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(10-04-2019, 07:51 AM)MidTowner Wrote: [ -> ]I never thought about Davenport like that. I think the treatment it was given was appropriate and well-done, but you're absolutely right that it could be much like Union one day, a truly beautiful street. What a nice thought.

My understanding is that local collector is the designation for the types of streets we're talking about. I think they could be slowed, too- if a motorist is not traveling many kilometres, there's little difference in travel times between 30 and 50 km/h, but that difference is big in terms of safety and quality of life.

Edit: here is the map of road classifications City of Waterloo. I can't really see any "local roads" that need 50km/h+ speed limits preserved.

Hey, what are you doing, injecting facts into a discussion?

Seriously though, thanks for the map link. I think I mostly agree that the roads marked local on that could be significantly slowed down. Also basing speed limits on road category would provide a justification for the speed limits and make the categories more meaningful.

I think William should be a minor collector everywhere. The way it’s built and used east of King makes it not really a local road.

John obviously should be local, in the section currently marked “deferred” — I don’t know what we’re waiting for to realize this officially. And going along with this, every local road should be considered lower priority than multi-use trails (Spur Line, Iron Horse, …) when they meet.

One oddity: why is Wilmot Line a minor collector, but Wideman is local? I thought we were trying to keep traffic off of the Wilmot line, to the extent of having a quite strange design for the neighbourhood immediately east of Wilmot Line. I would make the Wideman — Wilmot — Berlett’s combination a minor collector, and pave Wilmot Line between Wideman and Berlett’s, simultaneously re-working the two intersections with Wilmot Line to prioritize this routing. It’s weird to have two paved roads ending at a gravel road less than 400m apart.
I saw a sign by Philip and Albert listing a streetscape project for Philip involving adding a multi use trail and trees. Anyone know about this?
Ottawa South fully reopens in both directions from Mill to Homer Watson, tomorrow morning.

Just in time for Oktoberfest at the Concordia!
Got to see it this morning. One traffic lane has been closed northbound (eastbound) between Hoffman and Mill, as there's still no sidewalk there; I imagine a large amount of foot traffic will be using it between the station and the Concordia.
(10-04-2019, 07:15 PM)bgb_ca Wrote: [ -> ]I saw a sign by Philip and Albert listing a streetscape project for Philip involving adding a multi use trail and trees. Anyone know about this?
  Something to do with this?
https://www.waterloo.ca/en/government/resources/Documents/Cityadministration/Northdale/Northdale-streetscape-master-plan-and-environmental-assessment.pdf

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/6928130-waterloo-ok-s-24-million-plan-to-revamp-the-northdale-streetscape/

I
 didn't read the entire thing but looks the city wants to add a MUT to Hickory and possibly connect it to Phillip street. Not sure how they would route it through all the buildings, but that connectivity would be great for students going to UW/ION that now would take traffic away from Uni and Columbia.
(10-13-2019, 09:41 AM)eh-cun71 Wrote: [ -> ]I[/url] didn't read the entire thing but looks the city wants to add a MUT to Hickory and possibly connect it to Phillip street. Not sure how they would route it through all the buildings, but that connectivity would be great for students going to UW/ION that now would take traffic away from Uni and Columbia.

Yes, unfortunately the time to plan for an MUT extension of Hickory to push through to Phillip was before the west side of Lester was redeveloped. There is a gap between the two buildings approximately at Hickory, but there are power transformers in the way of a direct path and overall it’s not designed to be a pedestrian/bicycle traffic route. Meanwhile on the Phillip St. side of the block there is new construction which as far as I can tell doesn’t leave space for a direct connection at all.

A major planning screw-up, especially given that Hickory St. is almost exactly straight in line with the new bus terminal access road and the existing William Tutte Way. So with proper planning we would have had a continuous and almost perfectly straight pedestrian route from Regina St. to the Student Life Centre, passing right by the north end of the LRT platform. Instead of making sure this kind of thing happens, our planners are wasting their time outlawing music lessons in townhouses and specifically mentioning “picture framing” in the zoning code, as distinct from other retail establishments.
When was the Belmont Ave road diet done? At least from Victoria St to Glasgow St it's now one lane in each direction, plus a centre turning lane, and bike lanes (with plastic bollards) on both sides.

Minor gripe: when these kinds of rearrangements are done separate from paving, the end result is a set of fairly confusing current and former/covered lane markings. Oh well.
(10-23-2019, 12:30 PM)tomh009 Wrote: [ -> ]When was the Belmont Ave road diet done? At least from Victoria St to Glasgow St it's now one lane in each direction, plus a centre turning lane, and bike lanes (with plastic bollards) on both sides.

Minor gripe: when these kinds of rearrangements are done separate from paving, the end result is a set of fairly confusing current and former/covered lane markings. Oh well.

It should be fairly clear given the bollards, and eventually the old marks become less prominent.

This was done as part of the Queens and Belmont protected bike lane pilot project https://globalnews.ca/news/5660026/construction-kitchener-bike-lanes/

I
ronically, at the beginning when the old lines were very prominet, drivers were driving between the old and new lines in a ~2.2 meter space, and were going quite safely and orderly....its almost as if wide lanes are bad.
(10-23-2019, 04:31 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: [ -> ]....its almost as if wide lanes are bad.

[Image: 456436iE6444B977B203A96?v=1.0]
Went to the university Avenue gateway presentation tonight. Interested ideas. Seems the private property owners will have give up a bit of their property for parkettes.

You can find the presentation boards here:

https://www.engagewr.ca/university-avenue-gateway
(10-24-2019, 07:58 PM)westwardloo Wrote: [ -> ]Went to the university Avenue gateway presentation tonight. Interested ideas. Seems the private property owners will have give up a bit of their property for parkettes.

You can find the presentation boards here:

https://www.engagewr.ca/university-avenue-gateway

How would that work?
[attachment=6494][attachment=6495][attachment=6496][attachment=6497][attachment=6498]
Is that a pedestrian scramble at King and university???
(10-27-2019, 06:59 AM)Spokes Wrote: [ -> ]Is that a pedestrian scramble at King and university???

No, there's nothing diagonal indicated. Just wide zebra crosswalks and clearly delineated bike lanes.
(10-27-2019, 09:09 AM)KevinL Wrote: [ -> ]
(10-27-2019, 06:59 AM)Spokes Wrote: [ -> ]Is that a pedestrian scramble at King and university???

No, there's nothing diagonal indicated. Just wide zebra crosswalks and clearly delineated bike lanes.

I’m concerned about some locations where it appears they are proposing to remove the left turn lanes. Now as many around here will know, I’m the guy who thinks almost all of our 4 lane roads could be 2 lane roads; but I think it’s clearly insane to remove left turn lanes (and right turn lanes, for that matter) on University. The intersections are precisely where more than one lane in each direction is definitely needed; in between intersections is where I suspect one lane per direction would be enough. This would also make mid-block crossings really easy. Imagine if the street is essentially 3 lanes, one lane in each direction plus a lane that becomes left turn lanes at major intersections and elsewhere is a median that forms a huge pedestrian refuge. It might also work for it to be a left turn lane for carefully chosen locations between the major intersections.