Quote:
Originally Posted by fastcarsfreedom
Again, perhaps I wasn't clear enough--improvements to that corridor were planned when I was a child--as in, there was next to no sprawl in the area, unless you consider the Drive-In Theater and the Gulf station that was on the corner at the time to be sprawl. People have been killed and maimed in accidents at the corner for years--as they were at the York Road crossing at the bottom of the cut--but again, those facts ought to be ignorned so that a square argument can be forced into a round reality and the anti-Flamborough, anti-suburb, anti-car purity of this thread can be maintained. Since the interchange will be controlled-access, REDUCING the ingress/egress points of most businesses in that area, I fail to see how it "serves" these stores--which were planned/built after the highway proposal was finalized.
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You are twisting this debate. First of all, thank you very much, I grew up near concession 6 and lived most of my life in or around waterdown - continuing to drive into and through the area for commuting and to visit my parents and grandmother who all lived, until last year, in the heart of waterdown. I am intimately familiar with the traffic flow at clappisons since it was part of my daily commute for years. You know as well as I do that the 5/6 interchange is not a bottleneck there. The main bottlenecks are downtown waterdown on 5, and the two lane arrangement at the 401 end of 6.
Second, this is not anti-flamborough sentiment. This is anti-money-wasting. I know that highway six is a major transportation corridor for goods (and commuters) linking the 403 and 401 (and beyond). But the reality is that the throughput of that intersection was and still is actually quite stellar. That light might be the smartest traffic light in all of North America. It keeps a huge amount of traffic flowing smoothly by sensing not only the presence of cars in certain lanes but also the number of cars, and times each cycle to accommodate the volume at that instant. The only time you have to wait more than one or two cycles at that light is if there is a major disruption due to an accident or construction.
Your smoke and mirrors discussion of moving goods for everyone's benefit makes sense -- until you take into account the fact that highway 5 is NOT a major goods thoroughfare. Highway 5 is not, should not, and if flamborough residents (rightfully) have their way, WILL not become a major highway. Waterdown's retail district was not built to accommodate a multi lane highway through the middle of it, and any residents and business there are rightfully against expansion of highway 5. So they planned to expand Parkside and (rightfully) the residents are agianst that too.
So on paper, the reasoning may be "building volume of traffic", but we have to take a logical look at what is driving that traffic!
For the majority of truck traffic, the current system is working just fine - green light along 6 until people show up on 5, and then just a long enough light to let those people through before switching back to green on 6. The only reason to justify an interchange there is if both streets have a large enough traffic volume. A high-volume 6 crossing a lower-volume 5 is not a good enough reason to put an interchange in. So there must be some anticipation of a spurt in volume on 5.
Meanwhile, there is very limited residential west on 5, and most of the residential development east on 5 (through to the east edge of Waterdown) is already filled in. New developments are much further east or further north and will receive only limited benefit from an interchange at clappisons.
Where is all of this additional traffic expected on 5 coming from and going to? The 403 is the major east-west for through traffic, so we must assume that the new traffic must have a destination in or around Waterdown. As far as I know, there are no major industrial or condo developments happening up there. But there is a whole hell of a lot of big box retail development.
No matter which way you slice it, the creation of retail-bound traffic is going to be a HUGE driver of traffic along highway 5 over the next few years.
So, no, the current business owners will not benefit from the interchange. And no, the interchange is not being build to plop cars directly into a canadian tire parking lot. But you absolutely cannot claim that the big box development there isn't a major driver of new traffic along 5- if not THE biggest driver.
Which is why my simplified statement is that they are building an interchange to service big box retail.
And I don't know what agenda you think I am trying to further? Since the city is on the hook for 50% of that work, I guess my agenda is to stop wasting taxpayers' money.
Residents of Flamborough (rightfully) complain that they have no transit options. So one solution might be to spend that chunk of cash (that's about to be wasted on an overpass) on a high speed link to downtown Hamilton instead. Why don't we work to relieve the traffic volume instead of building monstrous structures to accommodate it? This is just an idea - I'm sure there are other reasonable solutions.
Anyway, I'm passionate about this kind of thing because I think it sends a clear message about our twisted priorities. Look at the work they are doing there.. blowing through the escarpment to widen 6, going to build these huge ramp structures - meanwhile we are told time and again that widening the measly hunter tunnel is "impossible".
We are building roads toward a dead end. Man... gas prices are going to reach a point where people simply cannot afford to hop in their car and drive the distances they do now. Getting in the car will become a conscious decision because it will simply be too expensive. We are going to be kicking ourselves for overbuilding the roads where it's not necessary, while we neglect the dense parts of the city and we neglect to plan ahead for the pending need for alternatives such as rail.
Sorry to get off topic but it just makes me furious to see such waste.
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Only progressive things like two-way conversions and LRT need to prove that they'll increase tax revenues. Widening highways and building expressways are faith-based.
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