Skip to main content

footpath or cycle path?

"The NCCH believes the Dundas site would best serve three of the four cycling disciplines as it is close to road cycling routes and mountain biking trails."
What trails are they referring to? RBG trails? Bruce Trail? Neither of which are open for cycling, being footpaths in naturally sensitive areas? Or do they consider Dundas Valley trails close? How well thought out is this plan?

Cycling centre rejects harbour

, The Hamilton Spectator, (May 13, 2010)

Hamilton's cycling centre has joined the Tiger-Cats in rejecting the west harbour. But unlike the Ticats, the centre has firmly identified another Pan Am Games location.

Andrew Iler, president of the National Cycling Centre Hamilton (NCCH), said almost four years of study have led the centre's board to conclude Olympic Park in Dundas would provide the best chance for the cycling track to be sustainable in the long term.

"We've invested substantial human and financial capital and called on experts to develop a business plan for a successful velodrome for Hamilton," Iler said.

That plan does not fit the west harbour site due to accessibility issues, a long-term position of the NCCH, he noted.

"West harbour met very few of our criteria set out after an exhaustive study."

The cycling centre head said he felt it was important to take his group's reservations public.

"We've worked hard with the city and Pan Am (organizers) to collaborate on a facility. We've put our points forward and they haven't been heard."

Iler said there was some consideration of other sites by the city but only west harbour is on the table.

However, its board feels shifting the proposed velodrome may open up parking options to help the Ticats and the city get closer to a resolution at the Bay and Barton streets site.

He added, "The NCCH feels that by locating the velodrome in an alternative location that the issue of adequate parking for the stadium can be resolved."

The proposal comes as the city headed to a mediation process with the Ticats.

The football team's owner, Bob Young, has cited accessibility, visibility and parking problems as reasons for his rejection of the west harbour location.

The 2.4 hectares the velodrome would occupy could produce between 600 and 750 parking spots.

Only 600 spots are in the city's plans for the area.

"We're looking at a holistic plan for Hamilton's part in the Pan Ams," Iler pointed out.

The city's Pan Am spokesperson, David Adames, said the city and the Tiger-Cats have agreed not to comment on the stadium issue as they approach mediation.

Tiger-Cats president Scott Mitchell also declined to comment.

Iler stressed Olympic Park, playing fields across from an ice rink on Olympic Drive off Cootes Drive, is owned by the city and is not complicated by buildings or regulatory restrictions.

The NCCH believes the Dundas site would best serve three of the four cycling disciplines as it is close to road cycling routes and mountain biking trails.

That would intensify use of the velodrome by elite and recreational riders, would be safer to access for cyclists and provide a business model that could spare the city long-term subsidies, Iler said.

The Games budget for the cycling venue is $11.4 million, which would provide a stripped-down facility.

The cycling centre has been campaigning for more public and private sector funds to create a more substantial velodrome.


http://thespec.com/article/768558

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Binkley's Pond, gone for parking

Jacob Binkley (1806-67), great grandson of Marx [Binkley], built the handsome stone house that still stands at 54 Sanders Blvd at the head of a ravine. The house was completed in 1847 and named Lakelet Vale, as it had a little spring-fed lake at the rear. Binkley's Pond, as it was known, was used for skating, fishing, and good times. It is now the Zone 6 parking lot at McMaster University on the west side of Cootes Drive. Loreen Jerome, The Way We Were "The House that Jacob Built" Ainslie Wood/Westdale Community Association of Resident Homeowners Inc. (AWWCA) http://www.awwca.ca/articles/ Skater's on Binkley's Pond circa 1917, now a McMaster parking lot

Where did the water go? Art action in Lot M Parking

West Campus Eco-Art Project  A walking activity and site activation on McMaster’s West Campus.  West Campus Eco-Art Project is a project that incorporates creative walking activities and an artistic site activation connected with the West Campus Redesign Initiative at McMaster University. The initiative provides opportunities for connecting with nature through an on-line informational video, walking excursions and creative activities that deepen knowledge and experience with place in all its complexities (social history, citizen science, ecology and diversity).  Focusing on the Coldwater creek valley on McMaster’s West Campus, participants will learn about the history and unique features of the area and will be invited to then engage with the site through observation, sketching and stencil-making. Stencils will be used to paint text and image on the parking lot asphalt to delineate a blue line that marks an historic water route.  The project is supported by the McMaster Museum of Art (

McMaster's Parking Problem: Next Level

I'm sharing a recent article published in the Dundas Star News about McMaster's plan to build a - get this - $17-million dollar parking structure. Seventeen million. Yes, $17,000,000.00 That's a lot of money to provide temporary shelter for vehicles of people who choose to drive to campus. We will be following this closely. Here's the article.  Cootes Drive six-storey McMaster University parking garage under review Variances or amendment to zoning bylaw expected to permit parking structure Craig Campbell, Dundas Star News, Friday, March 5, 2021 Zoning bylaw variances, or amendments, could be required for a planned six-storey, 567-space McMaster University parking garage west of Cootes Drive, and north of Thorndale Crescent. University spokesperson Michelle Donavon said the $17-million structure on parking lot K at Westaway Road will help ongoing efforts to re-naturalize parts of the west campus, by moving some surface parking into the structure. “These plans will increa