ONTARIO - City planners don't want to follow in the tracks of other North American cities when it comes to light rail.

The consultant hired to figure out how Hamilton should move forward with a hoped-for rail line will be expected to have experience in designing a modern European-style rapid transit system.

That's a clear indication of the direction city planners intend to take with a proposed LRT corridor stretching 16 kilometres from Eastgate Square to McMaster University.

The vision is to emulate the way European cities built their LRT systems.

That means:

* giving priority to transit, pedestrians, cyclists and service vehicles rather than cars;

* making LRT fit the existing streetscape and adapting the design to fit each neighbourhood;

* having minimal or no property acquisition;

* putting the transit line close to buildings and sidewalks.

Jill Stephen, Hamilton's acting director of strategic planning and rapid transit, says the typical North American approach has been to try to give priority to both traffic and transit and drastically change the streetscape. Often LRT lines have been built on abandoned rail corridors or greenfield space at the periphery of the city.