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- Thread starter denfromoakvillemilton
- Start date
W. K. Lis
Superstar
ssiguy2
Senior Member
What do trails and underground walkways have to do with being car-centric?
What you just said reinforces what I just stated............the streets themselves are built and geared towards vehicle traffic and the idea of actually having one little street closed to traffic is unthinkable.
So what you are saying is that if you want to walk anywhere in Toronto you have to go thry a forest or in an underground canyon? The longest stretch you can go in Toronto without having to navigate around cars is the vomit-comet.
denfromoakvillemilton
Senior Member
SSI, I think that Toronto is past the point of a boulevard unfortunately.
JayBeeGooner
Active Member
You act as if there's no sidewalk's anywhere in Toronto. Nearly all major streets have a sidewalk. The same can't be said for some suburban areas.
Closing a street will cause some disruption, but it's not unthinkable to close a street! Highways are closed regularly because of accidents, maintenance, repairs.
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drum118
Superstar
If closing roads off to traffic is an issue, why are cities in Europe doing that today??
Cities were built for people, not cars. Haven't said that, there are many places in NA built for cars with no thought to pedestrians and cycles.
Many cities in Europe have removed a lane or 2 and give it over to pedestrians, transit and cycles or made it a pedestrians, cycles and transit mall.
As I said in the past, X street will only carry X cars until you get a gridlock. If we are see 100,000 new residents yearly and each show up with a car, how long do you expect before a numbering system is in place to say when and where you can drive only that will be outside your needs??
More people walk on sidewalks than cars and they have less square footage to use in the first place than a car on many busy streets.
Pedestrians subsidizes a car about $2,500 a year.
Days of on street parking is near its ends as it generates next to no turn over for local business.
Have you visited cities in Europe doing what you want, let alone visited them???? I have and have the photos not showing it.
Hipster Duck
Senior Member
- Vancouver doesn't have any pedestrian streets, either. It has a transit mall and a one block section of Robson that is periodically closed in the summer months.
- There wouldn't have been any need to put parking on Number 3 Road since all of the businesses have free parking on site (many of them being, of course, strip malls).
- Vancouver should be notorious for the sheer amount of free parking it has. As long as you're on a side street, you're golden. There are even underground downtown parking garages that offer free parking to customers (and never check to see if you actually have bought anything). I've seen things I would never see in downtown Toronto like entrances to U/G parking garages with the gate permanently locked in the 'open' position.
I'm not even going to begin talking about Calgary, a city where every intersection of an arterial road is built with the anticipation of interchanges.
ssiguy2
Senior Member
Atleast Vancouver has a street it is willing to give priority to transit vehicles unlike Toronto. Montreal has many pedestrian streets and Calgary's Stephen Avenue mall is the most successful in the country.
I never said Toronto didn't have sidewalks.............my god if you think having sidewalks is a big deal then things really are bad.
Toronto could cut off many smaller streets in the inner city to cars to widen the sidewalks and maybe have access only for streetcars. Yonge should be completely cutoff for atleast the Dundas Square to Queen section although personally I think it should be closed to all traffic from Bloor to Union. Maybe keep 2 lanes {one each way} for deliveries and the Yonge bus and use the rest of the space for a widened sidewalk.
Ever notice how, except the Eaton's Centre, there are absolutely no cafes on Yonge Street? The ciity's main drag but is probably the only street in the entire core area where you can't sit outside and have a coffee or drink.
I never said Toronto didn't have sidewalks.............my god if you think having sidewalks is a big deal then things really are bad.
Toronto could cut off many smaller streets in the inner city to cars to widen the sidewalks and maybe have access only for streetcars. Yonge should be completely cutoff for atleast the Dundas Square to Queen section although personally I think it should be closed to all traffic from Bloor to Union. Maybe keep 2 lanes {one each way} for deliveries and the Yonge bus and use the rest of the space for a widened sidewalk.
Ever notice how, except the Eaton's Centre, there are absolutely no cafes on Yonge Street? The ciity's main drag but is probably the only street in the entire core area where you can't sit outside and have a coffee or drink.
Admiral Beez
Superstar
Toronto has 7,100 km of sidewalks, but not one is for cars. Roads are for vehicles, sidewalks are for walking. Both have over 5,000 kms of space to conduct their business.
If you want to take road space and turn it into a pedestrian area, that's no longer a road, but is a market or mall, or just open space like the pedestrian walkways and squares in Europe. I love visiting those areas, but they're not roads.
W. K. Lis
Superstar
You forget the depressions in the sidewalks (where they are not setback from the curb) which the cars use as ramps to driveways. Those depressions are made for the car, not wheelchairs. Those depressions are hazardous to all pedestrians, because they cater to the car.
At one time, they had ramps in the street gutter, but that was changed over time to the sidewalk depression, marketed as an "improvement". For the car, yes; not for pedestrians.
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Jonny5
Senior Member
Are you for real? Like, really?
supercilious
New Member
Admiral Beez
Superstar
As long as we're making stupid comments, I'll partake too. You forget about the depressions in the sidewalks which strollers, wheelchairs and others use to enter the roadspace at intersections and crosswalks. Those depressions are hazardous to cars, because they cater to sidewalk users.
supercilious
New Member
Crosswalks are also a MAJOR hazard for cars and when added up cut into alot of good road in the city
W. K. Lis
Superstar
I'm not counting the corner depressions, those are useful. I'm talking about the depressions in the sidewalks for driveways, NOT at the corners or intersections.