Quote:
Originally Posted by fredinno
http://urbanshift.ca/projects/burnabys-t...entre-model/the-town-centre-model-cont1/
The problem is that the most congestion occurs around the City Centers.
That includes congestion for buses.
Even bus lanes don't work well when the car lanes are completely full and the bus has to do a left turn.
Burnaby designated these areas as Town Centers back in the 60s and were based around having existing services and businesses, and being major hubs regardless of transit.
This meant putting them on the regional highway network, which means there was always going to be wide roads going through them.
Edmonds didn't have a regional highway going through its center- and probably ended up suffering from it, because it never had or has sufficient services or commercial activity without the existing network of businesses from its auto-oriented days.
I guess there's not any loud, dirty cars and trucks going through the center- but it's also kind of a 'condo ghetto' that's not much of a hub for anything.
Being easily accessible by car also often means it's easily accessible by buses.
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Let me just start off by saying that I very much appreciate you bringing good insights which are excellent for discussions!
I can’t really speak for the development or underdevelopment of Edmond relative to some other Burnaby town centres. I lack the historical context for it so I can only speak about my present day observations. I am also certainly not advocating for those roads I mentioned earlier to be changed immediately. I understand that unless proper alternatives are provided, it is not an ideal position. So I am only speaking about a trend and pattern that I have observed, aka an area is getting built up and fast cars on wide roads don’t tend to fix well with that. As
ecbin said earlier, arterial roads are necessary evils. My argument is more or less that these roads passing through a town centre basically lost their meaning of being an arterial road that can move a lot of cars fast. In the examples I’ve mentioned before, that is because strangely enough, we keep building parking lots and drive way that open directly onto those roads. I absolutely blame city planners and developers for allowing that if they actually want a particular road to be high-capacity and function as it’s originally intended. That is the definition of a stroad and stroads end up being crap for both drivers and people outside. So traffic calming around the town centres seems to be the next logical step like what many other cities are doing it. I don’t think it is unreasonable that an urban centre like to be somebody’s destination and not a pass-through, right? I am just thinking out loud here and looking at other cities as examples to follow.
An interesting observation I have made that I also would like to share with both you and
Migrant_Coconut Is that Lougheed Hwy already has two or more lanes (one on each side) blocked off currently due to SkyTrain’s constructions. I drive as well yet I have not found that to be burdensome. I have also yet to hear traffic apocalypse due to that even during rush hours. So I guess it isn’t too crazy to suggest that a scenario which we take away a single lane would cause undo burden? OEB breakfast has a patio that faces Lougheed Hwy directly and it is always full despite the car traffic noise right by it.
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