Re: 'Chamber is neutral' (Letters, July 21)

John Dolbec, like many Hamiltonians, regards one-way streets as a given. Two-way streets have to prove themselves, and until they do so (despite the evident success of James Street North, etc.) he remains a skeptic.

But when streets were laid out in Hamilton at the beginning of the 19th century they were two-way -- and so they remained until one night in October 1956 when more than 40 kilometres of city streets were converted to one-way.

Almost immediately, the negative impacts of these conversions was felt, especially on small downtown-core businesses.

Petitions and protests were organized, to no avail.

Many causes are usually cited for the persistent (50 odd years!) malaise in our downtown core. Surely one-way traffic is a leading suspect.

Yet Dolbec and the Chamber of Commerce have adopted a stance of benign neutrality on the issue.

One has to wonder about the chamber's professed self-description as "the effective voice of city business" in Hamilton.