05-15-2017, 10:04 PM
(05-12-2017, 09:48 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: Interesting. If the few parking spots were eliminated, it raises an interesting question: what are the traffic lanes on King St. in that area actually for? With no parking spots and no driveways, the only thing a car can do is drive the entire length of the block. But that can be done on adjacent streets. So why not just expand the (non-vehicular) street by eliminating the through lanes entirely? Of course that suggestion has already been made and is probably still too “radical” for Waterloo. Maybe when the LRT system needs rebuilding in a few decades.
The short answer is likely that they still need a north-south corridor for car traffic. Through Uptown Waterloo, unlike in Kitchener, there is no parallel street that run from Union to Columbia that can easily take the traffic. (eg Park runs from Union north but ends at William; Regina runs south from Columbia but also ends at William). Westmount and Weber in Waterloo are too far west and east to be viable north-south alternatives for traffic that needs to reach a couple blocks either side of King.