Waterloo Region Connected
Trails - Printable Version

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RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 04-10-2020

(04-09-2020, 05:35 PM)Jonny Wrote: I got bored today in quarantine so I decided to try out a protected intersection design at Courtland and Stirling. Kept all the existing lanes and added in a two-way trail connection within the existing curbs just by reducing the lane widths down to 3.3m (the recommended width in the Region's design guidelines). Thoughts?

I'm not sure how you're fitting the bike lanes in, the curb to curb distance on Stirling is only 13.6 meters, which only barely gives room for four 3.3 meter lanes, with no extra space for the bike lane. Courtland has only about 1.5 meter extra space, which might be enough for either a barrier, or the wider bike lane, but not both.

Stirling is way overbuilt and could probably lose a lane to facilitate the bike lanes. Courtland is a bigger challenge, given the short segment, it's probably reasonable to lose the right turn lane from the southbound direction to facilitate the design you propose, Courtland is especially frustrating, because the region rebuilt it, with utterly stupid wide lanes, and then painted "edge lines", which frankly, are just a bad idea, but that's neither here nor there.

My preferred design is to have a controlled crossing straight to the island cross the island, and then cross Stirling to the trail, but that has challenges putting crossings so close to the intersection, regional engineers would outright refuse, I'm sure.


RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 04-11-2020

Sorry, I didn't mean to shit on the idea, I just didn't know how you were making your measurements.

Regardless I was inspired, so I modeled both the "island" approach, and the protected intersection approach. My mockups don't look great, but they should give the idea. I like the island (and regardless of which, I think the island should be tightened up, there is HUGE pavement at the island, and there should be a crosswalk to access the bus stop and continue straight, the island is just very 1960s--plenty of room for improvement.

The other option works if you remove the right turn lane on Courtland and 1-2 lanes on Stirling (which I suspect--without looking at the traffic models--would be reasonable), this gives room for a cycleway on Stirling, but not on Courtland. I also added two floating bus stops because that's how it should be.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1RKZ2HA_EgK-B7nA3Idrr3c4ES_52S5Jv/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/15L_U8aY52fPlI8Oq5OMvsbs0LZgAx4A0/view?usp=sharing

@Jonny What tool did you use to build your designs?


RE: Trails - tomh009 - 04-11-2020

Dan, conceptually the island is really the right way to solve this. (The problem has its roots in the location of the rails for the Preston & Berlin Street Railway, which is in the rather distant past.) But how would they handle the traffic lights? A second (synchronized) set of lights at the trail crossings? No lights for the crossings? Something else?


RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 04-11-2020

(04-11-2020, 08:41 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Dan, conceptually the island is really the right way to solve this. (The problem has its roots in the location of the rails for the Preston & Berlin Street Railway, which is in the rather distant past.) But how would they handle the traffic lights? A second (synchronized) set of lights at the trail crossings? No lights for the crossings? Something else?

My preference would be for a priority crossing, but the most reasonable option is probably a syncronized light.

Of course, regional engineers will not permit either so close to the intersection (remember, they would if it was an intersecting roadway for cars).  If the engineers were feeling particularly generious, we might get a pedestrian island.


RE: Trails - jamincan - 04-12-2020

Genuinely, how important is Stirling actually? My impression is that it's a massively over-sized local road. It's a bit of a pipe-dream, but what if they instead had Stirling north of Courtland stay north of Schneider Creek and be discontinuous with Stirling south of Courtland? This would than allow the IHT to cross at an intersection and only have one road crossing there. The downside, of course, would be that Stirling becomes discontinuous and there would likely be two lit intersections in close proximity.


RE: Trails - panamaniac - 04-12-2020

(04-12-2020, 12:54 PM)jamincan Wrote: Genuinely, how important is Stirling actually? My impression is that it's a massively over-sized local road. It's a bit of a pipe-dream, but what if they instead had Stirling north of Courtland stay north of Schneider Creek and be discontinuous with Stirling south of Courtland? This would than allow the IHT to cross at an intersection and only have one road crossing there. The downside, of course, would be that Stirling becomes discontinuous and there would likely be two lit intersections in close proximity.

Wouldn't that generate a lot more traffic on Queen's Blvd/Queen St?  Queen's Blvd no problem, but between St Mary's and DTK ...


RE: Trails - tomh009 - 04-12-2020

(04-12-2020, 12:54 PM)jamincan Wrote: Genuinely, how important is Stirling actually? My impression is that it's a massively over-sized local road. It's a bit of a pipe-dream, but what if they instead had Stirling north of Courtland stay north of Schneider Creek and be discontinuous with Stirling south of Courtland? This would than allow the IHT to cross at an intersection and only have one road crossing there. The downside, of course, would be that Stirling becomes discontinuous and there would likely be two lit intersections in close proximity.

For sure it's not busy, but disconnecting Stirling would leave Madison as the only way to cross Schneider Creek between Ottawa and Queen. That's removing/relocating downtown access for a lot of people living in the Mill St area.

Downsizing would be much easier, but it doesn't solve this particular problem.

Could we chop off part of the Stirling Green island and move the whole intersection a bit further (Kitchener) W, toward Madison, and make it a single set of lights in each direction? Also dead-end the right-turn shortcut on the side of the island. It would require buying a bit of the plaza parking lot, and it would result in a fairly large (in terms of area) intersection but it would be quite functional, I think.


RE: Trails - clasher - 04-12-2020

(04-12-2020, 02:38 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Could we chop off part of the Stirling Green island and move the whole intersection a bit further (Kitchener) W, toward Madison, and make it a single set of lights in each direction? Also dead-end the right-turn shortcut on the side of the island. It would require buying a bit of the plaza parking lot, and it would result in a fairly large (in terms of area) intersection but it would be quite functional, I think.

I think this would be a good way to go about it.


RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 04-12-2020

(04-12-2020, 02:38 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(04-12-2020, 12:54 PM)jamincan Wrote: Genuinely, how important is Stirling actually? My impression is that it's a massively over-sized local road. It's a bit of a pipe-dream, but what if they instead had Stirling north of Courtland stay north of Schneider Creek and be discontinuous with Stirling south of Courtland? This would than allow the IHT to cross at an intersection and only have one road crossing there. The downside, of course, would be that Stirling becomes discontinuous and there would likely be two lit intersections in close proximity.

For sure it's not busy, but disconnecting Stirling would leave Madison as the only way to cross Schneider Creek between Ottawa and Queen. That's removing/relocating downtown access for a lot of people living in the Mill St area.

Downsizing would be much easier, but it doesn't solve this particular problem.

Could we chop off part of the Stirling Green island and  move the whole intersection a bit further (Kitchener) W, toward Madison, and make it a single set of lights in each direction? Also dead-end the right-turn shortcut on the side of the island. It would require buying a bit of the plaza parking lot, and it would result in a fairly large (in terms of area) intersection but it would be quite functional, I think.

So, I'm quite certain the road has little enough traffic to support reduction to 2-3 lanes, which absolutely does improve the crossing. I'm less sure if the traffic volumes would support your designs.

That being said, I'm very certain the city would not be in favour of it. They are just getting a taste for repurposing extra and unnecessary space for other purposes, and are just dipping the toes into the waters of closing roads entirely (Delta St.) I don't believe there would be any apetite for inconveniencing drivers to that degree for quite a while yet.

While I am in favour of limiting the convenience of driving, even I think that would be needlessly antagonistic to drivers, given that there are reasonable alternative that could/should be implemented. Nice in theory but I'm not going to be arguing for it.


RE: Trails - jamincan - 04-13-2020

I wish drivers actually understood that sometimes a road diet and protected cycling infrastructure can improve things for drivers too. I far rather know exactly where to expect to find cyclists rather than have to guess that they might be squeezed on the shoulder, on the sidewalk, or in my lane. Frederick between River and Bruce is 4 lanes, but they're pretty much useless and unnecessary. It would be far better as a driver to have protected infrastructure for cyclists and just two lanes with possibly a centre turn lane. You get a safer street, and traffic moves more quickly and smoothly. In effect we *can* have our cake and eat it too.


RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 04-13-2020

(04-13-2020, 08:06 AM)jamincan Wrote: I wish drivers actually understood that sometimes a road diet and protected cycling infrastructure can improve things for drivers too. I far rather know exactly where to expect to find cyclists rather than have to guess that they might be squeezed on the shoulder, on the sidewalk, or in my lane. Frederick between River and Bruce is 4 lanes, but they're pretty much useless and unnecessary. It would be far better as a driver to have protected infrastructure for cyclists and just two lanes with possibly a centre turn lane. You get a safer street, and traffic moves more quickly and smoothly. In effect we *can* have our cake and eat it too.

For many people cars are a core part of their identity, for others, they simply see it as a change, and they oppose all change in their lives, either way, it's an emotional response, not a rational one. Which is why you see people freaking out about traffic and demanding more parking at new developments, which is literally the opposite. This happened literally on Stirling and on Frederick.

I wish we had a better understanding how to deal with that response.

Frederick is another road that could be improved greatly with better designs. Sadly that one is under regional jurisdiction and getting them to do the right thing is....challenging.


RE: Trails - jwilliamson - 06-08-2020

Lights have been installed on the IHT all the way to the Waterloo border. I haven't ridden through at night so I don't know if they're working yet.


RE: Trails - goggolor - 06-09-2020

Cafe Pyrus Outpost (Roger St, along the Spur Line Trail) has opened what might be the region's first/only "bike through" window - you can roll up to the takeout window directly from the trail: https://www.instagram.com/p/CBOSuB7AAq6/


RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 06-09-2020

The IHT has a new crossing at West.

I am thoroughly unimpressed.

   

The curbs are a mess, they should not visually give priority to the driveway, which they do, the alignment is poor but that one is at least tricky.

   

The island is nearly completely flat, it might as well be paint, far worse than the one on union, the width is minimized only 2.4 meters, while the road lane widths are maximized, over 4.2 meters.

Yes, I am often unimpressed, but this is not complicated stuff, we should be getting it right. This shows a clear priority, and it isn't the major city wide trail...it's the residential side street...


RE: Trails - dtkvictim - 06-09-2020

Do you have any more photos, and is it incomplete still? I really can't tell what's going on there.