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Cycling in Waterloo Region - Printable Version

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RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 05-25-2018

(05-24-2018, 10:53 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: This article contains an interesting item:

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8628987-waterloo-may-expand-high-tech-parking-enforcement/

“They've put about 27,000 kilometres on the specially outfitted SUV and have issued 2,630 tickets since May 2017.”

Wait, they issue less than 10 tickets per day? What is going on here? They could issue 50 tickets every day just on King St. in Uptown. What are they doing all day? One person can only eat so many doughnuts!

There are days I call in 10 vehicles in bike Lanes. 

But never in Waterloo.  Many days it takes me almost 30 minutes to get ahold of bylaw.  Waterloo has by far the worst customer service in the region for these issues.


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - Coke6pk - 05-25-2018

I am sure the 2,630 are timed tickets only. [2hr limit]. You don't need cameras for handicapped, fire routes, No Parking zones, Bike Lanes, etc.

Coke


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 05-25-2018

(05-25-2018, 11:24 AM)Coke6pk Wrote: I am sure the 2,630 are timed tickets only. [2hr limit].  You don't need cameras for handicapped, fire routes, No Parking zones, Bike Lanes, etc.

Coke

We just need a council willing to enforce it's bylaws.


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - Canard - 05-25-2018

Sickening.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8629019-bicycle-thefts-anger-group-visiting-kitchener/


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - clasher - 05-25-2018

The meth-for-bikes trade is quite robust in Waterloo region and it doesn't seem like one small bait-bike program is going to make much of a difference. Much like weeds just plucking one doesn't solve the root problems.

I'm a paranoid person and I never let my bikes out of sight when they're on the car rack, even in small towns... and most of my bikes aren't worth all that much money.


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - ijmorlan - 05-25-2018

(05-25-2018, 11:24 AM)Coke6pk Wrote: I am sure the 2,630 are timed tickets only. [2hr limit].  You don't need cameras for handicapped, fire routes, No Parking zones, Bike Lanes, etc.

Coke

Good point, thanks for the reminder. That would actually make sense given the emphasis in the article. It’s still something like $20 in capital costs per ticket, which seems excessive, but maybe over time that will average down to a more reasonable value.

And of course I do recognize the difficulty in counting tickets as a measure of effectiveness. A perfectly effective enforcement regime would issue 0 tickets because nobody would violate the rules. The goal isn’t tickets but good behaviour.


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - KevinT - 05-25-2018

(05-24-2018, 10:53 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: This article contains an interesting item:

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8628987-waterloo-may-expand-high-tech-parking-enforcement/

“They've put about 27,000 kilometres on the specially outfitted SUV and have issued 2,630 tickets since May 2017.”

Wait, they issue less than 10 tickets per day? What is going on here? They could issue 50 tickets every day just on King St. in Uptown. What are they doing all day? One person can only eat so many doughnuts!

I spotted this in the print edition today and my first thought was "Does the software recognize bike lanes?"


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - timc - 05-25-2018

(05-25-2018, 11:56 AM)Canard Wrote: Sickening.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/8629019-bicycle-thefts-anger-group-visiting-kitchener/

I read this, and couldn't figure out how the bikes were stolen if they were locked on bike racks. As someone who carries bikes on a bike rack, this seems important to me.


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - chutten - 05-25-2018

37 charges laid over 3 days with a single bait bike? That's a staggering rate. They should do that all the time.

How does anyone get money for used bike parts if there are so many thefts? Shouldn't a flooded market mean prices falling below the level that it's worth the effort?


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - clasher - 05-25-2018

(05-25-2018, 04:57 PM)chutten Wrote: 37 charges laid over 3 days with a single bait bike? That's a staggering rate. They should do that all the time.

How does anyone get money for used bike parts if there are so many thefts? Shouldn't a flooded market mean prices falling below the level that it's worth the effort?

Since the cost and risk to steal a bike is so low there's nothing really stopping people from doing it. There are chop shops out there always buying parts to re-assemble stolen bikes and move them out of the area so it's harder to track them down.


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - Pheidippides - 05-25-2018

And who is buying these chopped up and reassembled bikes?

Meanwhile, in uptown:
   
   


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - clasher - 05-26-2018

(05-25-2018, 09:41 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: And who is buying these chopped up and reassembled bikes?

People... sometimes on kijiji but only by the very daft these days, mostly I guess at flea markets in other towns, at garage sales, private sales among a group of friends. There's lots of places online to sell stuff and once it changes hands a few time someone might not even know they have stolen stuff; parts usually don't have any serial numbers and it's hard to tell if a shifter has been stolen or not... a lot of new parts bought online don't come in retail packaging so a lack of a retail box isn't even a tell anymore.


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - Pheidippides - 05-26-2018

(05-25-2018, 06:50 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: There are days I call in 10 vehicles in bike Lanes. 

But never in Waterloo.  Many days it takes me almost 30 minutes to get ahold of bylaw.  Waterloo has by far the worst customer service in the region for these issues.

I'm not a registered user, but it seems like you might be able to submit complaints via the City of Waterloo website:
https://mypermits.waterloo.ca:8443/PublicPortal/Waterloo/index.jsp

"You can also raise a by-law concern about parking, noise, property standards, or lot maintenance"

I was tempted to test it out this week. There was a truck parked in the Park St bike lane near William for what seemed like the entire week.


My first thought when reading the article was, "could they use the cameras to monitor snow clearing on sidewalks?" If it can see a valve on a car tire while moving surely it could be taught to detected pavement from snow?


For those interested you can actually see the types of parking infractions in the open data:
https://rowopendata-rmw.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/City-of-Waterloo::city-of-waterloo-bylaw-parking-infractions

Unfortunately it isn't a spatial/georeferenced file (other than a general location field in the dataset) - that would be interesting to look at. I would suspect if you mapped it most of the infractions are in the uptown area. I see tonnes of people in the burbs violating all manner of parking by-laws, but unlike the uptown area, rarely see a ticket.

Does anyone have a map of the 3 by-law patrol zones in Waterloo reference in the article?


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - Canard - 05-26-2018

The whole bicycle theft thing is exactly why I can’t being myself to use my bike for any practical purpose or errand, besides occasionally riding to work (where the bike comes inside our shop). I’ve used my bike exactly once to run an errand to Rexall, for about 3 minutes, and I felt uncomfortable the entire time despite me locking it up.

It’s really unfortunate, and just goes to add yet another reason why people aren’t cycling more. It could be so much better!


RE: Cycling in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 05-26-2018

(05-26-2018, 10:40 AM)Pheidippides Wrote:
(05-25-2018, 06:50 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: There are days I call in 10 vehicles in bike Lanes. 

But never in Waterloo.  Many days it takes me almost 30 minutes to get ahold of bylaw.  Waterloo has by far the worst customer service in the region for these issues.

I'm not a registered user, but it seems like you might be able to submit complaints via the City of Waterloo website:
https://mypermits.waterloo.ca:8443/PublicPortal/Waterloo/index.jsp

"You can also raise a by-law concern about parking, noise, property standards, or lot maintenance"

I was tempted to test it out this week. There was a truck parked in the Park St bike lane near William for what seemed like the entire week.


My first thought when reading the article was, "could they use the cameras to monitor snow clearing on sidewalks?" If it can see a valve on a car tire while moving surely it could be taught to detected pavement from snow?


For those interested you can actually see the types of parking infractions in the open data:
https://rowopendata-rmw.opendata.arcgis.com/datasets/City-of-Waterloo::city-of-waterloo-bylaw-parking-infractions

Unfortunately it isn't a spatial/georeferenced file (other than a general location field in the dataset) - that would be interesting to look at. I would suspect if you mapped it most of the infractions are in the uptown area. I see tonnes of people in the burbs violating all manner of parking by-laws, but unlike the uptown area, rarely see a ticket.

Does anyone have a map of the 3 by-law patrol zones in Waterloo reference in the article?

I too would like to see that map.

That's a very interesting dataset.  I had no idea it was public.

The most interesting thing in that dataset, out of 300,000 infractions...ONE bike lane violation.

Priorities right?