Quote:
Originally Posted by NetMapel
I do not mean to just narrow Willingdon Ave or Lougheed Hwy the entire way. Rather, it should be considered for the areas around designated town centres. Pick appropriate roads surrounding the town centres and go for it. In fact, that should be the case around all designated town centres by the City of Burnaby. That idea is indeed to disincentivize some car traffic away from town centres, making it better for the people living there. The specific car traffic targeted to be disincentivized would be those pass through traffic that are just pass through these centres. Urban centres are places that you want people to go to, not through. We got back alleys, side parkings, parking lots, and more that interfere greatly with efficient car speed anyways and it will only get worse with more condo buildings popping up on Lougheed Hwy. That, to me, meets the definition of a stroad where it is not a road that allows for cars to actually drive fast with high efficiency and also not a street that is comfortable for people.
Given that Burnaby themselves designated those places as town centres. I am merely saying that fast cars and urban centres don’t mix. Big roads aren’t truly doing their jobs of moving cars efficiently due to the “stroad” aspect of it in urban centres. Induced demands suggests that you make it easier for people travel without a car, then that’s what they’ll do. Around urban centres, you absolutely want to focus on making it better land use value. You want people to be able to easily walk/bike to do daily chores like grocery, shopping, recreation, appointments… etc. So yeah, the goal should be to reduce through traffic and unnecessary car traffic in a town centre.
Also, those sidewalks on Willingdon Ave south of Deer Lake Parkway is atrocious. Through an email, Burnaby said that the city standard of side walk is 2.0m+. I don’t know if it is a newer standard or whatever, but those sidewalks are clearly not 2.0m+. Hopefully when they are ready to put in the BRT line on Willingdon Ave, they will take that moment to extend those sidewalks.
I see a lot of resemblance with this video:
• Video Link |
http://urbanshift.ca/projects/burnabys-t...entre-model/the-town-centre-model-cont1/
The problem is that the most congestion occurs around the City Centers.
That includes congestion for buses.
Even bus lanes don't work well when the car lanes are completely full and the bus has to do a left turn.
Burnaby designated these areas as Town Centers back in the 60s and were based around having existing services and businesses, and being major hubs regardless of transit.
This meant putting them on the regional highway network, which means there was always going to be wide roads going through them.
Edmonds didn't have a regional highway going through its center- and probably ended up suffering from it, because it never had or has sufficient services or commercial activity without the existing network of businesses from its auto-oriented days.
I guess there's not any loud, dirty cars and trucks going through the center- but it's also kind of a 'condo ghetto' that's not much of a hub for anything.
Being easily accessible by car also often means it's easily accessible by buses.
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