Chris R.
Senior Member
I could see mid-rise 6-8 storey residential with limited parking below grade and sole commercial surrounding a central plaza.
Hamilton 162 Ward Avenue | 115.5m | 38s | R+L
- Thread starter Branden Simon
- Start date
Northern Light
Superstar
Can one of you Hamilton types explain to me how we ended up with the Rail Trail vanishing through the Fortinos Parking Lot?
Northern Light
Superstar
On the proposal itself, I can broadly echo what's been said above.......atrocious, car-centric, suburban architecture.
Beyond that though......they proposed have traffic from their mega parking garage exiting via a tiny side street? What's that about..........non-starter.
This site just doesn't make sense to me, even for a better and slightly smaller version of this.
You really need this to front a major street, I played out in my mind 'what if' the Fortino's site were done........and it still doesn't really make sense, its just a very awkward site, the Rail Trail should preclude building a major new street out to Main here.....
Beyond that though......they proposed have traffic from their mega parking garage exiting via a tiny side street? What's that about..........non-starter.
This site just doesn't make sense to me, even for a better and slightly smaller version of this.
You really need this to front a major street, I played out in my mind 'what if' the Fortino's site were done........and it still doesn't really make sense, its just a very awkward site, the Rail Trail should preclude building a major new street out to Main here.....
Chronamut
Active Member
Interesting - a parking garage with rooftop parking as well - we haven't seen that since the eatons center era before many of us were like.. even born haha...
but yeah this build feels extremely "crammed in" - doubt this will pass nimbyism.
As for the parking garage, because of the track I don't think they CAN get rid of it - I think they basically have to provide equal parking that they are taking up - that seems the logical course of action here. No reason they can't plop another tower on top of it though.
but yeah this build feels extremely "crammed in" - doubt this will pass nimbyism.
As for the parking garage, because of the track I don't think they CAN get rid of it - I think they basically have to provide equal parking that they are taking up - that seems the logical course of action here. No reason they can't plop another tower on top of it though.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
It runs through the parking lot, but doesn't vanish. There is a dedicated trail through the lot.
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Chris R.
Senior Member
It doesn't actually vanish, it just goes around the parking lot in a not straight line. Because the city websites and GIS pages aren't working it's hard to tell, but I'm betting that either:
A) The city has an easement with Fortinos for the use of the city owned property as a parking lot with the stipulation that the rail trail huge the edges of the parking lot.
B) The city did a crap land swap to move the rail trail property to the edges of the parking lot.
The big reason anything is proposed here it because it was?/is a McMaster parking lot. I worked there and some staff parked there because it was cheaper than the main lots.
Northern Light
Superstar
It runs through the parking lot, but doesn't vanish. There is a dedicated trail through the lot.
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So it runs through the lot, interrupted by driveways, as a white concrete path, that doesn't follow the original alignment.
To be clear, I appreciate your pointing out how they handled it.... but I can't say I agree w/how they handled it.
innsertnamehere
Superstar
yes, it's not really ideal. It's a product of the era though, it was built in the early 2000's. I've ridden on the connection many times and it works relatively well, even if not perfectly. The trail also did not exist east or west of the Fortino's lot when it was built, so it was done to protect for a future connection.. The context has changed a fair bit since.
It also only crosses two driveways so it's not terribly disruptive, no more than any of the other cross streets the trail goes across in the area.
If you really wanted to you could close one of the two driveways and resurface it as a slightly wider asphalt path and it would be a pretty solid connection.
This is shortly after it was built in 2004 - you can see how it doesn't connect to anything on either side (the east side is a gravel construction access, not a trail). Fortino's and the City built it protecting for an eventual trail, but wouldn't have known exactly what that would look like and as we all know the design of active transportation connections has evolved a good bit in the last 20 years:
It also only crosses two driveways so it's not terribly disruptive, no more than any of the other cross streets the trail goes across in the area.
If you really wanted to you could close one of the two driveways and resurface it as a slightly wider asphalt path and it would be a pretty solid connection.
This is shortly after it was built in 2004 - you can see how it doesn't connect to anything on either side (the east side is a gravel construction access, not a trail). Fortino's and the City built it protecting for an eventual trail, but wouldn't have known exactly what that would look like and as we all know the design of active transportation connections has evolved a good bit in the last 20 years:
Northern Light
Superstar
Interesting..........I found an aerial image of the site from 1999 (The rail corridor, not yet trail, through what would later be the Fortino's site:
From: https://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/aerialphotos/index.html
What year were the tracks lifted?
From: https://library.mcmaster.ca/maps/aerialphotos/index.html
What year were the tracks lifted?
Sunnyside
Active Member
…Is the handling of abandoned rail corridors ever done with enough tact and consideration for the future?
Seriously though, given that this is a 50s-60s era community, I wouldn’t say I’m shocked at questionable solutions after abandonment. Makes me think of the GECO spur/ROW absorption. Like with many things here, perhaps if someone did care an obviously- better solution could’ve been realized.
[edit- obviously I got the trail timelines wrong. Something about neighbourhoods from this era must never mix well with rail trails I guess!]
It’s still not the end of the world imo. Just follows the same history of letting strategically-useful corridors go abandoned and giving something with 1/10th the value. But I try not to bring this up too much, because it’s all for naught.
catcher_of_cats
Active Member
The tracks were lifted sometime between 1988 and about 1992. This was the old TH&B line to Brantford.