Windsor Star Article

I can’t resist poking fun at the Windsor Start Article quote. I think it was great coverage and am grateful to the Star but I chuckled when I read

” The event was put on by St. Clair and Scaledown.ca, a local website that advocates this new planning concept of designing communities in which people can walk, bike or take public transit to work.”

Kind of makes it sound like walkability and sustainability is some sort of new fangled concept. Gee willikers, do you think this new fad is something that might catch on?

This is sort of like when I was told that I was the first person in the city to use the term “Urban Village” publicly. I guess it helps to be well read.

Next catch phrase “Zoomers”

This new term for those over 55 may change the way people think about growing older. Coming from Moses Znaimer, of Much Music and CityTV who is the new exectutive director of CARP (Canadian Association for the fifty-plus)

“Zoomer is a word people can instantly identify with. It has a certain drive, it has a certain optimism, and the very same people who will never reveal their age are pleased to self-identify as Zoomers”

Coming from the same article the following quote is how we need to look at Windsor when talking about a retirement community strategy:

Can we stop focusing all our efforts for senior citizens on how to treat them win they fall ill (while acknolwledging that can happen) and give as much attention to creating a world for Zoomers who are full of life and finally free to live every minute of it?

Tuesday’s Council - Traffic Report

Although the report did not study the conversions of one way streets to two way streets as comprehensively as I would have liked to have seen, the following is coming forward

“The technical review undertaken by the Transportation Master Plan study indicated that there is an opportunity to convert Downtown area one-way streets to two-way operation as Schedule A projects. These projects may be implemented, if approved by Council, without fulfilling further conditions of the Municipal Class EA planning process.

The project File Report identifies a proposed implementation process that incorporates design guidelines as well as possible staged implementation of one way street conversion to two-way street operations. However, it is important to note that there is no compelling traffic reason to convert these streets. Neither the casino expansion nor any other development or changes evaluated as part of the study create a condition that would warrant such action.

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It seems as though the traffic department is going out of their way to hint that there is no justification for converting one-way to two-way traffic. Thats ok as we have reports to draw from such as. Hopefully councillors won’t simply accept the traffic considerations for one way conversions as the only considerations

DOWNTOWN - ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

The key word is “patterns.”

One-way streets, which sold like hotcakes in cities across America in the 1950s, are designed for one particular purpose — expedite travel into and out of a street-dense downtown. One-way streets are primarily about cars, and even more primarily about cars that enter at dawn, park all day and exit at sunset.

One-way streets are excellent ways to manage and corral traffic flow, and when coupled with a well-timed system of lights, they make life easy for thousands of commuters who want to minimize the amount of time they spend staring at urban streetscapes on their way to and from the daily grind.

But if Richmond has a strong desire (because there is certainly a strong need) to become as attractive to a residential population as it is to the office tower crowd, one of the first steps will be to change the way people move through the city. Not because it’s trendy, or because it looks good on paper, or it gets lots of applause in meetings. No, the push for a two-way street system in downtown Richmond is a necessary early step in the creation of a residential downtown.

One of the most important things for people to remember about all of this planning work is that the “desired outcome” (which is a residential urban core with a strong business presence that is attractive to tourists, as near as I can tell) is a 20-to-30 year process. Richmond is in the process of creating a downtown for the next generation — and the generations to follow.

What that means is that there are short-term and long-term trade-offs. In the case of decreasing the number of one-way streets, the short-term impact is felt most heavily by commuters, who have developed a habit of using Cary Street and Main/Ellwood as minor freeways to get to the West End, Powhite Parkway and I-64 West. Minimizing that impact — for instance, by eliminating the toll on the Downtown Expressway, or improving access ramps from key downtown corridors to I-95 and I-64 — will be critical.

It will also be critical for all stakeholders in this planning process to be aware that this is a long-term effort to transform downtown — and to be committed to that effort. As an article published by the Institute of Transportation Engineers on the role of traffic planning on Milwaukee’s urban planning efforts notes, good planning is a complex brew:

It is difficult to define all the elements that lead to the success of a downtown business district in a large or small community. Many pieces need to fall into place, from planning, development and transportation perspectives. Transportation polices can contribute to the synergy required to achieve a vibrant downtown that is friendly to motorists, pedestrians and businesses. The City of Milwaukee, working with its Public Works and Engineering Departments and many downtown partners, has improved parking availability, traffic circulation patterns and pedestrian conditions to support downtown growth and a high quality of life