This was quite a month for our bus lanes on Bank Street campaign. The city presented its lackluster proposal for Bank Street, much to the dismay of the packed room in Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in the Glebe.
The city's presentation showed us that they don't seem to have a serious vision for improving transit throughout this city. The extremely busy 6 and 7 routes both run through Bank Street, making it the busiest bus corridor in the city. Yet, all the city is seeking is a 2 hour northbound bus lane in place of the current second travel lane (which already gets rid of parking for 2 hours under the current setup), a similar southbound lane in the evening and some short segments of 24/7 bus lanes about two bus lengths long.
All this so we can keep a pitiful ~140 on-street parking spots, which account for less than 7% of the total parking in the area. These 140 spots sit mostly unused the whole day, except when they are given away for free after 5:30pm.
The open house showed what a group with some dedication can get done. Over 100 people packed the room to voice their support for permanent 24/7 bus lanes. Person after person got up to tell the city they needed to be bolder. All of these people saw a vision for better and wanted their city to live up to it, rather than hide behind a guise of "balance".
To read a more in-depth summary of the event, as well as a breakdown of what the problems were with the proposal, read our blog post.
