Two-way traffic on Main Street: What happens next?
It will take time to convert the one-way, five-lane artery, but short-term changes to slow speeds could happen quickly
Hamilton’s notoriously wide and one-way Main Street is going on a diet — for the health of all its users.
Earlier this week, a historic council vote directed city staff to come up with a plan to convert Main — dubbed by some councillors a “killer street” — back to two-way traffic through the downtown for the first time since the mid-1950s.
That won’t happen fast, especially in the west end where changes are required to a busy provincial interchange at Highway 403 that is specifically built to disgorge traffic onto the one-way artery.
But in the meantime, the city is eyeing “immediate” measures to improve safety on a roadway where four pedestrians have been killed this year by cars jumping the curb.
Here’s the background on the decision and the latest on what happens next:
Why is this a big deal?
Road safety is always a talking point in car-centric Hamilton — but especially now, with nine pedestrians
killed on city streets in 2022 so far. There were nine such deaths in total last year, a record high for the last decade.
Historically and politically, it’s also a watershed moment. The city converted most of the downtown to one-way streets with great fanfare in October 1956, embracing the car culture phenomena as a fast-moving road to economic progress.
Coun. Maureen Wilson, who represents Ward 1 and co-authored the Main Street motion, has noted the idea of ending the freewheeling, one-way ride through the downtown has been a “political no-go zone” in decades past. That changed Wednesday with a decisive 12-2 council vote — although the actual street conversion plan will still need approval from a new council in 2023.
Why is Main Street considered dangerous?
Four of the 10 worst intersections for crashes that result in injury or death are found on Main Street West or East. The lower-city road also hosts two of the worst five intersections for crashes that kill or injure pedestrians.
Hamilton has long-term plans to convert many streets back to two-way traffic — but one-way streets are not dangerous by default, said transportation planning director Brian Hollingworth.
For example, the city once planned to convert Victoria Avenue to two-way traffic — but later decided to gradually add two-way bike lanes instead that are intended to help make the road a safer, more “complete” street for all users.
Main Street, however, is wide — with up to five one-way traffic lanes — and it cuts through the busy core of the city. Safety advocates
argue the design allows drivers to speed or jockey dangerously for position.
What changes will we see first?
Hamilton traffic experts are still evaluating what changes make sense and can happen quickly, said chief road official Edward Soldo.
But the easiest change might be interrupting the “green wave” of synchronized traffic lights between Dundurn Street and the Delta, where Main and King Street East converge. Right now, if you time the lights right, you can coast through the core from west to east at 50 km/h without stopping.
That’s convenient — but does little to help shopkeepers in the core or protect pedestrians hoping to cross the street. In some cases, Soldo said it appears drivers are still racing to try to catch that green wave.
He said if staff decide to change the synchronized lights, it could happen within the next
two or three weeks.
Similarly, the city could add temporary “bump outs” in Main Street curb lanes for parking that would effectively narrow the number of driving lanes in certain areas. Soldo said he also expects to add signage banning right turns on red lights at some busy intersections to protect pedestrians.
The latter two changes are relatively simple, but require bylaw changes that will need to go through a council vote.
When will Main Street convert to two-way traffic?
This kind of change will take more than road paint. Intersection design, sidewalk upgrades, highway interchanges and more have to be considered by staff, who have until early next year to report back to council with an implementation plan.
A 2018 report suggested the easiest section of Main to covert to two-way traffic is between Wellington Street and the Delta. Anything further west, however,
is stymied to some degree by the amount of one-way traffic exiting Highway 403 at the provincial interchange near Dundurn Street.
Hollingworth said the city needs to talk to the province about what is possible — and also loop in Metrolinx and the team working to finalize designs for a light-rail transit line on King Street, which runs parallel to Main. (If you’re wondering, the one-way portion of King Street will also be converted to two-way traffic as part of the LRT project.)
It’s not yet clear how LRT construction slated to begin in 2024 will impact any two-way conversion plans on Main. On the upside: Metrolinx said as far back as 2010 that Hamilton’s King Street LRT would work best if car traffic flowed in two directions on Main Street.