08-01-2020, 08:27 PM
(08-01-2020, 07:32 PM)dtkvictim Wrote: The new West Ave crossing on the IHT is frustrating, although I never cycled through the old one for comparison. My main complaints
1) Since it's indirect, I see a large number of people bypassing it completely (and not just the usual variety with poor trail etiquette)
2) Crossing in either direction now removes your sight line for one direction of road traffic. If you are crossing towards Victoria, the West/Victoria intersection is to your back. If you are crossing away from Victoria it's slightly better, but your back in generally still away from West/Victoria. If you try and straighten out before crossing you end up blocking the path to opposing traffic. The narrowness of the Victoria side of the crossing is frustrating in general for negotiating with other trail users.
3) This crossing in particular I seem to have a lot of cars trying to yield to trail users, but since the island is tiny this is frustrating as I don't want to cross unless I can do it all in one shot.
I've found the yielding gaming frustrating in general as I've been cycling on the trails more. Do shark teeth have any legal bearing in Ontario? I've seen them used in a few places (Jubilee crossing, IHT/Glasgow), but I can't find anything Googling. Do they have a different name? Obviously I'd prefer active transportation have priority, but really I just want there to be less confusion...
And looking at street view, I just noticed a sign at the Victoria crossing saying to cross at the signalized intersection... Really?
Like all pavement markings in Ontario sharks teeth have no legal meaning. But staff will only use them when they reinforce existing crossing priority. Of course, I would bet that around 99.98% of drivers in Ontario don’t know what they mean. This isn’t helped by Ontario’s decision to use the same symbol meaning two opposite things.
You have my full sympathy on this crossing. I’m really frustrated by it because I asked repeatedly to discuss it at KCaTC and was rebuffed.