Lost on Longwood?

Councillor Brian McHattie, 

City of Hamilton

RE: Longwood Road Environmental Project Report Notice of Project Completion

Dear Councillor McHattie,

I am writing on behalf of Transportation for Liveable Communities (TLC) to voice our extreme dissatisfaction with the notice of completion for the Longwood Road environmental project report.

The City of Hamilton has a unique opportunity to seize on McMaster University’s expansion into Longwood Road and the potential to attract numerous young professionals who can further invigorate the Kirkendall neighborhood. Such young professional have made it loud and clear that they seek to live and work in lively communities where they can walk and bike.

Despite the assertion in the city report, there are no solid MTO plans in the near future that involve widening highway 403, according to the MTO’s “Southern Highways Program 2012 to 2016.” Planning for such a project would not even begin until after 2016. 

Disappointedly, the city’s plan for Longwood Road uses future highway widening as reason to create a people-hostile 5-lane highway on Longwood, with inappropriate accommodation of pedestrian and cyclists. Moreover, the plan effectively is to do nothing in the foreseeable future despite latent demand which requires immediate accommodation of safe pedestrian and cyclist routes.  

  

Our vision for Longwood Road is simple, sensible and feasible: wide sidewalks and bike lanes on both sides of the road, from its start at Princess Point in the north to its terminus at similar people-friendly facilities on Aberdeen Ave. Only such a plan would accommodate the people who wish to live and work in Kirkendall and the McMaster Innovation Park. In our vision, we could readily travel by foot and bike between the Innovation Park and neighborhood destinations at all directions, including Westdale and McMaster University.

We find it absurd that, even though the motivation for the Longwood Road environmental project was “a need for enhanced pedestrian and bicycle access and improved safety along the existing corridor” (quotation taken from the project Problem and Opportunity Statement), it has resulted in a backward conclusion reflecting mid-Twentieth Century car-centric thinking that fails to adequately address the Problem and Opportunity statement.

Giving that the notice of completion makes it clear that we have been blocked from appealing with a part II order, TLC intends to take other available democratic actions to advance the local cause of sustainable transportation. Such actions will include wide broadcasting of the fact that plans for the major transportation corridor to the McMaster Innovation Park are anything but innovative. We hope to find allies in the McMaster community including McMaster Innovation Park so that the best interests of this new facility are served by a multi-modal transportation network.

Sincerely yours,

Randy Kay

CC 

Dr. Patrick Deane, President, McMaster University

Mr. Zach Douglas, President and CEO, McMaster Innovation Park

TLC is a citizen-powered advocacy group formed in 2000 that seeks to improve conditions and infrastructure that supports and actively encourages healthy and sustainable transportation modes, including walking, transit, cycling and car pooling.

Longwood Letter

Deadline for comments to the city regarding Longwood Road (between Main and Aberdeen) is Thursday, April 5, 2012 - the e-mail address for Lorissa Skrypniak, the city staff person responsible for receiving comments, is tplanning@hamilton.ca. Remember: Your voice DOES MATTER! 


_____________________________________________________


Transportation for Liveable Communities tlchamilton.org
tlchamilton@gmail.com
905-525-9140 ext. 26026


3 April 2012

To: Lorissa Skrypniak, MCIP, RPP, Senior Project Manager 
Subject: Longwood Road Class EA


Transportation for Liveable Communities (TLC) is a citizen advocacy group established in 2000 to address sustainable transportation in Hamilton Ontario.


TLC is very concerned with the Longwood Road “Preferred Alternative” presented at the Public Information Centre Wednesday, March 21, 2012.


Beginning with the “Problem and Opportunity Statement” referencing the Kirkendall Traffic Management Plan’s statement that “Community concerns indicated a need for enhanced pedestrian and bicycle access and improved safety along the existing corridor,” the trajectory seems clear enough.


Yet we are next informed that because the city will not pursue an onramp to Highway 403 westbound from Main at Columbia College, “the implication...is that four general purpose lanes will be required between Aberdeen Avenue and Main Street.”


So, it is clear that any changes that would address the prime problem and opportunity statement to “enhance pedestrian and bicycle access” begins with the core assumption that Longwood road will act as an extended on/off ramp to Highway 403 westbound (and eastbound), requiring 4 lanes for cars.


This is a surprising turn of events, especially considering the main objective began as an effort to make the street safer and friendlier for cyclists and pedestrians.


Cyclists are especially aggrieved after seeing the Shifting Gears Cycling Plan for this stretch of road crumble: project number 196 in that plan for Longwood has: “Bike Lane with Road Diet, Longwood, Main to Aberdeen.”


Continuous connection is an important consideration when building a comprehensive bike network. As it is, the preferred option of the city planners seems to suggest cyclists using the new southbound bike lane between King and Main will have to dismount at Main, cross in a crosswalk to the east side of Longwood to continue through another crosswalk to the south side of Main where there will be a bike path on the east side of Longwood.

At the same time, cars will continue to have two lanes in each direction, ensuring the status quo of a hostile environment for cyclists and pedestrians. This is entirely unacceptable to TLC.


TLC instead strongly supports bicycle lanes on each side of Longwood, which would create a continuous connected cycling route from Aberdeen to King Street (and eventually all the way to Princess Point) – it is our position that the road diet planned in the Shifting Gears Cycling plan should be implemented to help calm traffic and create the space required for cycling lanes.


With three lanes of traffic, rather than four, the city could consider using the centre lane as a morning southbound, evening northbound lane (Jarvis Street in Toronto has used this method to adopt to demands of flow at peak times), which would maintain two-lanes when required, however TLC adamantly insists that the priority should return to improving pedestrian, cycling and transit opportunities.


A pedestrian sidewalk on the east side of Longwood will have to suffice until the City decides to improve the pedestrian crossing on the west side of Longwood at Main.


The “preferred option” of a bike path only on the east side of Longwood will, at Aberdeen, isolate cyclists on the north side of Aberdeen, which means another disconnected crossing to get to the bike path south of Aberdeen by the Chedoke golf course. Therefore, TLC supports the recommended roundabout at Longwood and Aberdeen, but with cyclists and pedestrians given proper consideration for safe access.


We hope you will take our concerns seriously, since we see the emphasis of the “preferred alternative” wrongly placed on maintaining automobile traffic flow at the expense of an integrated cycling and pedestrian environment.