http://www.therecord.com/news-story/5842...c-calming/
The revised plan eliminates the safety islands and restores parking to both sides of the street. It also eliminates the buffer between bike lanes and passing traffic.
The city's director of transportation services, Justin Readman, agreed the rocky process contained some lessons. Despite two public meetings, two mail-outs of information and both a survey and a door-to-door consultation, the process was confusing: the city requires a majority of residents to be in favour of traffic calming changes, but cycling infrastructure is approved by council and isn't up for review by neighbourhoods. In the future, where the city has both traffic calming and cycling changes to make on a street, it would carry them out separately so the process is clearer, he said.
Meanwhile in Sarnia...
Quote:If it isn't broken, don't fix it.
That's the advice Sarnia city politicians took Monday night about a proposal to add bike lanes to a stretch of Cathcart Boulevard.
Cyclists and neighbours showed up in full force to Monday's council meeting to argue against the proposal, citing the harmony that already exists between cyclists, drivers and residents in the north-end neighbourhood.
Cathcart is the equivalent of Westheights in Sarnia. Minor collector, 4 lanes but really only needs to be 2 lanes. Interesting to see both neighbourhood AND cyclists arguing against the proposal.
Westheights is getting prepped for bike lanes. They've been putting white dots along the future lines of the post-road-diet configuration.
They're about half done the painting on Westheights. With the old markings still showing, it's very confusing as to where you're supposed to be. They still need to do the bike lane markings as of this morning.
(09-28-2015, 01:03 PM)BrianT Wrote: [ -> ]I just drove on it and it looks like someone was on a drunk driving spree with the paint. They better fix it before the confusion causes an accident.
Must be the same crew that re-painted Margaret Ave. a few years back... still a mess.
(09-28-2015, 02:13 PM)JCnb Wrote: [ -> ]Must be the same crew that re-painted Margaret Ave. a few years back... still a mess.
Margaret is really brutal. The state of those bake lane lines is an embarrassment.
(09-28-2015, 04:32 PM)MidTowner Wrote: [ -> ] (09-28-2015, 02:13 PM)JCnb Wrote: [ -> ]Must be the same crew that re-painted Margaret Ave. a few years back... still a mess.
Margaret is really brutal. The state of those bake lane lines is an embarrassment.
I've been meaning to to ride up and down Margaret with a GoPro and send a clip to the city and ask why there are no lines on the road. But they just repainted the yellow line so I have to think they will do the white lines this week before the bridge re-opens. If not it will continue to be a free-for-all and could get ugly.
All this talk about Margaret, and with a note on another thread about how Street View was updated in August, I took a look. The lines seem faded, sure, but is this what you're talking about when you mean no lines?
https://goo.gl/maps/2fKSodknKeE2
(09-29-2015, 09:52 AM)chutten Wrote: [ -> ]All this talk about Margaret, and with a note on another thread about how Street View was updated in August, I took a look. The lines seem faded, sure, but is this what you're talking about when you mean no lines? https://goo.gl/maps/2fKSodknKeE2
More like this mess...
They are even less apparent while driving let alone in any kind of wet road condition. Not only are they faded/almost non-existent in some places they look like, as someone else described, a drunken driving spree with paint.
[url=https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.4619874,-80.4932862,3a,89.9y,159h,46.2t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_tiC2wo353X0bRCZq8DxgA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656][/url]
Oh that is terrible, you should report that to the Region. They probably aren't aware there is a problem.
Isn't Margaret under the City of Kitchener's control?
Whatever, I just mean, it does nothing to just talk about it here. Gotta let the folks who are responsible know there's a problem if you want to see movement.
Also curious - how does one determine if a road is under the control of a City/Region/County/Province/etc.??
(09-29-2015, 04:29 PM)Canard Wrote: [ -> ]Whatever, I just mean, it does nothing to just talk about it here. Gotta let the folks who are responsible know there's a problem if you want to see movement.
I called the City of Kitchener about this in the summer to let them know. It's been this way for some time, and I'd be surprised if they haven't received a few complaints apart from mine.
(09-29-2015, 04:29 PM)Canard Wrote: [ -> ]Whatever, I just mean, it does nothing to just talk about it here. Gotta let the folks who are responsible know there's a problem if you want to see movement.
Also curious - how does one determine if a road is under the control of a City/Region/County/Province/etc.??
What determines if a road is regional? A Regional Road is defined as an arterial road which carries a significant amount of traffic, and has a connection to provincial highways or rural settlements, or to major commercial, industrial or institutional complexes.
http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/gettin.../roads.asp
Also, if it's a highway, it's OPP/provincial patrolled, aka 401. Not sure about 7/8 since I've seen OPP set up speed traps by Sportsworld and got a nice ramping warning on my sportbike on the Wellington/Victoria Rd semi-cloverleaf, and yet I've also seen WRPS radar units past Northfield.
Who pays for and controls a road is largely historical and, depending on the political winds of the day, uploaded or downloaded. The Province operates "Kings/Queens Highways" between larger settlements. Counties were responsible for roads that weren't the King's highway. If a County was divided into Townships, some of those roads were downloaded. As cities grew, they were responsible for roads inside their boundaries unless they happened to belong to one of the higher levels of government. As cities grow, they often grow long rights-of-way that are controlled by a higher level of government who typically, and at least in Waterloo Region's case, maintains control for that right-of-way. Simple, no?
As far as enforcement, inside Waterloo Region, it's largely WRPS for traffic violations. Elsewhere in the province, the OPP is often hired to act as the local police where the local community doesn't have the need or resources to support a full fledged municipal police force. In all other instances, the OPP, Highway Patrol and RCMP only get involved if it involved their jurisdiction.