Car-free King Street? City plans to let pedestrians and cyclists take over part of the busy four-lane road this summer
For at least one day this summer, the car will not be king of the road on crash-prone King Street.
Hamilton is working on an open streets" event to allow strolling pedestrians and freewheeling cyclists to safely take over all four lanes of busy King Street East between Gage and Gore parks, likely on a Sunday in August.
That would mean banning most automobiles from a four-kilometre stretch of King between the downtown and Gage Park. Some north-south intersections along the route would need to stay open to car traffic - and a dedicated lane for emergency vehicles is still up for discussion.
The tentative plan is to test the so-called temporary linear park" exclusively on King during at least one Sunday in late summer, said transportation planning director Brian Hollingworth.
This a learning experience, but if it works well we may look at making it a more permanent (repeating) event," he said. If light rail transit construction goes ahead on King Street as expected in 2024, the car-free event could also move to streets like Main or Barton.
The open street proposal grew out of the city's pandemic recovery strategy but is not meant to accommodate a street festival like Supercrawl, said Hollingworth. Instead, the goal is to create an active transportation corridor" to allow pedestrians, cyclists and rollerbladers to safely travel and explore what is normally one of Hamilton's busiest streets.
If you visited Toronto during the pandemic, the concept is probably familiar. That city introduced an ActiveTO program in 2020 to give residents COVID-safe space to exercise outdoors without fear of being hit by a car.
That might still be a sore spot for Hamilton residents who unsuccessfully petitioned council to close James Street North for the same reasons two years ago.
I think a lot of people were ready for this at the start of the pandemic," said Environment Hamilton's Lynda Lukasik. She hopes the experiment will open the door to healthy conversations" about making car-centric one-way arteries like King and Main more people-friendly - and maybe even reverting to two-way traffic."
However, the proposal was not pitched as a test for shrinking car-lane capacity on King, city staff said.
But that didn't stop councillors from linking the experiment to growing collision-safety worries about King and its one-way sister street, Main. Some of the city's worst intersections for crashes and red light runners are found along the twinned one-way arteries.
Councillor Sam Merulla called the King-Main corridor a minefield" for pedestrians, while Councillor Maria Pearson said she supported the car-free event as a way to give some respite to residents."
When are we going to look at Main and King and stop with the one-way streets?" said Waterdown Councillor Judi Partridge. I will not walk on those streets because I fear for my life."
Ward 3 Councillor Nrinder Nann, whose ward includes a stretch of King, said she is excited" about the car-free experiment, but stressed the need to consult with residents, businesses and faith groups that could be affected by a Sunday street closure.
Ancaster's Lloyd Ferguson was the only councillor to vote against the idea, pointing to risks associated with fire and ambulance response. I'm just thankful it's not in ward 12."
The closure is expected to cost around $60,000 - but if policing or closure costs end up being higher than hoped, the city would have to re-evaluate" the viability of the experiment, Hollingworth said.
Matthew Van Dongen is a transportation and environment reporter at for The Spectator. mvandongen@thespec.com