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Durham Region Transit / Pulse

Close vote. Not often can it be said there are exciting times in... Whitby.

 
Wow. This is the worst one yet.


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Petition. https://www.change.org/p/province-o...ed_by_id=27f6e950-bbe5-11eb-b5a0-c92cc2062005
 
What also annoys me is that it assumes that everyone living in Highland Creek and the area only drive! And everyone in the comments are annoyingly saying that they need to drive to a local destination like a grocery store or library. This project will not only improve bus service locally and regionally, but it'll also provide proper sidewalks, and cycle tracks to allow that local movement.

But I will agree that the section east of Meadowvale is more like a residential road than the rest of the corridor. So some of the concerns are reasonably placed.

Concerns about noise from buses can be reduced from electric and hybrid vehicles. And they already have buses running along Ellesmere so they have a problem with that?

No more parking on the road? too bad! These residents are spoiled with double driveways and double garages. I don't even want to listen to complaints like these.

The concerns about turning movements are fair, now the residents can't turn freely like they used to, boo-hoo. But their travel patterns will simply evolve to doing u-turns at either intersection. No more different than residential roads with a median, and it might just be 30 more seconds to get to their house.

The road is already one lane in each direction, so this shouldn't change traffic or traffic patterns. People can use Kingston or Ellesmere.


And yes, these residents are getting high-quality and frequent transit, as well as cycle tracks. So arguements that stem from car-obsessiveness need to evolve to think about everyone. And not just people who drive.
 
 
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^ It passed, which I guess isn't surprising since Council tends to defer to the local Councillor.


Meanwhile:

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Via Richard Oldfield on the Facebook group "My Transit Page":

"Picture of the day? Actually the sign in the first picture is one of many on front lawns of numerous properties throughout downtown Whitby. Metrolinx has been doing studies and holding on line public information meetings on putting separate bus lanes for the DRT Pulse “BRT” route through Whitby and Oshawa. In the last few years bus only lanes has been constructed through the west end of the Region in Pickering and Ajax. Similar lanes will be constructed all the way into the east end of the Region and may include some bus transit lanes in the centre median.

But the biggest controversy is in Whitby where the initial proposal was to construct a pedestrian mall at the four corners downtown at Highway 2 and Brock Street with only bus lanes going through. This sparked outrage from downtown merchants not wanting to lose on street parking meters and nearby neighbours alarmed by the idea all car traffic east and west would be diverted to adjacent side streets. A number of local politicians took up the cause and there now appears to be some concession to maintain east west traffic on Highway 2 in addition to the two bus lanes. Another proposal to have one lane for regular eastbound traffic only, with westbound traffic diverted to side streets was also met with strong opposition. The end result may simply be the removal parking meters on this stretch of Highway 2, leaving two bus lanes and two regular lanes but the entire exercise certainly shows how narrow minded people are here. In Europe pedestrian malls are commonplace, with transit priority in place. In Whitby residents are fighting additional car traffic on their streets, not buses, which were never intended to be removed from Highway 2.

One thing I can tell you from operating Pulse buses is that downtown Whitby has always been the big bottleneck between Scarborough and Oshawa, and the only place west of downtown Oshawa that allowed parking on Highway 2. All parked was prohibited from 4:30 to 6 pm but I can also tell you it was rare to be able to get through downtown Whitby in either direction at any time of day without having to change lanes due to cars being parked on the street."
 

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