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Misc. Transportation Projects

City looking for feedback on these major and transformational roadway options. See engagement link below.

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City looking for feedback on these major and transformational roadway options. See engagement link below.

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Dedicated bus lanes on Whyte Ave?? YES PLEASE!
 
Fort Saskatchewan is getting a street redone downtown, and it'll include a pretty significant sidewalk expansion.

Right now, 103rd street has narrow sidewalks, with some sections missing entirely.
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The new design, which will be constructed this year, widens the sidewalks by 3m (on the east half) and 1.5/1.7m (on the west half, nearest to the green apartment building). On top of that, they're also putting in rows of trees that separate pedestrians and vehicle traffic, like we already see along 100 Ave downtown.

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So, the sidewalk should look something like this (but not as fancy, and a bit narrower in parts).
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The plain and simple of it as I watched that video is the reminder that the fundamental issue is the mentality towards private car vs. Public mass transportation. Europe leans much more to mass transit, North America leans much more to private vehicles.
 
^^^^ I disagree -- the east coast of the U.S., densely populated as it is (at least from Boston to D.C.), has been into mass transit for years (have you ever tried driving and parking in Manhattan?)... Greater Chicago and San Francisco same (the cable-cars in SanFran hail back to 1873 and are still in operation today). Europe is densely populated across all borders and so mass transit there is a necessity. Mass transit is a little (or a lot) less necessary and therefore popular in the middle western states or the Canadian prairies. And yet the thrill of driving is not lost on Europeans -- e.g. the speed-limit-less Autobahn. The total population of North America is approximately 374 Million (4.7% of the world's population); the total population of Europe is 741 million (9.3% of the world's population); the gross area of North America is 19.8 million square kilometres while Europe is 10.2 million square kilometres, making Europe 4 times as dense population wise.
 
Oh I'm not saying that Europeans don't like cars. I'm also not saying that there aren't decent examples of high density public transportation in the U.S., it never occurred to me to even try to park in Manhattan, although just for fun I drove through Manhattan to New Jersey.

I guess I'm trying to say though, in a majority of North American cities the focus on design seems to be much more car centric, ex. 104 ave, Jasper ave, 97 st., South Edmonton Common, etc... I think you'd agree that if cities were designed with Public transportation as highest priority, with active modes of transportation such as bikes and walking as the next priority, priority of high density development our cities would look a whole lot different.
 
^^^^ I disagree -- the east coast of the U.S., densely populated as it is (at least from Boston to D.C.), has been into mass transit for years (have you ever tried driving and parking in Manhattan?)... Greater Chicago and San Francisco same (the cable-cars in SanFran hail back to 1873 and are still in operation today). Europe is densely populated across all borders and so mass transit there is a necessity. Mass transit is a little (or a lot) less necessary and therefore popular in the middle western states or the Canadian prairies. And yet the thrill of driving is not lost on Europeans -- e.g. the speed-limit-less Autobahn. The total population of North America is approximately 374 Million (4.7% of the world's population); the total population of Europe is 741 million (9.3% of the world's population); the gross area of North America is 19.8 million square kilometres while Europe is 10.2 million square kilometres, making Europe 4 times as dense population wise.
Very interesting statistics doesn’t change the fact that most American communities are not fully committed to developing public transit. NY and Chicago have legacy networks that were developed at the beginning of the last century and have been largely neglected ever since. LA, Houston, Dallas, Atlanta and many other cities really need major metro systems something akin to Crossrail but the best they can do is a tram, LRT street car network that doesn’t even begin to meet their needs. Sam Francisco’s network is a mish mash of different services with low ridership on most of their lines. Washington is half baked at best and then you have Seattle’s lame attempt.
Smaller communities don’t do much better building transit lines through the path of least resistance in the middle of freeways always cognizant of not upsetting motorists or restricting their access. There are many examples on YouTube of transit lines that are absolutely useless and really serve no purpose. One only has to look at Australia another country with vast amounts of space to build massive freeways and instead went the transit route.
 
^^^^ You should put up some statistics to support your claims -- the comments are vacuous on their own.
 
Percentage of public transport commuters in major U.S. cities in 2008[needs update]
The following is a list of United States cities of 100,000+ inhabitants with the 50 highest rates of public transit commuting to work, according to data from the 2015 American Community Survey. The survey measured the percentage of commuters who take public transit, as opposed to walking, driving or riding in an automobile, bicycle, boat, or some other means.
1. New York City, New York – 56.5%
2. Jersey City, New Jersey – 47.6%
3. Washington, D.C. – 37.4%
4. Boston, Massachusetts – 33.7%
5. San Francisco, California – 33.1%
6. Cambridge, Massachusetts – 28.6%
7. Chicago, Illinois – 27.6%
8. Newark, New Jersey – 26.7%
9. Arlington, Virginia – 26.4%
10. Yonkers, New York – 26.4%
11. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – 26.2%
12. Alexandria, Virginia – 21.7%
13. Berkeley, California – 21.6%
14. Oakland, California – 20.3%
15. Seattle, Washington – 20.1%
16. Daly City, California – 19.8%
17. Baltimore, Maryland – 18.6%
18. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – 17.0%
19. Hartford, Connecticut – 16.6%
20. Stamford, Connecticut – 14.1%
21. Richmond, California – 14.0%
22. Edison, New Jersey – 13.4%
23. New Haven, Connecticut – 13.3%
24. Minneapolis, Minnesota – 13.1%
25. Portland, Oregon – 12.1%
26. Paterson, New Jersey – 11.9%
27. Bellevue, Washington – 11.8%
28. Buffalo, New York – 11.7%
29. Miami, Florida – 11.4%
30. Elizabeth, New Jersey – 11.3%
31. Ann Arbor, Michigan – 11.2%
32. East Los Angeles, California – 10.9%
33. Bridgeport, Connecticut – 10.8%
34. Cleveland, Ohio – 10.5%
35. Los Angeles, California – 10.6%
36. Concord, California – 10.0%
37. Atlanta, Georgia – 9.8%
38. Naperville, Illinois – 9.7%
39. St. Louis, Missouri – 9.4%
40. Madison, Wisconsin – 9.3%
41. Fremont, California – 9.0%
42. Rochester, New York – 8.8%
43. San Juan, Puerto Rico – 8.7%
44. Milwaukee, Wisconsin – 8.6%
45. St. Paul, Minnesota – 8.5%
46. Honolulu, Hawaii – 8.4%
47. Providence, Rhode Island – 8.3%
48. Gresham, Oregon – 8.2%
49. Cincinnati, Ohio – 7.8%
50. New Orleans, Louisiana – 7.8%
Houston and Dallas are not even in the top 50
 
Australia does some other things differently from the US. Among them is increased use of contracting out to private firms to provide service. (This is not universal yet, but is growing.) This is also done in the UK and most of Europe, but not very much in the US. This has effects on costs and perception and unionization. The contractors are for-profit businesses aligned with the idea of higher ridership, so support for transit in Australia is bipartisan, while in the US, transit is considered a Democrat issue in most places, and Republicans are often actively hostile as it is not their constituents (or only support transit to their suburban districts with high cost, low value commuter rail systems like Northstar in Minnesota).
JtW-AU-Delta


While transit in the US is perpetually in “crisis” (to listen to its supporters), in Australia (and Canada and Europe) it is a normal part of society that is widely used, and doesn’t have the same stigma associated with it.
 

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