General Road and Highway Discussion

[ijmorlan]

Here's a blog post comparing how traffic signals are controlled in Toronto and in the Netherlands.

https://ontariotrafficman.wordpress.com/...ion-works/

It is truly amazing how bad our signals are. And I also mean locally within the region.

This is what happens when you only measure one metric, and a pointless one at that...basically, we measure LOS, which is how the signal operates at peak hour for cars only. And there is also only one playbook..."LOS < desired LOS, add lanes or convert to roundabout".

What’s weird is that they don’t even do a good job of optimizing LOS for cars. Look at all those 4-lane roads with no turn lanes (Union, Belmont, Westmount, …). They build lanes that aren’t needed, but omit the turn lanes that are required to get the benefit of the additional lanes (compared with a 2-lane road).

One comment I have about LOS: I think the issue is not with the metric itself, but with how it is used. The idea of grading how well motor traffic is served at an intersection is fine; what’s not fine is the idea that reducing from LOS A to LOS B because of an added bike lane is some sort of disaster that must be averted.

[danbrotherston]

It is truly amazing how bad our signals are. And I also mean locally within the region.

This is what happens when you only measure one metric, and a pointless one at that...basically, we measure LOS, which is how the signal operates at peak hour for cars only. And there is also only one playbook..."LOS < desired LOS, add lanes or convert to roundabout".

What’s weird is that they don’t even do a good job of optimizing LOS for cars. Look at all those 4-lane roads with no turn lanes (Union, Belmont, Westmount, …). They build lanes that aren’t needed, but omit the turn lanes that are required to get the benefit of the additional lanes (compared with a 2-lane road).

One comment I have about LOS: I think the issue is not with the metric itself, but with how it is used. The idea of grading how well motor traffic is served at an intersection is fine; what’s not fine is the idea that reducing from LOS A to LOS B because of an added bike lane is some sort of disaster that must be averted.

Those roads were built in the 60s and 70s, before our "modern" traffic engineering. I think more lanes do improve LOS, at least in models, but turn lanes improve LOS at a lower cost while also improving safety.

As for LOS itself, not sure what you're suggesting? For one, region actually considers LOS B to be acceptable, but when you say how it is used, do you mean that it rules all? There's an old saying (well, I don't know how old it is) but its something along the lines of you build what you measure. This is highly relevant today (and in my technical job) and it's scary because our level of data collection has allowed hyper optimizations of many things in our society. But suffices to say, if you measure LOS, you will optimize for LOS.

My issues with LOS are basically the following:

1. It ONLY measures cars, not people. I think we all understand this problem.
   
2. It measures peak time congestion, and ignores all other times, which are also important and carry the majority of daily traffic.
   
3. It ignores safety, pollution, noise, induced demand, etc.
   
4. Most serious of all, it measures delay at peak time, and ignores entirely total travel time. Some of the cities with lowest LOS have the highest commute times. It is fundamentally the wrong thing to measure.
   

I suspect the reason we measure and optimize LOS is that it is easy. The issues I raise are much harder to measure for.

[ijmorlan]

Those roads were built in the 60s and 70s, before our "modern" traffic engineering. I think more lanes do improve LOS, at least in models, but turn lanes improve LOS at a lower cost while also improving safety.

More lanes on a long segment of roadway obviously increase capacity (almost by definition); but 2 4-lane roads meeting at an intersection need a much larger intersection (turn lanes) if the intersection is to have capacity matching the roads. There is absolutely no point in building roads to carry 5000 vehicles per hour if the intersections where they meet can only handle 2000 vehicles per hour — the extra 3000 vehicles per hour capacity is wasted. Just like you can’t get a more powerful shower by running 2” pipes in your bathroom water supply.

An “engineer” who thinks that adding lanes to a road will make it carry more traffic but doesn’t understand that intersections are different is an insult to the profession. In other engineering disciplines, they are the ones who would blow up steam engines or build bridges that fall down.

As for LOS itself, not sure what you're suggesting? For one, region actually considers LOS B to be acceptable, but when you say how it is used, do you mean that it rules all? There's an old saying (well, I don't know how old it is) but its something along the lines of you build what you measure. This is highly relevant today (and in my technical job) and it's scary because our level of data collection has allowed hyper optimizations of many things in our society. But suffices to say, if you measure LOS, you will optimize for LOS.

My issues with LOS are basically the following:

1. It ONLY measures cars, not people. I think we all understand this problem.
   
2. It measures peak time congestion, and ignores all other times, which are also important and carry the majority of daily traffic.
   
3. It ignores safety, pollution, noise, induced demand, etc.
   
4. Most serious of all, it measures delay at peak time, and ignores entirely total travel time. Some of the cities with lowest LOS have the highest commute times. It is fundamentally the wrong thing to measure.
   

I suspect the reason we measure and optimize LOS is that it is easy. The issues I raise are much harder to measure for.

Yes, I basically mean the attitude that it rules all. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to use LOS as a way of assessing the state of traffic flow, as long as one understands that all it does is provide a convenient way of characterizing different levels of traffic flow.

So for example, I hope that we would all agree that a project that helps 5 cyclists a day but (somehow; this is an extreme example that probably can’t actually happen) reduces a major road from LOS A to LOS F all the time is no good. But on the other hand, if we can fix a major gap in the cycling network and reduce a neighbourhood collector from LOS A to LOS B at rush hour, that is equally clearly totally fine and it would be crazy to object based on the impact on motor vehicle traffic.

I don’t understand LOS to measure only peak time. Rather, one might say that the road is LOS A most of the time and LOS B during rush hour, or whatever. Of course if we only look at peak time then the analysis is no good in the first place, no matter what heuristics we use to express the findings.

Definitely agree that looking at a city and observing with approval that it’s all LOS A (or being concerned that it’s all LOS D) is a bogus way of evaluating things. Arguably, seeing LOS D all the time everywhere says the road network isn’t overbuilt!

My thinking comes out of the sense I got from some articles (can’t even remember when I read them) that seemed to be suggesting that if planners would just switch from LOS to some other way of measuring traffic that they would suddenly start building bike paths all over the place, and I don’t think that’s true at all. If a planner is car centric, they can perfectly well be car centric with or without LOS. I would rather concentrate on what are our goals, then look at the best ways of evaluating the transportation grid in order to move towards reaching the goals.

[danbrotherston]

Those roads were built in the 60s and 70s, before our "modern" traffic engineering. I think more lanes do improve LOS, at least in models, but turn lanes improve LOS at a lower cost while also improving safety.

More lanes on a long segment of roadway obviously increase capacity (almost by definition); but 2 4-lane roads meeting at an intersection need a much larger intersection (turn lanes) if the intersection is to have capacity matching the roads. There is absolutely no point in building roads to carry 5000 vehicles per hour if the intersections where they meet can only handle 2000 vehicles per hour — the extra 3000 vehicles per hour capacity is wasted. Just like you can’t get a more powerful shower by running 2” pipes in your bathroom water supply.

An “engineer” who thinks that adding lanes to a road will make it carry more traffic but doesn’t understand that intersections are different is an insult to the profession. In other engineering disciplines, they are the ones who would blow up steam engines or build bridges that fall down.

As for LOS itself, not sure what you're suggesting? For one, region actually considers LOS B to be acceptable, but when you say how it is used, do you mean that it rules all? There's an old saying (well, I don't know how old it is) but its something along the lines of you build what you measure. This is highly relevant today (and in my technical job) and it's scary because our level of data collection has allowed hyper optimizations of many things in our society. But suffices to say, if you measure LOS, you will optimize for LOS.

My issues with LOS are basically the following:

1. It ONLY measures cars, not people. I think we all understand this problem.
   
2. It measures peak time congestion, and ignores all other times, which are also important and carry the majority of daily traffic.
   
3. It ignores safety, pollution, noise, induced demand, etc.
   
4. Most serious of all, it measures delay at peak time, and ignores entirely total travel time. Some of the cities with lowest LOS have the highest commute times. It is fundamentally the wrong thing to measure.
   

I suspect the reason we measure and optimize LOS is that it is easy. The issues I raise are much harder to measure for.

Yes, I basically mean the attitude that it rules all. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to use LOS as a way of assessing the state of traffic flow, as long as one understands that all it does is provide a convenient way of characterizing different levels of traffic flow.

So for example, I hope that we would all agree that a project that helps 5 cyclists a day but (somehow; this is an extreme example that probably can’t actually happen) reduces a major road from LOS A to LOS F all the time is no good. But on the other hand, if we can fix a major gap in the cycling network and reduce a neighbourhood collector from LOS A to LOS B at rush hour, that is equally clearly totally fine and it would be crazy to object based on the impact on motor vehicle traffic.

I don’t understand LOS to measure only peak time. Rather, one might say that the road is LOS A most of the time and LOS B during rush hour, or whatever. Of course if we only look at peak time then the analysis is no good in the first place, no matter what heuristics we use to express the findings.

Definitely agree that looking at a city and observing with approval that it’s all LOS A (or being concerned that it’s all LOS D) is a bogus way of evaluating things. Arguably, seeing LOS D all the time everywhere says the road network isn’t overbuilt!

My thinking comes out of the sense I got from some articles (can’t even remember when I read them) that seemed to be suggesting that if planners would just switch from LOS to some other way of measuring traffic that they would suddenly start building bike paths all over the place, and I don’t think that’s true at all. If a planner is car centric, they can perfectly well be car centric with or without LOS. I would rather concentrate on what are our goals, then look at the best ways of evaluating the transportation grid in order to move towards reaching the goals.

I mean, I take a far stronger stand against LOS. I agree that it doesn't automatically fix everything, but I think you'd be surprised the degree to which what you measure does affect what you do.

Basically, I'd argue measuring average travel is the metric we should be optimizing for (after safety and equity for all users is achieved), then you're measuring direct value for people. LOS just measures saving a few people a few minutes every day, while everyone else usually has a worse experience. Again, regions with low LOS often have high travel time. Ultimately travel times is what we should care about.

[dtkvictim]

Vision Zero survey: https://www.engagewr.ca/vision-zero

[bgb_ca]

The new crossing lights are installed but not active yet at the spur line trail/regina crossing

[KevinL]

The rebuild of Ottawa Street from Imperial to Mill is finally fully complete with the Hoffman-Mill section fully open, and the entire length fully paved. It has the concrete 'separated' (just by roll curbs) bike lanes along the full length.

   

Some front lawns still need work.

   

The worst bit of those bike lanes happens here as the eastbound lane nears the Mill intersection - it's merged into the sidewalk! That continues at MUT width for a little bit, but nothing has been rebuilt at the tracks so it becomes standard sidewalk width from there. Oof.

   

[ijmorlan]

The worst bit of those bike lanes happens here as the eastbound lane nears the Mill intersection - it's merged into the sidewalk! That continues at MUT width for a little bit, but nothing has been rebuilt at the tracks so it becomes standard sidewalk width from there. Oof.

I hadn’t noticed that.

My impression is that while I still don’t understand why they insist on putting the barrier curb between the bicycle lane and the boulevard, rather than between the motor vehicle lanes and the bicycle lane, I think even this very flat concrete bicycle lane is a signfiicant step up from just paint. The visual appearance is that the road is just the 4 motor vehicle lanes and while I can’t speak for other motorists I think they are less likely to swerve into these bicycle lanes than paint-only lanes.

Still doesn’t explain the fixation on roll curbs, but I guess we’ll see what happens as collision statistics accumulate over the next few years.

[creative]

I was looking at this yesterday. The roll curb contains the storm water drains which drain water off of both the roadway and bike lane with no drainage grates within the bike lane.

[dtkvictim]

Is there any signage up indicating these are bike lanes? There should especially be some where it merges with the sidewalk...

Also curious, how do they terminate on the south end? I assume the intended connections here are the IHT trail to the North and the Homer Watson MUT to the south?

It's good to finally have sidewalks immediately next to the Ion station.

[panamaniac]

It took almost 70 years for those houses to get a sidewalk. Better late than never, I guess.

[ac3r]

I still don’t understand why they insist on putting the barrier curb between the bicycle lane and the boulevard, rather than between the motor vehicle lanes and the bicycle lane

My first guess was snow plowing, because this would allow snowplows to drop the side plowing blade down, but it may be for the stormdrains. I don't know if they plow them in the winter.

[KevinL]

Also curious, how do they terminate on the south end? I assume the intended connections here are the IHT trail to the North and the Homer Watson MUT to the south?

At the Imperial/Kehl intersections they change to an asphalt MUT, which continues past Homer Watson.

[dtkvictim]

Also curious, how do they terminate on the south end? I assume the intended connections here are the IHT trail to the North and the Homer Watson MUT to the south?

At the Imperial/Kehl intersections they change to an asphalt MUT, which continues past Homer Watson.

Thanks, I just looked at the GIS cycling map, I understand now. I didn't realize the MUT continued along Ottawa. I've only gone to that area once or twice since the roundabouts went in and vowed never to go back outside of a car...

I've also asked this question before about the MUT along Weber (from Water to the Spur Line) but didn't get a definitive answer: Are cyclists expected to dismount when crossing intersections and roundabouts on a MUT? I don't know if this spot even fits the criteria since it's slightly different than Ottawa St, but I was a passenger in a vehicle going through the roundabout at Ira Needles and Erb when a cyclist rode through the path in my attached picture below. The driver gave a comment along the lines of "I should've hit him for not dismounting", but I don't know if the cyclist was even wrong because it's unclear to both drivers and cyclists what is expected. Does the cyclist dismount for the Green and Blue sections? Just the Blue section? None at all?

[Acitta]

At the Imperial/Kehl intersections they change to an asphalt MUT, which continues past Homer Watson.

Thanks, I just looked at the GIS cycling map, I understand now. I didn't realize the MUT continued along Ottawa. I've only gone to that area once or twice since the roundabouts went in and vowed never to go back outside of a car...

I've also asked this question before about the MUT along Weber (from Water to the Spur Line) but didn't get a definitive answer: Are cyclists expected to dismount when crossing intersections and roundabouts on a MUT? I don't know if this spot even fits the criteria since it's slightly different than Ottawa St, but I was a passenger in a vehicle going through the roundabout at Ira Needles and Erb when a cyclist rode through the path in my attached picture below. The driver gave a comment along the lines of "I should've hit him for not dismounting", but I don't know if the cyclist was even wrong because it's unclear to both drivers and cyclists what is expected. Does the cyclist dismount for the Green and Blue sections? Just the Blue section? None at all?

Well as a cyclist, I find it absurd to expect a cyclist riding on a shared pathway to have to dismount to cross a road to get to another part of the same shared pathway. Anyhow, at roundabouts there is are signs at the crosswalks saying stop for pedestrians but with no mention of cyclists. In my experience, it is a crapshoot whether motorists stop for cyclists or not. Anyhow, I think that I would prefer stop lights and a beg button to risking my life on whether a motorist feels like stopping or not. I wouldn't feel any safer dismounting and walking.