One-way, two-way - Is there any way???

The gang over at Raise the Hammer are now debating how Main Street should look when some councillor begins the really crazy idea of slowing downtown to a crawl, not even during construction season!

Being a Hamiltonian, there is no rite of passage greater than the quest of navigating your way through downtown along the one way streets.  It is your initiation into the great brotherhood of Hamiltonians.  Of course that would go hand in hand with driving along Burlington Street and Industrial Drive (oh no! one way streets!) and coming out to either end of the road with your suspension still intact!  But I digress...

I am only going to say this:  I cannot get behind such a plan without a suitable traffic management plan which would have the same level of traffic flow or better.  Any plan that would end up creating inconvenience for many to create some semblance of livability for the few is not a step forward. 

James Street and John Street are now two way roads and while there is improvement to life north of King Street, there is chaos to the south.  Not a day goes by without a pedestrian crossing St. Joseph's Drive, walking uphill along James Street South, experiencing a near miss from a car that was turning onto St. Joseph's Drive from James Street.

And what about the International Village stretch of King Street?  How will anyone navigate through that while going through downtown to get on the 403?  There's only two lanes and they both go the same direction.  There would a lot of work to do, should we somehow head in that direction.

Hamilton used to be a place where people met and now it's not so much anymore and that's not attributed to one-way or two-way streets, but to the lack of vision and imagination that made cities like Toronto great and cities like Hamilton end up with more street level parking lots.  Apart from Lister Block can you name a great office building or real estate project that could mill all the great visionaries over to us?

We are about to embark on building a new rapid transit system and a new stadium, neither of which required or solicited a radical vision, but radical visions are needed to keep our city vibrant and they need to move the city forward, and not turn back the clock.