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+-- Forum: Waterloo Region Works (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=14)
+--- Forum: Transportation and Infrastructure (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=25)
+--- Thread: Trails (/showthread.php?tid=378)
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RE: Trails - jamincan - 06-10-2020
Whitney would really be better off as a woonerf, I think.
RE: Trails - KevinT - 06-15-2020
(06-10-2020, 09:11 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: You can see from this angle that the island is quite far out of the way of the desire line for the trail, I expect many people will not use it. It is a challenge because of the curve and the drive way, but this seems pretty far out of the way.
The wife and I biked through this yesterday, and although it didn't follow the desire line we didn't find it a big deal to take the new path at all. Much like the rebuilt railway crossing farther 'south' (east) on the IHT, this makes you cross at a right angle which is far safer than the desire line which follows the original railway route at a shallow angle. Trains had the advantage of winning any encounters with road traffic, cyclists and pedestrians not so much...
I agree with the comment that the refuge island isn't much of a refuge. It's too small and provides no practical barrier at all from a mis-aimed road driver. They may as well have just left the roadway the original width without an island, and put the money into better use elsewhere.
RE: Trails - Acitta - 06-15-2020
(06-15-2020, 06:05 PM)KevinT Wrote: I agree with the comment that the refuge island isn't much of a refuge. It's too small and provides no practical barrier at all from a mis-aimed road driver. They may as well have just left the roadway the original width without an island, and put the money into better use elsewhere.
An island is really needed on Victoria, not West.
RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 06-15-2020
(06-15-2020, 07:07 PM)Acitta Wrote:(06-15-2020, 06:05 PM)KevinT Wrote: I agree with the comment that the refuge island isn't much of a refuge. It's too small and provides no practical barrier at all from a mis-aimed road driver. They may as well have just left the roadway the original width without an island, and put the money into better use elsewhere.
An island is really needed on Victoria, not West.
They are also doing work there, but if they were unwilling to put a real island on a wide residential side street, how do you think they will deal with a narrow arterial road?
RE: Trails - tomh009 - 06-15-2020
(06-15-2020, 08:34 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:(06-15-2020, 07:07 PM)Acitta Wrote: An island is really needed on Victoria, not West.
They are also doing work there, but if they were unwilling to put a real island on a wide residential side street, how do you think they will deal with a narrow arterial road?
Is it actually narrow (for a two-lane road)? How wide are the lanes?
RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 06-15-2020
(06-15-2020, 09:38 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(06-15-2020, 08:34 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: They are also doing work there, but if they were unwilling to put a real island on a wide residential side street, how do you think they will deal with a narrow arterial road?
Is it actually narrow (for a two-lane road)? How wide are the lanes?
It's not narrow for a 2 lane road, but the lane widths are alread at the regional minimum of 3.35 for a non-curb lane.
Where as West, the lane widths were already around 4 meters as a result of the excess width for parking permitted on the road. And that's on a city street which has lower minimum lane widths.
There was already considerably more space on West than Victoria, and the boulevard on West is larger too. Yet they used none of that, rebuilt the curbs, minimized the island width to the smallest permitted island, kept 4 meter lanes.
I suspect the only thing that even makes it possible to build an island on Victoria is the bike lanes, the region counts they as part of the pavement width, which they insist on being at minimum 4 meters curb to curb so that snow plows don't need to slow down (yes, they can easily fit through a much narrower lane, but they may need to slow down and/or raise their blade, there are narrower curb to curb pavement widths in the region, see King at Allen). Of course using the bike lanes in this way makes them incredibly unsafe for cyclists, since drivers prefering not to slow down, will simply drive in the bike lane. I came within inches of being killed by a transport truck driver who chose to do this on Glasgow, the mirror went above my head. Of course, nobody at the region gives the slightest fuck about that, so long as no driver ever has to slow down, they're happy.
RE: Trails - ijmorlan - 06-15-2020
(06-15-2020, 10:09 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: I suspect the only thing that even makes it possible to build an island on Victoria is the bike lanes, the region counts they as part of the pavement width, which they insist on being at minimum 4 meters curb to curb so that snow plows don't need to slow down (yes, they can easily fit through a much narrower lane, but they may need to slow down and/or raise their blade, there are narrower curb to curb pavement widths in the region, see King at Allen). Of course using the bike lanes in this way makes them incredibly unsafe for cyclists, since drivers prefering not to slow down, will simply drive in the bike lane. I came within inches of being killed by a transport truck driver who chose to do this on Glasgow, the mirror went above my head. Of course, nobody at the region gives the slightest fuck about that, so long as no driver ever has to slow down, they're happy.
I think counting the bike lanes towards the minimum in this fashion constitutes reckless endangerment. Of course drivers in a wide lane will use the bike lane when they get to a narrow area, making it partially the road engineers’ fault when a bicyclist is killed. What should instead happen, assuming we have unprotected bike lanes in the first place, is that near the crossing bollards (big concrete ones that can stop a concrete truck, not the little plastic ones) should mark off the bicycle lanes and force motor vehicle traffic to stick to its lane.
RE: Trails - KevinL - 06-16-2020
The infrastructure investment announced today includes a bunch of trail related goodies:
-Bridge over 7/8 from Strasburg to Avalon
-New trail along the Spur from Northfield to St Jacobs Market
-Connections from Iron Horse to transit (5km of various additions)
-An MUT along Lackner
RE: Trails - jamincan - 06-17-2020
The MUT along Lackner is going to be a welcome change - the current situation north of Ottawa is horrendous.
RE: Trails - ijmorlan - 06-17-2020
(06-16-2020, 04:39 PM)KevinL Wrote: The infrastructure investment announced today includes a bunch of trail related goodies:
-Bridge over 7/8 from Strasburg to Avalon
-New trail along the Spur from Northfield to St Jacobs Market
-Connections from Iron Horse to transit (5km of various additions)
-An MUT along Lackner
These are all good. Still, it’s weird that cities apparently need assistance from senior levels of government to build these. None of these feel like matters of provincial or federal concern to me: they are all exactly the sort of project our local municipalities are supposed to be responsible for.
RE: Trails - panamaniac - 06-17-2020
And if the provinces funded municipalities adequately, they might be able to be.
RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 06-17-2020
(06-17-2020, 11:34 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:(06-16-2020, 04:39 PM)KevinL Wrote: The infrastructure investment announced today includes a bunch of trail related goodies:
-Bridge over 7/8 from Strasburg to Avalon
-New trail along the Spur from Northfield to St Jacobs Market
-Connections from Iron Horse to transit (5km of various additions)
-An MUT along Lackner
These are all good. Still, it’s weird that cities apparently need assistance from senior levels of government to build these. None of these feel like matters of provincial or federal concern to me: they are all exactly the sort of project our local municipalities are supposed to be responsible for.
Remember, as Michael Harris made clear in a tweet today, the safety of cyclists and the convenience of people without a car is discretionary spending. This is the view of our regional council and it's fucking exhausting.
RE: Trails - timc - 06-17-2020
(06-17-2020, 06:40 AM)jamincan Wrote: The MUT along Lackner is going to be a welcome change - the current situation north of Ottawa is horrendous.
I'd like it if the bike lane situation on Lackner could be fixed. I laugh every time I bike there because it is so ridiculous.
RE: Trails - ijmorlan - 06-17-2020
(06-17-2020, 11:38 AM)panamaniac Wrote: And if the provinces funded municipalities adequately, they might be able to be.
Why not just raise local taxes to pay for local projects?
Of course, if we didn’t take as a given that we need a huge road network we’d probably have lots of money at the local level.
RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 06-17-2020
(06-17-2020, 04:04 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:(06-17-2020, 11:38 AM)panamaniac Wrote: And if the provinces funded municipalities adequately, they might be able to be.
Why not just raise local taxes to pay for local projects?
Of course, if we didn’t take as a given that we need a huge road network we’d probably have lots of money at the local level.
Well, I'd like to see a re-allocation of money. But apparently there are some reasons why property taxes are not a particularly progressive way to fund services, and the cities are not permitted to levy any other form of taxes apparently.
From the perspective of the federal and provincial governments, giving money in this way is a way for the federal and provincial governments to exert "soft" influence on what cities do...