Thanks for the updates! Awesome how Hamilton is finally get some upgrades? mdrejhon, what will LRT do for Hamilton in your opinion?
Over the next 25 years, Hamilton wants to get multiple LRTs built, beginning with the B-line. The five proposed lines are B, L, A
, S, T which stands for BLAST network.
Our current debate goes around the B-line, which is now currently an express bus. It is extremely efficient offpeak, but gets slow and crowded during peak when the bus gets full in the downtown sections (more population are complaining about that). While the population pleads for better bus service, our politicians are aligning as pro-LRT and anti-LRT. The expectation is fully Metrolinx funded for the B-line construction, given this city is a bit more cash-strapped than Toronto.
I can understand why some people say we shouldnt build LRTs for the "sake of building LRTs"... I hear some talk it may do less to help public transit than simply adding a bus lane to the full length of Main/King, and be far more expensive. And that it increases rents and house values to lock out poor suffering Hamiltonians. We are now increasingly a mixed city of longtime Hamiltonians and incoming "Toronto escapees", combined with immigrants. Some new residents whom have started real nice businesses like antibiotic-free burger places or cheap simple diners with nice sitdown meals costing almost less than McD, all the way through to expensive stuff near Locke. Mixed in with the depressed areas nearer the declining steel industry, and the mini condo boom and expanded recreational waterfront (as waterfront length very slowly turns over to recreation) with a popular hipster wonderful waterfront restaurant garnering noise complaints from nearby residents. One area high end, next area old depressed industry, and lots in between. We also have the usual gentrification with the pros and cons that goes with that, as well. And the "first time homeowners priced out of Toronto" people, where many still got the little known real estate steals here and there - Homes in Hamilton are still far more affordable than Toronto, even in 2014 some families with children found a mortgage in the three figures monthly (under 1000 a month! detached!) though that era is quickly ending except for lower city fix-me-uppers. Still cheaper than Pickering or even Oshawa, though, while being more urban. The nature of this mixed city, from low end to high end, guarantees vociferous debate for our LRT.
Now if you had my opinion, LRT would be good for the city if done properly.
This is the first LRT route: We have a main crosstown artery in the lower city, Main Street and King Street. Two sets of extremely wide five-lane-wide one-way streets (a block apart). Except for the narrowed area near James St, they are wildly efficient urban expressways with Canada's best and most efficient synchronized traffic lights (From Gage to 403, I can breeze 60kph through approximately twenty sets of green lights, zero red lights, if I am not driving at peak), taking me a mere 6 minutes to go fom near Gage Park through downtown to Highway 403. Great for those trips to Aldershot GO station, too. This is not an exaggeration. These are widely loved if you are a carowner Hamiltonian, but very hated by pedestrians and non-carowners (unless you found a seat on an B-line express bus). It also depresses the businessowners along this citystreet-turned-urban-expressway.
Building an LRT means de-synchronizing the traffic lights. Separate studies made before LRT was imagined, shows a big (gentrification style, even) business boom potential on Main-King when desynchronizing the traffic lights, increasing nearby property values. But it will lengthen crosstown car commutes. Imagine Toronto streetcars being installed in the middle of a wide Toronto artery such as Eglington Crosstown becoming 100% surface (no underground), stealing lanes of traffic. Except Main-King is more efficient (faster cars) than Eglington, while lined with many storefronts only 10 feet from whooshing cars (with some storefronts shuttered) and dangerous to people who stray off the sidewalk inches away from speeding cars. Optimizing for cars versus for pedestrians/transit/businesses. That is how some Hamiltonian carowners feel. But, with lots of shuttered businesses on Main-King, a business upturn would do Main-King good in the next 15 years. But we even have businessowners concerned about being priced out of their businesses too, some having been attracted by low rents. We will have a tough debate this year, probably, on the LRT.
I would be in the pro-LRT camp. I am willing to give up my quick 6-minute commute to the 403 from the middle of urbanity near Gage Park, provided (1) two Hamilton GO stations are built as currently ongoing, and (2) business boom on Main-King is encouraged with a reasonable balance between old unexpensive Hamiltonian-targeted business (e.g. seven dollar 4-star Yelp breakfasts!) and new hipster business (e.g. five dollar espressos in Parisian cafes). We have friends that want either or both. I will even be able to bike to either GO stations, leaving my car at home when I commute to Toronto for work. There is already a barrier-separated bike lane on Cannon street. (paralell street north of Main/King "urban expressway")
To whet LRT appetites, here is our city's proposed LRT network in 25 years:
(The first line is B-line within 15 years, if greenlighted. It is along the Main/King street corridor)
Source: City of Hamilton
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLAST_network
