Main Street in Hamilton will become 4 lanes; King St. also facing changes

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Published July 7, 2022 at 3:31 pm

Main St. in Hamilton will be reduced to four lanes before it becomes a two-way street, while other street-safety changes are coming to the downtown core this summer.

The changes, which City of Hamilton chief road official Edward Soldo detailed in a communiqué this week, are in response to a city-council vote in May ordering staff to improve the risks to pedestrians on Main and King streets. Removing a lane on Main will take place at the end of summer. Other prosposals, such as banning right turns on red lights at some intersections, will come before before councillors for a vote during a meeting tomorrow (July 8, for Main) and next month (Aug. 12, for King). Pedestrian crossing enhancements, including longer intervals for walk signals, are also in the works.

The lane reduction will start at Dundurn St., which has the closest intersections to both the eastbound and westbound Highway 403. It will end at Sherman Ave., near the east end.

“This measure will help reduce the number of side swipe collisions throughout the corridor due to substandard
lane widths and provide a pedestrian buffer adjacent to the south side sidewalk,” Soldo wrote.

There are also plans to allow parking on the north side of Main during morning and afternoon rush hour.

All told, there are 29 locations where proscribing right turns on red lights is proposed.

As for attempts to make drivers more aware of pedestrians, ladder crossing markings, which are slightly raised so a driver hears a noise when they pass over them, are going to be “implemented at all signalized intersections and
along the arterials at stop controlled side streets.” It is expected that Main Street will have the ‘ladder lines’ by the end of this month, while King will have them by the end of this year.

Meantime, public consultation on the Main St. two-way conversion study will be taking place later this year.

(Graphic via City of Hamilton.)

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