

I'm also very pleased to hear that heavy trucking will not run through downtown and adjacent urban neighbourhoods. I walk along Cannon street daily and the amount of heavy truck traffic (and by that I mean single and double-trailer rigs) is simply remarkable. Each traffic signal cycle at Wentworth and Cannon has at least one, and frequently two or more heavy trucks turn onto Cannon and I can't begin to guess the number of times I've seen them run red lights to initiate their right turn when the opposing pedestrian crossing signal has already changed.

The heavy trucks also produce a disproportionally large amount of traffic noise along Cannon, as the timing of the lights mean they typically have to come to stop each block in an air brake-assisted commotion and then accelerate from a standing start. The local air pollution associated with this is also very noticeable (the smell of exhaust from the worst offenders can linger for a long time).

To be clear, this isn't local trucking, but rather primarily single- and double-trailer bulk transport trucks. The road wear and tear of which is overwhelmingly disproportionate to local trucking and regular vehicular traffic (as the excellent table TheRitsman posted above indicates).

I can appreciate that the truck operators and the industrial customers they serve will hate this change. Inconvenient as it will be, it's simply not acceptable to have heavy trucking run through the downtown of a city. When a highway ring-road system has been built (at tremendous public expense), it is appropriate to restrict heavy trucking to this system.

Unfortunately not much will change on Cannon, in fact with this plan it may actually increase...

[TheHonestMaple]

Anyone notice the roads are in particularly bad condition lately? The stretch of Aberdeen between Longwood and Queen is insanely bad.

Does anyone know the resurfacing schedule for this spring/summer? Does that even exist? It would be really nice to know what the city has planned, because this is getting absolutely ridiculous.

[king10]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

Anyone notice the roads are in particularly bad condition lately? The stretch of Aberdeen between Longwood and Queen is insanely bad.

Does anyone know the resurfacing schedule for this spring/summer? Does that even exist? It would be really nice to know what the city has planned, because this is getting absolutely ridiculous.

All capital projects are in the City’s 10 year capital budget.

Aberdeen between Queen and Studholme is scheduled for major rehab starting in 2025, though this looks like just planning with construction happening in 2027. See page 257 below.

https://pub-hamilton.escribemeetings.com/filestream.ashx?DocumentId=351991

This doesnt mean they can’t allocate some of the minor maintenance or council area rating dollars before then for a shave and pave.

[TheHonestMaple]

2027?! Lmao that road isn't going to last another 6 months. Wow this city is a joke sometimes.

[king10]

Originally Posted by TheHonestMaple

2027?! Lmao that road isn't going to last another 6 months. Wow this city is a joke sometimes.

It can get bumped up sooner in next years capital budget. Its quite common. Roads are reassessed and reprioritized annually.

[Fruitloops]

Rumour has it that the Cdn National Ski team will be pulled along Main St from 403 to Gage to practice slalom moves. The abundance of ruts, uneven surface and raised obstacles was a factor in selecting Hamilton.

[TheRitsman]

This is the eternal infrastructure deficit that is oddly not discussed more. We should continue to waive fees and taxes to encourage infill in my opinion. Every new development that replaces a parking lot or underutilized structure adds to the property tax revenue base, making the next budget increase for infrastructure maintenance more tolerable and sustainable.

This is why the LRT is such a big deal. Not only will it be replacing literally over $1 billon of Hamilton's key infrastructure through the oldest parts of the city, meaning the city can skip those infrastructure enhancements, but it also will bring density and infill along the corridor that will more than cover the cost of yearly operations. It's why it's incredible that the previous council was so "eh" about it. It's the largest capital investment in Hamilton in history.

Now we just need to liberalize our zoning by-laws to further speed up and encourage infill. Removal of parking minimums, reduction in development charges, upzoning the entire city etc.

[Innsertnamehere]

Hamilton needs to spend more on roads is what it needs to do. And it slowly is - the last 4 years Hamilton has had a dedicated 0.5% tax increase to put towards roads spending, about $5 million extra a year. That pays for 1-2 extra road projects a year depending on their size.

In 4 years we have gone from spending around $40 million annually to $60 million.

Starting next year, the new council has decided that will increase to 1% annual increases. So $10 million extra a year. For comparison, the city is planning to resurface Main Street from the 403 to Gage Park in 2024 and 2025 and that is expected to cost around $10 million.

A recent report IIRC said that the city needs to be spending $150 million annually just so that roads stop getting worse on average. So we have a long way to go still. The current plan is to hit that level in 2030 or so (better than the last council which didn’t even really have a plan to hit it at all).

Ultimately Hamilton needs to either rip the bandaid off and pull like a one-time 10% tax hike or get higher government funding to actually shrink the backlog.

In terms of assessment growth - intensification will help, yes, but that will be relatively small tinkering at the margins. Commercial assessment is key and is the main reason Hamilton’s taxes are so high as commercial assessment values plummeting with deindustrialization. Projects like the AEGD and Stelco redevelopment are what will really save the city’s assessment base.

Rising lower city property values will also help - previously suburban houses carried a huge tax burden due to the very low assessed values in the lower city which had minimal tax burdens, even at higher tax rates.

[Fruitloops]

some roads are so bad that you risk getting concussed driving down them, hello Main St. Where is the duty to care on the part of the City on some of the more terrible roads. Never mind the damage to vehicles someone will be hurt due to the City's neglect. Waiting for the LRT start to fix some of these issues is a farce.

[TheHonestMaple]

Unbelievable that they're waiting until 2024/2025 to fix Main. It's getting to the point this year where it's almost undrivable. I can't imagine what it will look like after another year....

[Innsertnamehere]

The city has a map of construction projects here as well by the way, this shows most of the stuff which is planned to happen this summer:

https://spatialsolutions.maps.arcgis.com...html?id=16e783d5df3c489fbe3e620adbd241f1

one project not on there yet is York St / Cannon, which are supposed to be done from Dundurn to James North this summer.

[TheRitsman]

Originally Posted by Fruitloops

some roads are so bad that you risk getting concussed driving down them, hello Main St. Where is the duty to care on the part of the City on some of the more terrible roads. Never mind the damage to vehicles someone will be hurt due to the City's neglect. Waiting for the LRT start to fix some of these issues is a farce.

I don't think anyone suggested we wait for LRT to fix these issues. Fixing the infrastructure deficit will likely take decades, because planning cities goes into lifetimes not seasons of planning. LRT will be one capital project among many along the road to recovery. It will also encourage additional commercial and industrial tax base to locate in Hamilton. See; Amazon HQ wanting a city with rapid transit and Google along the Go Train and ION in KW. Hamilton is making significant progress toward a more sustainable property tax base which will allow for this to not occur again. A study out of Ottawa showed that infill increases the tax base by a not small amount per unit of residential built.

All in all, Hamilton is well on its way, and needs more of everything. I do agree that MPAC needs to do a reassessment of suburban homes, but not just in the lower city. Property values are low everywhere according to MPAC. We have brand new condos paying property tax based on the sold price and suburban homes paying based on values from 15 years ago. If MPAC is going to use assessed value and calculate based on the budgetary needs that's fine, but the assessed value needs to make sense. Toronto is basically building it's entire tax base on the backs of condo owners, and I don't think Hamilton should do the same.