Commentary: Highway transport gets neighbourhood scale wrong
The street grid of Hintonburg and West Wellington was formed during an era when when railways ran the freight business and trackside warehouses broke down boxcar-loads into manageable sizes for horse-drawn carts, and later small vans, to safely deliver to neighbourhood businesses.
But these days the same 18-wheelers that have replaced so much rail traffic are expected to make the trip from massive distribution centres in southern Ontario right to the door of the corner pizza place, hardware store, or gas station.
In the process they dwarf the sidewalks and streetcorners of traditional main-street neighbourhoods that were never designed for them. On our narrow streets they impede sightlines, making it difficult for drivers to see pedestrians and cyclists.
Compounding the safety issue, as Linda Hoad of the Hintonburg Community Association rightly points out, it is the needs of oversized vehicles like the one pictured that put pressure on city road engineers to round off street corners to allow these behemoths to navigate freely. Rounded-off corners increase the speed at which all vehicles can turn, which makes for anxious street crossings for pedestrians – especially the elderly or those with small children in tow.
It this age of carbon footprints and continent-sized markets, it is interesting to note that it is usually not the locally-owned businesses that employ such delivery methods, but rather it is the chain restaurants, gas stations, and “national brand” businesses that are the most dependent on the huge trucks.
While we can spare a little pity for the drivers of the highway transports who have to maneuver into our heritage laneways and old-style delivery bays, we reserve most of our sympathy for the residents of the streets the transports thunder along in the process – and the pedestrians they encounter as they go.
