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Times when staff didn't follow best practices or local policies for new infra
#1
What times are there where our Region's or Cities' planning staff did not follow best practices or local policies/guidelines for pedestrian safety and active transportation? Like if they didn't put a crosswalk in a place where it was recommended or recommended a type of crosswalk that was substandard, or left out bike lanes in a place where policy says new and reconstructed roads must have them. All examples welcome.
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#2
One example I can think of is when the LRT cut off pedestrians who lived around Traynor Ave/everything north of that from accessing Fairway Road without going all the way down to Courtland Ave or Wilson Ave. They eventually built that pedestrian crossing as people were crossing the tracks through a hole in the fence. I think Northfield Station also had some awkward issues which lead to people on the tracks, though I can't remember.
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#3
(10-21-2020, 12:51 PM)Bytor Wrote: What times are there where our Region's or Cities' planning staff did not follow best practices or local policies/guidelines for pedestrian safety and active transportation? Like if they didn't put a crosswalk in a place where it was recommended or recommended a type of crosswalk that was substandard, or left out bike lanes in a place where policy says new and reconstructed roads must have them. All examples welcome.

This could be a thread which rivals the ION thread.

There are a few classes of these things, each with a few examples:

1.  Staff straight up did not follow their own or provincial guidelines.

Staff install "cyclists dismount" signs despite that being explicitly counter-indicated by the MTOs traffic manuals.

Many new "refuge islands" are between slightly and extremely substandard.

Bike lanes that are too narrow, see Park St. to meet the standards.

Staff proposed removing a sidewalk on the Weber St. LRT overpass, and putting in a bike lane next to the vertical bridge abutment, this violates MTO guidelines for width on bridges...I brought this up in council, and the tranportation commissioner stated I was wrong. Later this design was withdrawn.

Staff proposed cutting down trees to widen Westmount Rd. for turn lanes but without bike lanes, even though bike lanes are required in all regional transportation plans. Transportation commissioner stated in council that this was a simple "shave and pave" no real work was being done, just a few turn lanes, and no trees are lost. Again, this design was withdrawn later.

2. Staff interpret guidelines in an aggressively car focused manner, and use it as an excuse for inadequate designs which do not meet best practices.

We have some "context sensitive design guidelines"...meaning, some places should be car focused some places should be less car focused. I have never in my life seen the "less car focused" context applied.

Lane widths are never below the "reccommended" for cars, for bicycles, they rarely exceed the "absolute minimum", staff have on several occasions now pitted bicycles against pedestrians by saying that the sidewalk or bike lane would have to be substandard (below "recommended") while refusing to even acknowledge that the vehicle lanes could be narrowed instead (again, narrowed only from "recommended" to "absolute minimum").

Turn radii very often exceed design guidelines, sometimes by orders of magnitude, virtually every intersection in the city, even ones with quiet residential streets (like John and Westmount) are designed with enormous turn radii.

There is a nomagraph for what cycling infra should be on a road given that roads average speed and AADT, rarely is this guideline followed by regional staff, or it is interpreted to give the least protection.

Staff statement that the Northfield bike lanes "meet current standards"...while technically true, no reasonable person can believe they are safe.

3. Design guidelines do not follow best practices.

Basically, our design guides (specifically the ones that the region writes) are garbage. They assume that every road must be able to handle a semi-truck as the design vehicle, and require unnecessarily wide lanes.

I mean, I can go on and on and on...and I do...but this message really must end.
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#4
They rebuilt Highland Rd. from Patricia to Westmount and didn't put in bike lanes even though there are bike lanes on Highland starting at Westmount. This bugs me because it is a major shopping destination.
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#5
(10-21-2020, 02:18 PM)Acitta Wrote: They rebuilt Highland Rd. from Patricia to Westmount and didn't put in bike lanes even though there are bike lanes on Highland starting at Westmount. This bugs me because it is a major shopping destination.

Yeah, this was an incredibly bad choice, but not unusual for the region.

The city also rebuilt Belmont Rd. with no consideration of reducing or repurposing the 4 lanes that only existed as a result of 1960's planning for it to be a continuation of Homer-Watson.  As a result the current pilot project is a retrofit.

These are more generally planning failures, than specific failure to follow design guidelines and best practices for active transportation.
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#6
(10-21-2020, 01:28 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: We have some "context sensitive design guidelines"...meaning, some places should be car focused some places should be less car focused. I have never in my life seen the "less car focused" context applied.

Lane widths are never below the "reccommended" for cars, for bicycles, they rarely exceed the "absolute minimum", staff have on several occasions now pitted bicycles against pedestrians by saying that the sidewalk or bike lane would have to be substandard (below "recommended") while refusing to even acknowledge that the vehicle lanes could be narrowed instead (again, narrowed only from "recommended" to "absolute minimum").

So true. In principle, I agree with the idea that different areas ought to be designed differently — the whole city is not the same. So where is it pedestrians’ and bicyclists’ turn to have really excellent infrastructure while motor vehicles get whatever is left over?

And so often by shaving the excess off a motor vehicle lane you can get enough extra space to make a huge difference in the quality of a pedestrian or bicycle lane. Which only goes to show just how stunningly inefficient motor vehicle infrastructure is for moving large volumes of traffic.

Quote:Staff statement that the Northfield bike lanes "meet current standards"...while technically true, no reasonable person can believe they are safe.

I take it as an indictment of our current standards, rather than validation of the as-built road.
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#7
(10-21-2020, 09:30 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(10-21-2020, 01:28 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: We have some "context sensitive design guidelines"...meaning, some places should be car focused some places should be less car focused. I have never in my life seen the "less car focused" context applied.

Lane widths are never below the "reccommended" for cars, for bicycles, they rarely exceed the "absolute minimum", staff have on several occasions now pitted bicycles against pedestrians by saying that the sidewalk or bike lane would have to be substandard (below "recommended") while refusing to even acknowledge that the vehicle lanes could be narrowed instead (again, narrowed only from "recommended" to "absolute minimum").

So true. In principle, I agree with the idea that different areas ought to be designed differently — the whole city is not the same. So where is it pedestrians’ and bicyclists’ turn to have really excellent infrastructure while motor vehicles get whatever is left over?

And so often by shaving the excess off a motor vehicle lane you can get enough extra space to make a huge difference in the quality of a pedestrian or bicycle lane. Which only goes to show just how stunningly inefficient motor vehicle infrastructure is for moving large volumes of traffic.

Quote:Staff statement that the Northfield bike lanes "meet current standards"...while technically true, no reasonable person can believe they are safe.

I take it as an indictment of our current standards, rather than validation of the as-built road.

I mean, yes and no, certainly the standards are crap...but no, the standards did not require the bike infra to look like that, staff chose to build it that way instead of exploring other viable options, and to claim to see nothing wrong with it is more about justification than about the standards.

But I fully agree the standards also are problematic.
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#8
(10-21-2020, 12:51 PM)Bytor Wrote: What times are there where our Region's or Cities' planning staff did not follow best practices or local policies/guidelines for pedestrian safety and active transportation? Like if they didn't put a crosswalk in a place where it was recommended or recommended a type of crosswalk that was substandard, or left out bike lanes in a place where policy says new and reconstructed roads must have them. All examples welcome.

I would like to see crosswalks lit up (as in flashing white light). They seem extinct, yet there was one on Queen St at one time close to Courtland. Others have mentioned, the lack of crossing in/at the hydro corridor where the LRT runs. I would also would have liked trails, like Iron Horse also lit up. The colour for our LED lights on streets are wrong, as is the brightness. I'd also suggest a slight delay when the walk sign goes up, and when the light changes green. A lot of the things I mention could be changed now, or fairly easily. It makes it safer for pedestrians and when they interact with drivers, they reduce liabilities (real) for the driver (by making poor outcomes less likely).
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#9
Some crosswalks (Jubilee, King St E at Cameron) do have flashing white lights. The IHT does have lights.

What's the issue with our LED street lights' colour or brightness?
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#10
(10-21-2020, 10:25 PM)jeffster Wrote:
(10-21-2020, 12:51 PM)Bytor Wrote: What times are there where our Region's or Cities' planning staff did not follow best practices or local policies/guidelines for pedestrian safety and active transportation? Like if they didn't put a crosswalk in a place where it was recommended or recommended a type of crosswalk that was substandard, or left out bike lanes in a place where policy says new and reconstructed roads must have them. All examples welcome.

I would like to see crosswalks lit up (as in flashing white light). They seem extinct, yet there was one on Queen St at one time close to Courtland. Others have mentioned, the lack of crossing in/at the hydro corridor where the LRT runs. I would also would have liked trails, like Iron Horse also lit up. The colour for our LED lights on streets are wrong, as is the brightness. I'd also suggest a slight delay when the walk sign goes up, and when the light changes green. A lot of the things I mention could be changed now, or fairly easily. It makes it safer for pedestrians and when they interact with drivers, they reduce liabilities (real) for the driver (by making poor outcomes less likely).

Care to define "wrong"?

But yes, lighting on trails is a big missing items, the IHT is apparently getting lighting for it's entire length, many sections already have it, this is only added in the past couple years, but we have many other trails. It's worth noting that many MUTs do not have proper lighting because the lighting was focused on the roadway leaving the MUT very dark, and especially bad place is the MUT along Weber were it diverts to cross the tracks just before the spur line trail.

As for "crosswalks lit up with flashing white light", I'm not sure what you mean by this, do you mean with the overhead yellow flashing lights that look like this?

https://www.bulwarklegal.ca/blog/wp-cont...12x320.png

If so, Ontario has some very strange pedestrian crossing laws...frankly, some of the worst in North America.  What you are describing is an invented in Ontario idea called a "pedestrian crossover"...it is legally different from a crosswalk, and drivers have different responsibilities (they're supposed to stop). Up until a few years ago, it needed to have EXACTLY that signage and lighting, the requirements are very specific. ONLY when that signage was present did it change from being a "crosswalk" where drivers may or may not have to stop depending on some complex and obscure chriteria that nobody knows, to a pedestrian crossover (PXO) where they always must stop.

I'm not entirely sure why, but these went way out of vogue many years ago, there are still a few in the region [1] but they are no longer popular. I know a few contributing reasons, they were expensive that lighting is not cheap, and in many places the cost wasn't warranted, and it was also in effective, drivers still don't stop most of the time.

[1] Maybe, the one I was thinking of was onCourtland near Kent, but it's apparently an IPS now
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.438715,-8...312!8i6656

The "new hotness" was intersection pedestrian signals (IPS) which are more or less a full traffic signal. It has the benefits that drivers fairly reliably stop, but the disadvantages of being even more expensive and having a very poor quality of service for peds and drivers (peds must wait much longer for a signal, drivers must wait till the signal is green even if the ped is long gone) they are generally just terrible, IMO, but sadly, seems the only way to get drivers to stop. There are a bunch of these around, like on University at the Laurel Trail.

In the past few years, Ontario approved for use a new form of PXO however, that provides more options for signage. It uses the rapidly flashing beacons, instead of the slow flash of the traditional PXO. It comes in many forms, from plain signs, to signs with lights, to the full overhead lighting system of the traditional PXO. Because it has more options for signage, engineers can use it in places where they couldn't afford and didn't feel the need to put a full overhead PXO, but still felt that they wanted to give peds the right of way. These are starting to appear in a few places, like in Victoria Park on Jubilee, and on West and Patricia at the trail to Sobeys, and on Park St. at the new trail to the transit terminal.  You'll also find these at every roundabout, technically, this is what the crossing at roundabouts are called, because if they were just crosswalks, they couldn't legally enforce the right of way of pedestrians since there is no traffic signal.

However, the "new hotness" comes with the old problems, drivers simply do not stop very often. Of course, in some cases this is simply due to the fact that Ontario laws are terrible, I think they had good intentions, but in most places drivers must always stop at crosswalks, in Ontario, only sometimes, and I bet 100% of drivers cannot tell you all the circumstances when you must stop and when you shouldn't, frankly, I don't think I could without looking it up, and I've looked it up before. So because there is no consistency in our law, there is no consistency in the behaviour, and that makes things dangerous.

Anyway, that rant aside, I guess part of my point is our traffic systems are broken at almost every level.

Oh, and for bonus points, the law doesn't allow PXOs and crossrides to be combined, therefore despite the addition of crossrides to the design guides there is no way to legally allow cyclists to cross at a PXO, because we couldn't risk Ontario doing something entirely right. This is the root cause of the (hey, something to add to the list) "Dutch inspired roundabout" giving pedestrians the right of way, but not cyclists...which is definitely not ever going to confuse any drivers ever.
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#11
(10-21-2020, 11:09 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: If so, Ontario has some very strange pedestrian crossing laws...frankly, some of the worst in North America.  What you are describing is an invented in Ontario idea called a "pedestrian crossover"...it is legally different from a crosswalk, and drivers have different responsibilities (they're supposed to stop). Up until a few years ago, it needed to have EXACTLY that signage and lighting, the requirements are very specific. ONLY when that signage was present did it change from being a "crosswalk" where drivers may or may not have to stop depending on some complex and obscure chriteria that nobody knows, to a pedestrian crossover (PXO) where they always must stop.

NZ gives Ontario a run for its money...

[Image: 20200621_112650_pedestrians_give_way_to_traffic.jpg]
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#12
(10-21-2020, 11:01 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Some crosswalks (Jubilee, King St E at Cameron) do have flashing white lights. The IHT does have lights.

What's the issue with our LED street lights' colour or brightness?

Is IHT lite all the way now? Last time it had little lighting.

I find with the LED street lights, it doesn't light up the area as well, and it's harder to see pedestrians. Remember that LED lights are narrow spectrum bulbs, which gives them the ability to cast more lumens per watt. However, if they're not bright enough, you really can't see anything.
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#13
(10-23-2020, 01:04 AM)jeffster Wrote:
(10-21-2020, 11:01 PM)tomh009 Wrote: Some crosswalks (Jubilee, King St E at Cameron) do have flashing white lights. The IHT does have lights.

What's the issue with our LED street lights' colour or brightness?

Is IHT lite all the way now? Last time it had little lighting.

I find with the LED street lights, it doesn't light up the area as well, and it's harder to see pedestrians. Remember that LED lights are narrow spectrum bulbs, which gives them the ability to cast more lumens per watt. However, if they're not bright enough, you really can't see anything.

Not all of it, the section through the park has lighting, to the north, I think they were working on it, but I haven't seen it in the dark in a while to know if it's on.  The section to the south as nothing yet AFAIK.

LEDs themselves of course emit a specific wavelength (blue) but in modern white LED lamps, the blue light is passed through a phosphor to adjust the spectrum to white, and the resulting light is very broad spectrum, far better than low pressure sodium lights (which we didn't use, but are common in some places) and certainly not worse than high pressure sodium lights (which we did use before).  They are a higher colour temperature which does affect one's perception of brightness.

However, the biggest impact is most likely the more advanced beam shaping possible with modern LED luminaires, specifically they are able to focus more of their light on the target area (the road), with less spread. This is good in some ways, there is less light spilling, and less lighting is required to light a street, however, it does mean that pedestrian areas are sometimes not lit as well, depending on how the lighting is actually positioned. This is definitely a problem, there is insufficient consideration given to lighting pedestrian areas by our engineers, and they usually got away with it before due to the substantial light spillage....no longer.
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#14
(10-23-2020, 01:35 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(10-23-2020, 01:04 AM)jeffster Wrote: Is IHT lite all the way now? Last time it had little lighting.

Not all of it, the section through the park has lighting, to the north, I think they were working on it, but I haven't seen it in the dark in a while to know if it's on.  The section to the south as nothing yet AFAIK.

The lights are installed all the way to the end of the trail at Ottawa St S (that was done when the trail was widened and repaved), and I thought they were turned on. I will need to check that again when I next get there under the cover of darkness.
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#15
(10-23-2020, 11:37 AM)tomh009 Wrote:
(10-23-2020, 01:35 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Not all of it, the section through the park has lighting, to the north, I think they were working on it, but I haven't seen it in the dark in a while to know if it's on.  The section to the south as nothing yet AFAIK.

The lights are installed all the way to the end of the trail at Ottawa St S (that was done when the trail was widened and repaved), and I thought they were turned on. I will need to check that again when I next get there under the cover of darkness.

My mistake, I had no idea they'd done the south section....that's great, so it's really just the short section in Waterloo that's missing.
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