Thread subject: The Sentinel
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- Thread starter Ramsayite
- Start date
MichaelS
Senior Member
DiscoStu
Active Member
I'd like to go on record saying that I lived in NYC for a decade and at one point owned (and street parked) 2 cars. Kids, if you believe hard enough, dreams can come true even if you're not a mid-level oil exec.
Cowtown
Senior Member
We all share the same city. The desires of the people in the Beltline doesn't trump other neighborhoods any more than the desires of Tuscany trumps other neighborhoods. I don't care one way or another if cars get blocked at 11th or not, as I don't use it often, and don't drive that often but I agree with others that you can't just cut off vehicle infrastructure because you don't like vehicles, no more than drives get to cut off cycle infrastructure because they don't like it.. For better or worse, 95% of the people in the city use vehicles, and probably always will.
This sums it up well. Very few people go away from vehicles as a choice if they don't have to. Those other cities like Hong Kong and Moscow, London etc have low rates of car usage, because it's too inconvenient and too expensive to drive, it's not that people are choosing that. If they could dive a car easily, and inexpensively, they would in a second.
darwink
Senior Member
Close 11th likely means it will be politically impossible to reduce 8th to 2 lanes plus turning.
I’d rather compromise than end with both at ‘extremes’.
I’d rather compromise than end with both at ‘extremes’.
Zoom
Active Member
Not to be too nitpicky, but those three cities are growing rather slowly considering their size. They’re barely growing faster than Calgary in raw numbers but are 10 times the size. Many of the cities you listed as the most driveable cities are actually much faster growing. I don’t know if there’s a correlation, just saying that not everybody is dying to move to New York, London or Paris and the price of real estate in those cities has nothing to do with whether people drive or walk, but simply, because they are alpha cities.
So, in an attempt to get this thread, back to some sanity, I will say I agree that the city doesn’t need to be increasing driving infrastructure, as we already have plenty of it, and we can scale it back in some cases, for example, pairing down some of the lanes on 9th Avenue or McLeod Trail, among others but I don’t believe closing 11th St. to cars is a good idea. Sure, reduce it down to one lane in each direction that’s fine but closing it all together doesn’t make any sense..
Whatever plan the city ends up choosing will be better than the current crossing. Whether vehicles are part of it or not, it'll be an improvement for pedestrians and cyclists.
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
You'd be surprised to learn that most of us are the opposite of suburban truck driving oil execs.
Beltline_B
Senior Member
@christopherplace I agree with many of the things you’re advocating for, but wanting to leave 11th street open to cars doesn’t equate to not caring if a few kids die.
If was a case if having to choose between vehicles and active mode, I might be inclined to choose active mode, but if we can have both why not?
Reducing 11th street to one vehicle lane in each direction is a decent compromise. As long as the pedestrian/cycle portion is done well I’m happy.
whatchyyc
Active Member
an all-modes underpass also allows buses to be routed along 11th, something that doesn't happen with the current at-grade crossing
CBBarnett
Senior Member
My vote is mainly on cost for the 11 Street car v. no car options - unlike almost every other project in the city's history, there's really not a convincing "need" for the vehicle access to be maintained here. Before anyone get's too excited in rebuttal - sure, it would be nice for car access to be maintained some specific routes and trips, but 11th is probably the least consequential road crossing into and out of the core for vehicles, on account it's really a short dead-end street, and has functioned with a train crossing for a century - it's simply not a major or important corridor for vehicles, nor has it ever been relied upon as one due to frequent train interference.
Due to the at-grade crossing both fire trucks and buses both don't "need" vehicle access here - again, they both operated as if this crossing didn't exist for a century. If closed to vehicles, nothing would change for their operations. If the fire department had an issue, they would have road-blocked the pedestrian-only option already, like they have on many previous road-narrowing and traffic calming projects. They didn't because the pedestrian-only option wasn't killed yet - that's our proof that fire and transit are okay without it.
So it goes to cost - if you can get a car underpass for the same price as a pedestrian-only one, go for it. If not, I don't think it's good value to add cars and the associated extra effort, depth, engineering and cost that goes with it. I get opinions are strong on this, but if there's ever a place where cars are more of a nice-to-have rather than a need-to-have project requirement it's this one. All the park stuff is a bit of distraction, it costs nothing in comparison to the grade separation but also isn't needed - a bit of red herring in all this debate IMO.
Most critically - if we do end up with the car underpass, we must avoid the very Calgary thing in over-engineering the hell out of it. a single lane, no truck access, no shoulder. Keep things tight, cheap and narrow so we don't bloat this underpass into yet another giant, expensive and redundant car circulation in our most walkable area that already has many better access points.
Due to the at-grade crossing both fire trucks and buses both don't "need" vehicle access here - again, they both operated as if this crossing didn't exist for a century. If closed to vehicles, nothing would change for their operations. If the fire department had an issue, they would have road-blocked the pedestrian-only option already, like they have on many previous road-narrowing and traffic calming projects. They didn't because the pedestrian-only option wasn't killed yet - that's our proof that fire and transit are okay without it.
So it goes to cost - if you can get a car underpass for the same price as a pedestrian-only one, go for it. If not, I don't think it's good value to add cars and the associated extra effort, depth, engineering and cost that goes with it. I get opinions are strong on this, but if there's ever a place where cars are more of a nice-to-have rather than a need-to-have project requirement it's this one. All the park stuff is a bit of distraction, it costs nothing in comparison to the grade separation but also isn't needed - a bit of red herring in all this debate IMO.
Most critically - if we do end up with the car underpass, we must avoid the very Calgary thing in over-engineering the hell out of it. a single lane, no truck access, no shoulder. Keep things tight, cheap and narrow so we don't bloat this underpass into yet another giant, expensive and redundant car circulation in our most walkable area that already has many better access points.
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CBBarnett
Senior Member
I get that's sounds good that we should future-proof for uncertainty and more transit access - but if it was a project requirement, transit would have vetoed the pedestrian-only version and this debate wouldn't be happening because we would only have 1 option. It's a slippery and expensive slope to future proof all infrastructure for imaginary needs that aren't the problem that is trying to be solved.
There's little functional route planning that would ever make 11 Street make sense - this area is so central it is, and will forever be walking dominated. The southern terminus of 11 Street at 17th Avenue is only 1 kilometre south of Kirby Station - almost all of the 11th Street is within an existing TOD boundary, we just don't think about it that way because it's already built out and downtown.
Not saying access couldn't be useful for transit - just saying it's really hard to justify it as a requirement given the context. Another nice-to have IMO.
whatchyyc
Active Member
Yeah for sure.
haltcatchfire
Senior Member
Come on now, we can't create a six block long traffic barrier between Beltline and Downtown when the crossings at both ends of that six blocks don't even have full directional access.
Any major incident or closure for rehabilitation at 14th or 8th and 11th suddenly becomes critical,.
Any major incident or closure for rehabilitation at 14th or 8th and 11th suddenly becomes critical,.
artvandelay
Active Member
LOL it's not like eleventh street is a commuter route. It's mostly local traffic - peds, bikes, and vehicles. Investing upwards of $50 million dollars (likely higher) to make connectivity worse (ie. the "recommended" plan) is horrendous capital allocation. As a pedestrian and cyclist who uses 11 Street regularly, I'd much rather they spent ~$5 million to add a pedestrian bridge that could be used when a train is crossing and spend the rest of the money widening sidewalks, planting trees, and improving the public realm downtown.