General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

It should be, but that ship has already sailed.

And hey, I agree with Rainrider22...what a day to be alive.

FWIW...in 2019 CoK staff were moving towards this idea, unfortunately the pandemic utterly derailed everything. (Including sending regional staff to Copenhagen).

I'm not sure though...would I rather Jubilee be made car free before or after King St.

Edit: Alternate universe musings...Park St. could have easily been connected to Schneider and on to Mill instead of Courtland. It would serve basically the same traffic function, and go to the same place (eventually) but how would it have changed our city if it was. Would Mill, Carwood, Vanier, and Manitou all be continuous again? Would sprawl be worse or better or unchanged? Would the Park be improved or worsened?

It should be King for pedestrian mall, between Francis and Benton - could we go back to 1-way roads for Charles and Duke?

As for Jubilee, I'll be honest and say I don't use that road a lot, but when I do, I don't see too many alternatives.

Plenty of alternatives:

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/43.44611...cf!1m0!3e0

(Via Charles St.)

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/43.44631...29!1m0!3e0

(Via West St.)

No, they're not direct, but the only reason this is perceived as "indirect" is because the road in the park exists right now. It is equally inconvenient for me to have to drive around the park coming from the west. If Highland went straight and cut through the park into Water St. that would be very convenient to me as a driver. Because it doesn't you don't even think about it.

Removing Jubilee is totally feasible. Traffic patterns would change, but they would still function. Courtland and Park would see less traffic because they are more inconvenient, other roads would see a little more, and a few people would choose not to make a trip or use a different mode. But we'd all move on.

As for Duke and Charles...well...probably not. Worst case would be converting them into two lane one way roads to carry more traffic. Bad for the city. One lane one way roads are possible, if we use the extra space for something useful (like a bike lane). But the region is unwilling to do so on Duke because it would involve rerouting their buses. We know this because regional and city staff are currently having a staring contest for this very issue for the downtown grid. That being said, it might be a benefit if cars went the opposite way from buses from a safety perspective...or maybe drivers really are suicidal in the face of the LRV.

FWIW on the Grid I think it was a mistake to go up Duke. City staff should have anticipated the region being an impossible obstacle here, and should have preferred to put it on Weber. Narrowing Weber to 3 lanes through DTK would have been a little harder politically, but possible, which Duke appears to not be.