Siracusa is spearheading a grassroots campaign to reclaim the streets for motorists called "Remove the Barriers." The focus is on opening up roads between Boundary Road and Nanaimo Street east to west, and Hastings Street to 1st Avenue north and south. A petition has garnered over 2,100 signatures.

"It really seems like a top-down measure from the City of Vancouver, and residents have had enough," said Siracusa.

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CBC News requested an interview with a City of Vancouver representative, but no one was available.

In an email, a city spokesperson said the barriers are part of the city’s expanded Hastings-Sunrise Traffic Calming Project, which was developed after "extensive public consultation" and implemented to address "longstanding concerns about speeding and traffic shortcutting."

I guarantee that there was some neighborhood association or other preexisting grassroots organization that voted to do this and lobbied to get it done, and that the NIMBY assholes quoted in the article never bothered to show up to the meetings where it was being decided. But now that they are the ones organizing (outside the established process), they get the sympathetic media attention.

A non-car-dependent low-density neighbourhood in an urban centre is populated with NIMBYs? Surprising! /s

Okay, someone is being dramatic. Every neighborhood has access to and from it.

Penned by Karin Larsen, a sports reporter. I wonder if this is in her neighborhood and she likes to go fast.

But honestly, a good temporary strategy. These barriers are a stop-gap measure to slow down cars, but they aren't good urban planning. What they do well is disrupt the norm and look ugly. It gets people on board for when a good plan comes along. I've seen it happen in my city over and over again. What I don't know is if the city planners are fully aware of the strategy.