Quote:
Originally Posted by Hawrylyshyn
I said no - if it was done better (eg. go down Main rather than King) then I would be all for it. But I think shutting down part of King to cars is going to kill the downtown
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I severely disagree. I am surprised you feel this way with a minor in geography.
Part of the success of a LRT system is having the room for expansion, and having existing capacity that can be loaded to the system. King has both. Main does not. Main is a dead zone at the moment, which is in part due to the current one way road, but LRT would not resolve that as much of the road is low density compared to King, with very few places where development could occur. Furthermore there are a lot of missed connections with existing locations, such as Bernie Custis and Tim Hortons stadium. Many of the King St stops have a much larger population base to pull from, especially since it is closer to the centre than Main.
The most important fact is that the closer to the mountain you get, the wealthier the residents. This means expensive houses would be even more expensive, and there would be very little uplift potential for areas currently struggling.
I expect the LRT to do the opposite of what you suggest. With a comfortable ride downtown and to other areas of the city, I expect the LRT corridor to explode with development. Employment should soon follow if the city can get its head out of its ass. Main will likely be made two way, which can save everyone from not being able to use their precious single occupancy vehicles.
The city should have a robust parking plan in place for downtown, and express connections with LRT stations, and especially work on North-South lines. Which I expect them to do if they have a transit engineer worth more than $55 per year.