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Who the hell thinks of putting a crosswalk (actually 2) on one of the busiest roads in the HRM – Spring Garden. Theres fuckin lights 20 feet down road. Also, when you are stopped at these things the flow of poeple is nonstop. Fuck you crosswalks.
—Jim the Hammer
This article appears in Nov 19-25, 2009.
31 Comments
yeah, I love using that one so I don’t have to wait for any lights to change. 🙂
here’s a hint… don’t take springgarden.
there aer plenty of other parallel and less traveled roads to take.
safe yourself the aneurysm and avoid it like the plague.
I’m with zZz on this one, OP. Your own posting states: “Theres (sic) fuckin lights 20 feet down road.” Well, Mr. Shapiro, there are other streets, a block away, that go the same direction as Spring Garden Road. Plus, there is a way smaller number of pedestrians on those streets.
Spring Garden is our downtown shopping mecca (as slightly pathetic as that is) so the idea is that it’s pedestrian friendly. Honestly, I’d like to close it off to cars altogether (just buses and peds). Take Morris, South or Sackville and calm yourself down!
Not like the crosswalks are going to be used anyways on SGR.
There’s no reason on earth for cars to take SGR. I agree with closing it off to vehicles and only allow access to busses/peds…there are PLENTY of side streets you can take to get to where you want to go and seriously, those in cars who choose to take SGR deserve what they get.
You almost hit someone didn’t you? Take another road, Spring Garden sucks for cars.
mob rule! 🙂 abolish the cars! take our skin…er… springgargen road back!
there are a few in manhattan that are like this as well… little italy comes to mind.
I had a feeling this bitch was going to get inundated by car free zone posts. OP it’s not that bad – if that crosswalk wasn’t there you’d have a lot more jaywalkers. Would you be happier if they added a nice useless traffic light to the crosswalk. Sometimes in life you should slow down to watch the eye-candy.
Skin Garden is great for babe-perving.
I mean…
Spring Garden is great for people-watching. Yep, I’m a people watcher!
with sunglasses on…
Having a major downtown street closed to traffic? Thats just brialliant… Well said Muder Junkie. Why don’t we close St. Catherines St in Montreal and Young/Queen st in Toronto while we’re at it… Gimme a break.
just from the gate of the gardens to barrington…
there are plenty of parallel streets to choose from.
hell I’d settle for the gardens gate to where queen crosses.
Logic, there are plenty of major streets in Ottawa that are closed to cars but open to buses and pedestrians and it works fabulously. Buses don’t get in the way of cars and vice versa.
Plus, SG is hell to drive on, so why would you ever want to do so? your St. Catherine’s and Yonge analogies are flawed, as SG isn’t a major corridor for (non-public trans) traffic flow anyway.
Times like these make me wonder if pedestrian bridges would be more effective.
Fuck you Jim. Roads are not only for cars. There’s an extra crosswalk so dicks like you don’t run everyone down. I know you think you’re superior to pedestrians, you should hope you don’t come close to running me down as I will kick your teeth in.
Sidewalk rager.
OP, you would fit right into southern Ontario – the land of meaningless crosswalks.
“”Times like these make me wonder if pedestrian bridges would be more effective.””
Pedestrian bridges are a great idea, and used all over the world. Here in the western world though, we have a problem. Wheelchair access. It’s important, of course, and remember anyone of us could end up needed a wheelchair, yada yada yada… I have seen some very modern ones that use a ‘spiral’ though, and they work great, altrhough they take up a bit more room.
I suppose there could be regular bridges, and then the odd wheelchair/mobility scooter crossing at street level…hmmm…we could even have signs…
Aren’t ped bridges used mostly for highway crossings? They’re far too big and bulky for SGR.
Two words: Tarzan ropes.
I say make SGR a transit only route, and not allow cars at all. Fuck you cars.
St. Cath east in Montreal has been closed for most of the summer/fall for the last two years, only problem is they cancel some and reroute other buses off the street completely and turn it into a 100% pedestrian mall.
Screw your car. You don’t own the entire fucking city.
Amazing how HRM has too many crosswalks in some areas and not enough in others. In Dartmouth the traffic folks have removed a crosswalk on Woodlawn (by the payday loan place and Woodlawn Plaza. Pedestrians are forced to walk to the nearest traffic lights.
Apparently they overlooked the fact that this crosswalk was used heavily by transit riders who found it convenient to cross the street and make timely connections to/from the 66 & (?)68 at the stops located at the former crosswalk.
Often, marked cross-walks don’t solve the problems. If so, there’d be no innocent pedestrian fatalities in Dartmouth along its major streets.
But, on topic, SGR is terrible! However, you cannot elminate its car-routes when so many other major streets bleed into it: Queen, Brunswick, Barrington, Dresden, South Park, Summer. You’d have to renovate the entire downtown district.
that’s a good point fat but also touches on another thing… there’s a crosswalk there whether marked or not.
Effectively, OP is asking there be lights put there since it will always be a crosswalk regardless.
The unmarked crosswalk at every intersection rule is something that really screws up smooth traffic flow for both pedestrians and motorists.
I can accept an unmarked crosswalk on the sides of the intersection controlled by a stop sign, the cars have to stop anyway, but to think it’s safe to have an unmarked crosswalk on the sides where cars have the right of way is just plain stupid. I see more and more locations in Hfx/Dart where the city has painted crosswalk lines of the stop sign-controlled side of the street (Dundas & Queen is a good example) and nothing on the other side. Why not put a sufficient number of marked crosswalks at points where traffic has the right-of-way and make things work smoothly for once.
I’m amazed there’s no lines painted at SGR and Brunswick myself. Unless we want a situation like on Quinpool with the lights, I’d suggest keeping an eye out for pedestrians.
Driving on SGR is a pain in the ass, but I don’t really have a choice in the matter somedays.
The main problem with shutting SGR down to general traffic is the fact that 90% of it (between South Park and Barrington) is restaurants and retail. Getting deliveries to/from these businesses would wreak havoc on them. Sure, tell the delivery drivers to walk the extra block every trip to and from their trucks, see how that goes over. And be aware that they’ll be carting huge loads of goods up and down the sidewalks of SGR, getting in the way of the oh-so-righteous pedestrians. Shutting down SGR to general traffic is like communism. It only works in theory.
NW: it seems to me that there are pedestrian only streets all over the world where businesses don’t have any trouble getting their deliveries. Grafton street comes to mind. Sparks street in Ottawa, etc. etc.
I also doubt that every restuarant and store on SG gets their deliveries through the front door… they probably have delivery entrances around back. I could be wrong, though.
Part of the problem, here, is that people are too narrow-minded and entrenched in car-culture to even consider life without cars on SG. In my mind, it’s because SG is full of shops and restaurants that makes it ideal for pedestrian / bus only usage.
the crosswalks are like a game of snakes and ladders, you can use them to criss-cross over to avoid the fucking panhandlers
Basil F.
Speaking from experience, it is very difficult to avoid panhandlers using the criss-cross method on SGR.