Manulife (King Centre) redevelopment project

[ac3r]

Wasn’t there a thought a number of years ago of putting a glass roof over King St in DTK?

 
Yeah, back in the 1970s. Here's a great article on how the downtown malls destroyed downtown, and it briefly talks about the proposed "King Street bubble" and includes a couple concepts photos: http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2011/11/22...-storring/

[CedarHillAlum]

Wasn’t there a thought a number of years ago of putting a glass roof over King St in DTK?

 
Yeah, back in the 1970s. Here's a great article on how the downtown malls destroyed downtown, and it briefly talks about the proposed "King Street bubble" and includes a couple concepts photos: http://numerocinqmagazine.com/2011/11/22...-storring/

To me, this article seems to be a lot of elitist clap trap. No where does it mention problably one of the biggest reasons that Market Square struggled - you had to pay for parking while Fairview Mall has free parking.

[ac3r]

Elitist? It's very well researched. Free parking was not the reason no downtown revitalization ever worked at the time. You still have to pay for parking now. It was just poor urban planning.

[nms]

Let's not forget that in 1960, Buckminster Fuller proposed a 3-km diameter dome over New York City.

[danbrotherston]

FWIW Kitchener staff (who are excellent) really want to pedestrianize King, but are working on how to make that happen. They have to get the BIA on board, in order to get the Council on board. The first step, pre-covid, was going to be closing King every weekend of the summer. Sadly, that was just one of the many things that disappeared as a result of COVID.

My personal pet peeve is Jubilee Dr. and I'd like to see the same treatment there. Especially right now when the park is bursting at the seams.

[ijmorlan]

My personal pet peeve is Jubilee Dr. and I'd like to see the same treatment there. Especially right now when the park is bursting at the seams.

That would make the park so much nicer!

I’m curious to know what would happen to the traffic. It might just move over to Joseph St., or it might distribute over lots of other roads. I don’t think our roads are full enough for it to just disappear entirely but stranger things have happened.

Closing Jubilee to motor vehicle traffic would probably allow eliminating the one-way where Schneider meets Queen, which would be convenient for the people in that neighbourhood.

[Joedelay Highhoe]

My personal pet peeve is Jubilee Dr. and I'd like to see the same treatment there. Especially right now when the park is bursting at the seams.

That would make the park so much nicer!

I’m curious to know what would happen to the traffic. It might just move over to Joseph St., or it might distribute over lots of other roads. I don’t think our roads are full enough for it to just disappear entirely but stranger things have happened.

Closing Jubilee to motor vehicle traffic would probably allow eliminating the one-way where Schneider meets Queen, which would be convenient for the people in that neighbourhood.

Cool idea, but joseph is now one-way from victoria to david. I now use Jubilee if I am headed towards the courtland expressway on-ramp, when I used to use Joseph to queen to courtland. I think the intent is to make everyone use charles to go west-east out of downtown if you're coming from victoria.

[ijmorlan]

I’m curious to know what would happen to the traffic. It might just move over to Joseph St., or it might distribute over lots of other roads. I don’t think our roads are full enough for it to just disappear entirely but stranger things have happened.

Cool idea, but joseph is now one-way from victoria to david. I now use Jubilee if I am headed towards the courtland expressway on-ramp, when I used to use Joseph to queen to courtland. I think the intent is to make everyone use charles to go west-east out of downtown if you're coming from victoria.

Clearly I haven’t been following the cycling grid renovations in enough detail! I somehow hadn’t clued in that Joseph would now be one-way. To be clear, it is one-way north/westbound (i.e., traffic flows from David to Victoria but not the reverse)? Anyway, sounds like I should have said Charles and Joseph to cover both directions.

[danbrotherston]

Cool idea, but joseph is now one-way from victoria to david. I now use Jubilee if I am headed towards the courtland expressway on-ramp, when I used to use Joseph to queen to courtland. I think the intent is to make everyone use charles to go west-east out of downtown if you're coming from victoria.

Clearly I haven’t been following the cycling grid renovations in enough detail! I somehow hadn’t clued in that Joseph would now be one-way. To be clear, it is one-way north/westbound (i.e., traffic flows from David to Victoria but not the reverse)? Anyway, sounds like I should have said Charles and Joseph to cover both directions.

Joseph will be Northbound towards Victoria (and two way from Ontario to Queen).

FWIW my plan to close Jubilee involves closing it at David, in fact, making the road Turn right on David towards Charles, and the connect to Charles.  Further, at the North end, I plan a new road connecting the north end of Charles (through the UW parking lot) to Park St. which would at that point, redirect to Charles and make the southern stub end of Park St. into a dead end residential St.

The other benefit is that traffic westbound on Victoria that wants to turn onto park can be redirected up Charles, so that would remove any doubt that Victoria could be narrowed to 3 lanes to make room for wider sidewalks and bike lanes.

Yes, this is what I dream about when I dream about a better place to live.

[Chris]

For the last few years I've thought Jubilee should be closed with only access to the parking lots on either end and the Boathouse. It would make the park much more pleasurable to walk.

[nms]

Closing Jubilee would be complicated because I believe that Park/Jubilee/Courtland is nominally a regional road, if not at the very least the only north-south road between Waterloo and south Kitchener that is between Westmount and King. It's not ideal, but short of pushing Charles north through the tracks to connect to Walter and then back to Park, there isn't really another option.

[ijmorlan]

Closing Jubilee would be complicated because I believe that Park/Jubilee/Courtland is nominally a regional road, if not at the very least the only north-south road between Waterloo and south Kitchener that is between Westmount and King. It's not ideal, but short of pushing Charles north through the tracks to connect to Walter and then back to Park, there isn't really another option.

Not according to this document on the Region of Waterloo website:

https://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/livin...y-Name.pdf

Personally I think there would still be plenty of routes for people to take with it closed. How many vehicles actually use it anyway? It’s only a single lane each direction with stop signs at David St. so I can’t imagine the capacity is that high. Dumping that traffic onto other routes probably wouldn’t have much impact.

[danbrotherston]

Closing Jubilee would be complicated because I believe that Park/Jubilee/Courtland is nominally a regional road, if not at the very least the only north-south road between Waterloo and south Kitchener that is between Westmount and King. It's not ideal, but short of pushing Charles north through the tracks to connect to Walter and then back to Park, there isn't really another option.

Huh?

So my suggestion was to continue Charles north to connect to Park...but that's actually a bypass of Victoria, not of Park...in fact, you can close Jubilee without doing a Charles connection, just by routing traffic along Victoria.

As for it being partially regional. Yes, the region is almost always an obstacle to this kind of thing. Ultimately though, it's a pipe dream at this point, regardless of what the region thinks...the public backlash about a car free park would be astronomical.

[plam]

the public backlash about a car free park would be astronomical.

What? A car free park‽ Surely you jest!

[Acitta]

Countless times, I have cycled on Park from Victoria, taking the centre of the lane because there are sharrows, only to have cars pass me by crossing the solid line and risking a head on collision with the cars coming around the curve  from Jubilee.