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Walking in Waterloo Region
What I assume is a fibre expansion/replacement or something along the Victoria St. sidewalk has been a pathetic affair from the start last year. On top of the stated issues with bad signage and worksite management, they've swiss cheesed every 3rd sidewalk slab and patched with it varying fill volumes of asphalt. Impressive disregard for pedestrian infrastructure even by KW construction standards.
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A nice side effect of the bike infrastructure at Weber and Wellington is that you no longer have to hit the beg button to walk across the intersection. I like not having to race to hit the beg button or cross against the signal because I got to the intersection a second or two late.
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(01-22-2024, 10:42 AM)Chris Wrote: A nice side effect of the bike infrastructure at Weber and Wellington is that you no longer have to hit the beg button to walk across the intersection. I like not having to race to hit the beg button or cross against the signal because I got to the intersection a second or two late.

Lol...

Interestingly, the traffic light engineers are unwilling to even understand that problem. I literally had this conversation with them, and I explained it three ways, and they said "I don't understand". It might have been one of the conversations that got me not renewed on ATAC.

Everyone is so thrilled about staff turnover in the transportation department, I wonder if that person is gone as well.

The reason I felt it was worth trying to explain it three times is that Ottawa (you know, the just as car centric capital city), their traffic signals don't have this problem. If you are late to push the button, and the light is already green, but there is enough time in the phase (or potential time, i.e., the light would be extended for a car) for the ped phase to run, the ped phase will be triggered when you press the button. So clearly it is possible within an Ontario framework and infrastructure, just not possible within the head of the traffic signal engineer for the region.
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(01-22-2024, 11:07 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(01-22-2024, 10:42 AM)Chris Wrote: A nice side effect of the bike infrastructure at Weber and Wellington is that you no longer have to hit the beg button to walk across the intersection. I like not having to race to hit the beg button or cross against the signal because I got to the intersection a second or two late.

Lol...

Interestingly, the traffic light engineers are unwilling to even understand that problem. I literally had this conversation with them, and I explained it three ways, and they said "I don't understand". It might have been one of the conversations that got me not renewed on ATAC.

Everyone is so thrilled about staff turnover in the transportation department, I wonder if that person is gone as well.

The reason I felt it was worth trying to explain it three times is that Ottawa (you know, the just as car centric capital city), their traffic signals don't have this problem. If you are late to push the button, and the light is already green, but there is enough time in the phase (or potential time, i.e., the light would be extended for a car) for the ped phase to run, the ped phase will be triggered when you press the button. So clearly it is possible within an Ontario framework and infrastructure, just not possible within the head of the traffic signal engineer for the region.

I was wondering if this works at Duke and Victoria. I feel like one day last week I hit the beg button (or the person across the street did) and it switched from Don't walk to walk. I need to witness this again to confirm as I might have just missed that it was already on walk.

Also, every time I hit these beg buttons I really wish the traffic engineers had the experience of using them and the frustration of standing in the heat, cold or rain while waiting for the signals to cycle back around to your legal time to cross. I think if they experienced this themselves, they would change the system.
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(01-22-2024, 11:07 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: The reason I felt it was worth trying to explain it three times is that Ottawa (you know, the just as car centric capital city), their traffic signals don't have this problem. If you are late to push the button, and the light is already green, but there is enough time in the phase (or potential time, i.e., the light would be extended for a car) for the ped phase to run, the ped phase will be triggered when you press the button. So clearly it is possible within an Ontario framework and infrastructure, just not possible within the head of the traffic signal engineer for the region.

This exact thing does happen now at several intersections. I can't cite specific examples, but there are definitely pedestrian signals that will change with a button press without waiting for the next cycle.
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It would be nice if we now have people in positions of power in the region, who are willing to make this trivially easy improvement that will significantly improve pedestrian experience.
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(01-22-2024, 12:48 PM)Chris Wrote: Also, every time I hit these beg buttons I really wish the traffic engineers had the experience of using them and the frustration of standing in the heat, cold or rain while waiting for the signals to cycle back around to your legal time to cross. I think if they experienced this themselves, they would change the system.

Even without the beg buttons, you would still need to stand in the heat, cold or rain (or plain ordinary weather) to wait for the next green cycle, eliminating the buttons would not give you the ability to (legally) cross immediately.
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(01-22-2024, 01:46 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(01-22-2024, 12:48 PM)Chris Wrote: Also, every time I hit these beg buttons I really wish the traffic engineers had the experience of using them and the frustration of standing in the heat, cold or rain while waiting for the signals to cycle back around to your legal time to cross. I think if they experienced this themselves, they would change the system.

Even without the beg buttons, you would still need to stand in the heat, cold or rain (or plain ordinary weather) to wait for the next green cycle, eliminating the buttons would not give you the ability to (legally) cross immediately.

I've said before, but I think advocates in North America focus too much on beg buttons. The Netherlands has them (even for cyclists) and we're held up as the gold standard. The problem is not the beg buttons, but the system which treats pedestrians as second class citizens (and cyclists as dirty communist vermin).

Removing beg buttons wouldn't change that system, but it does remove a symbol of that system. It also removes a tool used to introduce that inequity. It moves towards equal mediocrity, rather than towards equal excellence.

But also, removing beg buttons is a more specific and easier thing to ask for than to "fix society and people's feelings" and so more likely to succeed. FWIW...removing beg buttons does solve the utter inhumanity and radicalization factor of making pedestrians stand and watch a green light complete it's entire cycle, wait the red light, and then, and only then be allowed to proceed. And I do mean radicalization. Sadly, I wish that radicalization led to better outcomes than simply ignoring traffic lights and then being blamed if you are hit.
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(01-22-2024, 01:46 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(01-22-2024, 12:48 PM)Chris Wrote: Also, every time I hit these beg buttons I really wish the traffic engineers had the experience of using them and the frustration of standing in the heat, cold or rain while waiting for the signals to cycle back around to your legal time to cross. I think if they experienced this themselves, they would change the system.

Even without the beg buttons, you would still need to stand in the heat, cold or rain (or plain ordinary weather) to wait for the next green cycle, eliminating the buttons would not give you the ability to (legally) cross immediately.

Sure it would in situations when you get there just a little late. Walk up to an intersection as the light is changing. If you don't hit the pedestrian crossing button before the light changes to green in your direction, you can't cross as the don't walk sign doesn't change due to no one hitting button. If they beg button was removed and you show up a few seconds into the green light the walk sign would automatically be on and you could proceed. When someone gets to one of these intersections with time to cross but the don't walk is on due to the beg button it really sucks.
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(01-22-2024, 01:05 PM)timc Wrote: This exact thing does happen now at several intersections. I can't cite specific examples, but there are definitely pedestrian signals that will change with a button press without waiting for the next cycle.

When the crossing gates are activated at University Ave., pressing the button gives an immediate walking person signal. Interestingly, the bicycle signals go green in this situation without any button push.
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(01-22-2024, 02:26 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(01-22-2024, 01:05 PM)timc Wrote: This exact thing does happen now at several intersections. I can't cite specific examples, but there are definitely pedestrian signals that will change with a button press without waiting for the next cycle.

When the crossing gates are activated at University Ave., pressing the button gives an immediate walking person signal. Interestingly, the bicycle signals go green in this situation without any button push.

This definitely did not happen before the bicycle signal was installed (what a mess that situation was overall), but I cannot understand why anyone would ever obey that signal.
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(01-22-2024, 10:42 AM)Chris Wrote: A nice side effect of the bike infrastructure at Weber and Wellington is that you no longer have to hit the beg button to walk across the intersection. I like not having to race to hit the beg button or cross against the signal because I got to the intersection a second or two late.

I used to cross here daily and missed hitting the button by 1 microsecond all the time... The only "positive" to the previous system is that sometimes it's outright dangerous for a pedestrian to cross once turning vehicular traffic has started moving. See Weber and Victoria where turning vehicles would have hit me 2-3 times a week if I had taken my right of way, and instead I just stopped crossing unless I was at the signal the moment it turned green.

(01-22-2024, 03:04 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: This definitely did not happen before the bicycle signal was installed (what a mess that situation was overall), but I cannot understand why anyone would ever obey that signal.

I didn't realize the pedestrian light operated like that now, but the fact that the bicycle signal is green while the gates are down just highlights the absurdity of the pedestrian signal regardless.
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(01-22-2024, 03:04 PM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(01-22-2024, 02:26 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: When the crossing gates are activated at University Ave., pressing the button gives an immediate walking person signal. Interestingly, the bicycle signals go green in this situation without any button push.

This definitely did not happen before the bicycle signal was installed (what a mess that situation was overall), but I cannot understand why anyone would ever obey that signal.

I’m pretty sure it did, but maybe not originally. That is, they may have installed it initially, later adjusted it to trigger immediately, and still later installed the bicycle signals (which definitely was a mess).
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https://x.com/wrpstoday/status/175883653...NKLTCpUIuA

An innocent woman has died after being hit on Pinebush, the same stretch of road where 4 people were hit back in December in a crosswalk. The same stretch of road that doesn’t even have sidewalks in the next block east. 100m from the roundabout that I emailed regional councillors about in October and received no reply.

I’m sick of this place and everyone who runs it.
local cambridge weirdo
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(02-17-2024, 11:38 AM)bravado Wrote: https://x.com/wrpstoday/status/175883653...NKLTCpUIuA

An innocent woman has died after being hit on Pinebush, the same stretch of road where 4 people were hit back in December in a crosswalk. The same stretch of road that doesn’t even have sidewalks in the next block east. 100m from the roundabout that I emailed regional councillors about in October and received no reply.

I’m sick of this place and everyone who runs it.

That stock photo of the police SUV that appears with the post could, like, not be an SUV.
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