Deaths spur two-way Main Street motion
City council may look at redesigning the one-way, five-lane artery amid a spate of traffic deaths
City council will consider a call for the conversion of one-way Main Street to two-way traffic following another pedestrian death on the busy five-lane artery.
A 49-year-old DARTS driver who had just stepped out of her bus was killed Thursday after a car jumped the curb on Main Street West near Locke Street. In March, a driver speeding in a stolen car on Main Street East toward the Delta mounted the sidewalk and killed three bystanders.
Nine pedestrians have died on city streets this year alone.
“Enough!” tweeted Coun. Nrinder Nann after the latest death, promising online to work on a motion in tandem with Coun. Maureen Wilson to “address these killer streets.”
The motion was still being drafted Friday, but Wilson said in an interview she wants to ask city staff to come up with “immediate changes” to aid road safety and “structural design” improvements — including two-way traffic on Main.
The Ward 1 councillor acknowledged the latter idea has historically been a “political no-go zone.” But she argued years of collision data “cannot be ignored” any longer.
Four of the 10 worst intersections for crashes that result in injury or death are found on Main Street West or East, according to city collision statistics. The lower-city road also hosts two of the worst five intersections for crashes that kill or injure pedestrians.
“We know these roads are not safe. It is our duty to act,” said Wilson.
More than 160 residents have joined a new Facebook group called SAFE Hamilton: Streets Are For Everyone, with discussions about possible safety changes including ending synchronized traffic lights and shrinking the number of traffic lanes on Main.
Members are planning a 9:30 a.m. rally at city hall Wednesday to coincide with the council meeting.
The city took a high-level look at the feasibility of two-waying parts of Main in 2018 as part of a master transportation plan update. (Twowaying is set to occur on King already as part of a planned light rail transit line.)
The report found the idea technically feasible on Main between Wellington Street and the Delta. But it labelled any two-way conversion further west “not realistic for the foreseeable future” because of the provincial Highway 403 ramps built specifically to disgorge traffic onto a one-way artery.
Converting Main Street to twoway traffic was also suggested in 2010 by transit agency Metrolinx, which argued light rail transit on King Street would work better with bidirectional car traffic on Main.