Victoria and Park | 25, 36, 38 fl | Proposed

[danbrotherston]

You did miss the affordable housing:

I can't see that LRT passengers from one group of buildings would overcrowd the sidewalks between Park and Victoria. But if you have the math that shows otherwise, please do share.

As for car traffic, if we assume 600 cars (90% of capacity) traveling in a three-hour peak period in the mornings and again in the afternoons, and half heading to Waterloo and the other half to Kitchener (via Park & Victoria), that's about an additional car and a half per minute at the intersection. I don't think it will be overwhelmed by that.

Where did you find the shadow impact analysis?

Thanks for finding the information on affordable housing. It's not great, but it's better than others are offering.

I don't have math on the sidewalk pedestrian capacity of the sidewalks (it may be buried in the traffic study, but I did not read it in detail as most of it was over my head).  I was more thinking of the overall pedestrian experience.  If every development between Park and Victoria (eg the main path of travel to the LRT station) assumes that there is enough space for their pedestrians without considering the other development that has occurred or will occur along that same sidewalk, then we could end up with some tight sidewalk spaces.  For instance, in this time of Covid, we are being encouraged to give fellow pedestrians space when we pass each other.  If two pedestrians meet (or for that matter, two groups of pedestrians that may include animals, baby strollers, wheelchairs etc), how do they dance around each other?  Most of the Region is at a point where there is flexibility in the built environment due to a lack of buildings right up to the sidewalk.  If there will be a need for more pedestrian space, now is the time to reserve it.  In the case of this development, it appears that there is some provision for more street-level pedestrian space rather than a wall right at the edge of the sidewalk.

I don't think anyone anywhere in the region has a concept of measuring pedestrian capacity of sidewalks or studying volumes on sidewalks. It just isn't a concept we have.

Many sidewalks in the region are extremely congested (University Ave. is the worst I've experienced) but if you asked our regional transport engineers whether they know about it, they'd give you a confused look. The concept of capacity isn't even applied to sidewalks.

They have a standard that says 1.8m wide (and they'll narrow to 1.5m or put utilities in the sidewalk, if they cannot fit their "preferred" and unnecessarily wide 3.65m vehicle lanes). They don't know, and don't measure, or estimate how many people use a sidewalk or how many ped trips will be generated from any development.

They might occasionally measure how many people cross a road, but usually only to justify why they don't want to put in a crossing.