University Drive Bridge

[Nintentario]

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Whatever they want to do as long as city taxpayers aren't paying for it, like the ransom demand under BRT.

London's downtown would generate immense tax revenue by enabling their student population to access downtown and Masonville more readily. I can't understand that a University's insistence to not cover municipal projects (which is not the purpose of publicly funded universities) to be inappropriate - in fact insisting London pay for London's BRT (of which London benefits via increased tax revenue) seems quite appropriate, no?

Originally Posted by Djeffery

I've never found the university to be a good cut through.

Okay, true, however, a counterpoint: your personal experience doesn't negate the objective fact that there's immense cut-through traffic. I've been honked at and nearly hit by folks clearly coming home from work (work uniforms, toolboxes in back seats, etc) and it makes cycling into/out of campus much more difficult and frustrating than it would be without the cut-throughers. The cut-through traffic has even been identified as a problem by many of the folks in the article and exists.

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Not sure how they would go about preventing cut through

Have windshield tags and a bollard that raises/lowers, like they have at the Ambassador Bridge toll booths - are you familiar with them Djeffery? Wouldn't this be an easy solution? If non-tagged vehicles go through, they get a ticket the same way speeding cameras work. This solution would be automatic and cost-effective.

Originally Posted by Djeffery

Plus closing the campus to cars will I'm sure cost a serious amount of money in lost parking revenue.

Are you certain, though? I think the provincial Conservative government and their constant reduction in university funding is more of a threat than parking revenue. That's all besides the point that Western Parking's finances operates independently of many of the departments and faculties, and so many of the actual valuable sections of the University will have their funding unaffected. Western can absolutely bear the loss of parking revenue, as many parts of the university don't see that money anyways.

We've got to move past private vehicle ownership in a significant way (see: the country on fire, Jasper specifically this year), and allowing Western to become filled with non-Western folk during rush hour holds the campus back from becoming more friendly to active transit - the type of transit students can afford and likely benefit from. If these students are exposed to active transit solutions in their formative college years, they'll be more likely to be advocates for these solutions when/if they leave the Western and London area after graduation.


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