HRM unveils Main Street project
Dartmouth residents fill church hall to hear recommendations
By PATRICIA BROOKS ARENBURG Staff Reporter
Tue. Jan 15 - 5:32 AM
[Coun. Andrew Younger (Peter Parsons / Staff)</p>]
Coun. Andrew Younger (Peter Parsons / Staff)
Hopes for a revitalized Main Street got a boost Monday night,
Area councillor Andrew Younger said it was standing room only at the church hall where the city unveiled recommendations for a $7.9-million, 30-year facelift for Dartmouth’s Main Street.
"It shows that people were excited and interested," Mr. Younger said of the attendance.
Area residents met at Stevens Road United Baptist Church in Dartmouth to hear the recommendations to make Main Street more attractive and safer for pedestrians and cyclists, and to help slow down the 43,000 cars that use the route each work day.
The first decade would see Main Street become "a tree-lined arterial with improved pedestrian amenities and with entry points — or gateways — at each end of the area," says the report.
The consultant’s report recom-mended trees along the street, planters, benches, lower lampposts, sidewalk enhancement, a small park at Woodlawn Avenue and Main Street and fewer billboards.
When people who live in the area were surveyed about proposed changes to the district, their main complaint was that Main Street seemed like a highway, the report stated.
As far as Mr. Younger was concerned, people liked what they heard on Monday.
"The one comment we got from a few people was they would like to see council make sure the plan is accelerated as opposed to this 20-30 year timetable that it’s on," Mr. Younger said.
This type of project worked in Toronto, which gave Bloor Street West a similar spruce-up, he said. And he pointed to Halifax’s Quinpool Road as a local example of a tree-lined street with a blend of shops and homes along one of the city’s main arteries.
It’s "pretty hard to speed on Quinpool Road, so it works," Mr. Younger said.
Quinpool Road doesn’t have a strip joint similar to Main Street’s Ralph’s Place, but both streets have adult video shops. But, Mr. Younger said, people have a very different perception of Main Street.
"You have to ask yourself, why is Main Street defined by that? When in fact, Main Street has all kinds of stores, some of which are very popular . . . yet when you talk to someone about Main Street, it’s often defined by X-Citement Video or Ralph’s Place."
One of the repeated questions at Monday’s meeting, Mr. Younger said, was "is it going to happen or is it going to be a report that just gathers dust?"
"In this case I was happy to report that some of the recommendations have actually been implemented and council has allocated some funding and the question is whether council will chose to allocate further funding to this."
The next step is to take the report to community council in the first week of February, where he hopes its members will recommend regional council accept it . Staffers are also already working on proposed changes to the land-use bylaws to allow some of this re-development to proceed. Community council will see those proposals at a later date.
But in the end, Mr. Younger said he hopes city council invests in the area.
"If you don’t do something in that area, you’ll end up having the area deteriorate," he said.
"It’s certainly cheaper to prevent that from happening than to see it happening and then try to fix it."
(
pbrooks@herald.ca)
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