Victoria Park

[Bytor]

I would think most traffic on Jubilee is not for the nearby homes, but through traffic from Park to Courtland. And I do think there is more of that now that Joseph is one-way only.

And beyond. I commented about it back in early November: https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/...#pid111711

If you were to insert yourself into the evening rush hour traffic on Park St. by Grand River Hospital heading south and following them through Victoria Park, you'll see that there are 4 basic groups:

1) Courtland to Ottawa to Country Hills, Laurentian, and Williamsburg
2) Queen to Highland to Forest Hill, Forest Heights,
3) Courtland to Ottawa to Stanley Park
4) Courtland to Manitou to Pioneer Park and Doon

Few peel off for neighbourhoods like Southdale, Woodside, King or Cedar Hill. And they do this even though

* some combination of Union/Glasgow/Gage/Victoria and Westmount/Belmont is 5-10 minutes faster for 1) and 2)
* Erb/Union to Weber or the Expressway is 5-10 minutes faster for 3)
* Strange to West to Stirling to Homer Watson is 5-10 minutes quicker for 4)

Unless you're going to some place bounded by Queem, Mill, Stirling, and Charles, pretty much every route around the park is always faster. And some times when you are going to that area, too.

If you close Jubilee to traffic, that volume will move onto West and Homewood (and some additional volume onto Victoria and Queen as well). (NB the intersection of Victoria and West is already terrible and would really need to be reworked.) That might be a viable option but will surely raise the ire of homeowners on those streets.

I suspect that this proposal would provoke so much opposition that I don't think the Kitchener council would want to stir that pot in the foreseeable future.

BTW, there's no point where Homewood becomes a viable option as it would take too long to turn left out onto a busy Queen St. West/Highland/Queen is always much quicker thanks to the lights.

[jwilliamson]

Except your adopted country does this all the time: modal filters.

It reduces traffic, slows speeds, but at the same time leaves it open as a cycling through route and maintains access for event set-up.

You may not live here anymore, but as a nearby resident, I like going to Ribfest, Bluesfest, and everything else that needs vehicle access to make happen.

There are exactly 0 parks in the Netherlands which are open to cars. Modal filters are used on streets, not parks.

The Vondelpark in Amsterdam has a section that is cut off from the rest of the park by Van Baerlestraat. The Rembrandtpark has Postjesweg cutting through it. The Stadspark Maastricht has a road cutting through dividing it from the otherwise indistinguishable Monseignur Nolenspark. There's a road splitting the Wilhelminapark in Apeldoorn from the Verzetstrijderspark.

If we renamed half of Victoria park to Kaiserwilhelmspark, it would be no different from any pair of parks that are divided by a road between them in the Netherlands.

[danbrotherston]

There are exactly 0 parks in the Netherlands which are open to cars. Modal filters are used on streets, not parks.

The Vondelpark in Amsterdam has a section that is cut off from the rest of the park by Van Baerlestraat. The Rembrandtpark has Postjesweg cutting through it. The Stadspark Maastricht has a road cutting through dividing it from the otherwise indistinguishable Monseignur Nolenspark. There's a road splitting the Wilhelminapark in Apeldoorn from the Verzetstrijderspark.

If we renamed half of Victoria park to Kaiserwilhelmspark, it would be no different from any pair of parks that are divided by a road between them in the Netherlands.

In Vondelpark the roadway is raised above the park, beyond creating noise, the roadway and the cars on it do not interact with the park patrons in any way. I suppose we could spend a few hundred millions raising Park St. on a viaduct through the park, but that would seem to me to be a bad use of money.

As for the other parks, you might be right, I've not visited every park in NL.

But honestly, I had to dig really far back in the thread to even remember the context of this comment, this was several months ago...I'm not sure why it comes back up now. In any case, it was in response to Bytor's comment about this happening "all the time" in NL, so my reply was a little bit in protest to that, certainly no park I've been to here has anything remotely similar to the situation on Jubilee Dr.

I still find Jubilee Dr. uniquely egregious and in the same vein as Central Park Dr. in NYC, but as others have brought up, there also other issues surrounding the park.

By the way, has there been any progress on Roos Island? Last time I was there it was closed off for "renovations".

[tomh009]

By the way, has there been any progress on Roos Island? Last time I was there it was closed off for "renovations".

The last tent resident has moved out and the reconstruction of the steel bridge has started. I think the signage said that the island will be "partially open" (maybe without the gazebo?) sometime in the spring, don't remember the final completion date.