(10-11-2017, 07:26 PM)rangersfan Wrote: [ -> ]Also the article mentions a future redevelopment of the Sun life parking lot at King and Union St. Is this referring to the future development at King and John St?
No, it's referring to the Sun Life parking lot at King and Union. (???)
(10-11-2017, 07:33 PM)jamincan Wrote: [ -> ]A zipper merge is not something that only happens where indicated. It is how all merges should work. People do it all the time with highway on-ramps with no issues. For some reason though, when a normal lane ends, people get into a queue mentality. I have found that zipper merges do seem to be used effectively on the Hwy 8-401 bridge.
I agree and it's the way I usually try to merge, unless the lane I'm merging into is free of traffic.  The other week on the 401 east of Kingston, however, I attempted to do so in a place where the two lanes were reduced to one due to construction. As I was proceeding toward the merge point, a woman pulled partly out of her lane to try to block me from passing and gave me the finger as I passed her (having had to move partly into the shoulder to avoid hitting her). The stretch of the Conestoga Parkway between University and Bridgeport Rd is renowned for that manoeuvre.
(10-11-2017, 07:01 PM)rangersfan Wrote: [ -> ]Article from the Kitchener Post on updates from  the PARTS plan for the Midtown station area.
https://www.kitchenerpost.ca/news-story/...g-middle-/
It's an interesting article but it seems like some local politicians either don't understand the core objective for the Ion project (intensification in core areas) or don't understand how basics economics work. If I am a developer with a parcel of land in Midtown with the appropriate zoning, given the opportunity to build a town house or a high-rise, I am building the high rise every-time. Unless there are incentives to build a town home or lower density project.
Overall, I quite like the plan. That said, they could probably shift a bit more space from high-rise to mid-rise to assuage concerns.
(10-11-2017, 08:17 PM)panamaniac Wrote: [ -> ] (10-11-2017, 07:33 PM)jamincan Wrote: [ -> ]A zipper merge is not something that only happens where indicated. It is how all merges should work. People do it all the time with highway on-ramps with no issues. For some reason though, when a normal lane ends, people get into a queue mentality. I have found that zipper merges do seem to be used effectively on the Hwy 8-401 bridge.
This makes a lot of sense. However, where feasible and in particular anywhere two lanes are reducing to one, the signage should be symmetrical to get people away from the idea that one lane is continuing on (and can just drive) while the other is stopping (and has to merge into the other lane). I think if explicitly-signed zipper merges were common in these situations, people would probably adopt an improved approach to on-ramp merges and other merges as well.
(10-11-2017, 08:17 PM)panamaniac Wrote: [ -> ]I agree and it's the way I usually try to merge, unless the lane I'm merging into is free of traffic.  The other week on the 401 east of Kingston, however, I attempted to do so in a place where the two lanes were reduced to one due to construction. As I was proceeding toward the merge point, a woman pulled partly out of her lane to try to block me from passing and gave me the finger as I passed her (having had to move partly into the shoulder to avoid hitting her). The stretch of the Conestoga Parkway between University and Bridgeport Rd is renowned for that manoeuvre.
You were both right (well, I’m not really endorsing the rude gesture, but…read on!).
She was correct that you were jumping the queue, and you were correct that the merge point should be, uh, at the merge point.
What you’re missing is that the behaviour of the two lanes has to change at a certain point. Their speeds should match up, then the cars should adopt positions opposite gaps in the other lane, then the lanes should zip together.
It is unreasonable to expect people who have spent time slowly advancing through a line to view favourably your proposal that they let you in after you zoom up past the whole line. That’s why I match speed with the line at a certain point, at the absolute latest the point where the merging lane mostly clears out, and then merge at the merge point.
I'd like to see an LRV merge onto our test track
(10-11-2017, 09:22 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: [ -> ]That’s why I match speed with the line at a certain point, at the absolute latest the point where the merging lane mostly clears out, and then merge at the merge point.
Sadly this kills a number of the benefits of the zipper merge - it wastes a bunch of road capacity that could hold the queued cars and pushes the congestion back to the point that it impacts other roads/intersections that shouldn't need to be impacted. Â Not usually a problem on the 401, but horrible in the city.
The other lady in the story wasn't right at all. Â She did something illegal.
(10-11-2017, 11:38 PM)SammyOES Wrote: [ -> ] (10-11-2017, 09:22 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: [ -> ]That’s why I match speed with the line at a certain point, at the absolute latest the point where the merging lane mostly clears out, and then merge at the merge point.
Sadly this kills a number of the benefits of the zipper merge - it wastes a bunch of road capacity that could hold the queued cars and pushes the congestion back to the point that it impacts other roads/intersections that shouldn't need to be impacted. Â Not usually a problem on the 401, but horrible in the city.
The other lady in the story wasn't right at all. Â She did something illegal.
The only reason it wastes road capacity is because not enough people are doing it. But even with not enough people doing it, my strategy avoids setting up a conflict between me and the people in the other lane. By contrast, the people who just drive up all the way are upsetting the people who are waiting.
Additionally, depending on the exact speeds involved, the people who drive past the lineup may be creating an unsafe situation by having a high speed relative to the lane containing the lineup. Their speed also makes it so that anyone who tries to move from the lineup to the empty lane (doing their bit to use the wasted capacity) will have trouble due to needing to merge with sparser but faster traffic. By controlling the speed of traffic in the empty lane, I give people behind and in front of me the opportunity to use that lane.
I would suggest that it should be illegal to go faster than maybe 10-15km/h faster than somebody in an adjacent lane. Of course this is harder to enforce than a regular speed limit but conceptually I’m quite confident it would be a good rule for safety. In particular, I’m suggesting that people should not be passing stopped traffic at high speed.
Can the zipper merge discussion be moved to General Roads and Highway?
Is this page for talk about LRT ?
(10-11-2017, 08:29 PM)tomh009 Wrote: [ -> ] (10-11-2017, 07:01 PM)rangersfan Wrote: [ -> ]Article from the Kitchener Post on updates from  the PARTS plan for the Midtown station area.
https://www.kitchenerpost.ca/news-story/...g-middle-/
It's an interesting article but it seems like some local politicians either don't understand the core objective for the Ion project (intensification in core areas) or don't understand how basics economics work. If I am a developer with a parcel of land in Midtown with the appropriate zoning, given the opportunity to build a town house or a high-rise, I am building the high rise every-time. Unless there are incentives to build a town home or lower density project.
Overall, I quite like the plan. That said, they could probably shift a bit more space from high-rise to mid-rise to assuage concerns.
There was considerable consultation for this. In addition to the usual feedback opportunities available at each step, and the public information centres set up, neighbours did things like host walks to discuss the different options and how they'd look on the ground, and bring info to neighbourhood events.
I don't really understand the councillor's concerns about density. Much of the land is set aside for mid-rise, to "step down" from the taller buildings. I disagree with his comments about housing affordability- the way to increase affordability is to build more units, not fewer. Thinking about it, the headline of the article really irks me- the area has no "missing middle" in terms of density. It's almost entirely low-density now. Additionally, the planning area in question is small- outside of it, within a short walk or bike ride to the LRT, will continue to exist many single family homes for those who want them.
I like the plan a lot. I really like the attention paid to green space in the proposed planning framework. I don't think the new or existing residents will be in want of parks if the plan is implemented as is.
Re: the parking lot. It's referring to the parking lot at the south corner of King/Union, bounded by King, Union, Park and Mount Hope. That's a big lot.
I thought that was what was being referred to but I didn't know how likely we were to see multiple redevelopments on the Sun Life property in the nearer term.
Can we please get back on topic? Not only left turns now, but all sorts of merging options... even internationally. That would be better for the general road thread.
Mods, could you please relocate the non-LRT discussions to the appropriate threads (driving and downtown Kitchener)? Thanks!
An article in the Kitchener Post commenting on the absurd station locations in Waterloo:
https://www.kitchenerpost.ca/opinion-sto...d-to-fail/
Quote:I had a dream that the LRT was up and running. I took the 202 iXpress from The Boardwalk to the University Avenue LRT station, a transit hub occupying part of what had been UW parking lot A. Walking a few metres to the LRT, I saw students boarding the waiting GO, Greyhound, and GRT buses.
The southern part of UW's main campus and thousands of highrise units between Seagram Drive and Hickory Street were well served by this station.
The train quickly took me to the Columbia Street LRT station, which connected with the 201 iXpress and other GRT buses. This station served the northern part of UW's main campus and thousands of highrise units along Columbia Street.
A few minutes later I disembarked at the Albert-McCormick LRT station to return my library books. Not far away were the Albert and Bearinger strip malls, and even closer was the Lakeshore neighbourhood, the low-rise housing soon to be intensified by mixed-income family highrises.
Wonderful, but as I said, it was only a dream.
And there's a bit more after that you can read at the link.
It's certainly not wrong about how the locations for stations are woefully poorly placed from a connectivity perspective.
TriTAG was already
harping on this point in 2012, back when there was the slim possibility of getting things changed, but political buy-in from the universities seemed pegged to the absurd station locations.
(10-12-2017, 10:22 AM)Markster Wrote: [ -> ]An article in the Kitchener Post commenting on the absurd station locations in Waterloo:
https://www.kitchenerpost.ca/opinion-sto...d-to-fail/
Quote:I had a dream that the LRT was up and running. I took the 202 iXpress from The Boardwalk to the University Avenue LRT station, a transit hub occupying part of what had been UW parking lot A. Walking a few metres to the LRT, I saw students boarding the waiting GO, Greyhound, and GRT buses.
The southern part of UW's main campus and thousands of highrise units between Seagram Drive and Hickory Street were well served by this station.
The train quickly took me to the Columbia Street LRT station, which connected with the 201 iXpress and other GRT buses. This station served the northern part of UW's main campus and thousands of highrise units along Columbia Street.
A few minutes later I disembarked at the Albert-McCormick LRT station to return my library books. Not far away were the Albert and Bearinger strip malls, and even closer was the Lakeshore neighbourhood, the low-rise housing soon to be intensified by mixed-income family highrises.
Wonderful, but as I said, it was only a dream.
And there's a bit more after that you can read at the link.
It's certainly not wrong about how the locations for stations are woefully poorly placed from a connectivity perspective.
TriTAG was already harping on this point in 2012, back when there was the slim possibility of getting things changed, but political buy-in from the universities seemed pegged to the absurd station locations.
To play a very tiny amount of devils advocate.  The station locations are probably better for those who aren't on connecting buses.  I.e., visiting the park is easier with the location of the park station, and visiting campus, or getting on the train from living nearby (Phillip St., and hopefully with a connector through to Hickory and Lester).
Still, network wise, it seems like a bad choice. Â It *could* be mitigated if the region/GRT/University was willing to put up the cash and land and political will to build direct access roads, with full transit priority instead of meandering down Ring Rd. Â But that isn't going to happen either.