Road design, transportation and walkability

[danbrotherston]

No, that’s BS. We’re talking about public infrastructure that we all have to live with. We’re entitled to understand the decision process that goes into designing it. Also, there is no way that whatever proprietary model (or whatever) they’ve built is enough better than what everybody else is doing that it’s worth giving up transparency for access to the model.

Yeah, I'm not so sure of that.  It's a nice thought, but usually contacts are between two parties, third parties/subcontractors/consultants all covered under a blanket clause in a NDA/CDA and if you're lucky some of it might show up on the public record after the fact (once the tender has been awarded).  Sooo, not sure what part of the design/decision process the general pulbic would be privy to?  Maybe I missed something, like an variance application, that the people in the area would have been invited to attend? 

No disrespect, just trying to understand where the design transparency is warranted in this case

Just because it is a contract doesn't mean the terms of the contract MUST involve secrecy. These models were used to plan and justify huge investments in widening roads in our region, I as a citizen who must live with these decisions, AND as a resident of the city who must PAY for them, I should be entitled to know on what basis those decisions were made.

I can go to council and say "I don't think there's justification for widening trussler, for x and y reasons" and staff reply to council "trust us, we know there is justification, but we can't tell the public what it is" that is frankly insulting, yet council generally just does what they say.

Like I said, I think council *could* get access to the data, but they cannot share it, which means they can't really have it independently verified. But I don't think they bother, because most of council just seems to trust staff, which, is fair, it's what they pay them for, but I do not, and as a citizen I should have the right to look at what staff does an verify it for myself.

Side note, how about the Victoria MUT (I heard it was going from from Bruce St. towards Breslau)

I'm not sure what you are saying about this. This project is generally good, to say Victoria is pedestrian and cyclist unfriendly situation is...well, it's not quite as bad as trying walk through no mans land, but...I'm having trouble finding a comparison less than that, which is still explains strongly enough how bad it is. I suspect if you regularly walked that street, you'd have a high chance of being killed...not 100%, but say 2-3% over a few month period.

The fact is has been left like this, well that's absurd, I have avoided businesses because they were located there.

So yeah, trails are good. But I think it highlights how broken regional staff's policies are, and how inflexible they are. I think the proposed paths are actually not that safe, because they have many driveways, now, staff will tell you the driveway density is below what they consider the bar for safety (based on provincial standards), like, they wouldn't build a MUT along a road with houses because there are too many driveways, but here there are fewer so it's okay.

Of course, it only takes a few seconds of thinking to realize this is amazingly stupid. What matters is the number of turning vehicles and the speed of the conflicts that induces. A road with houses has only a few vehicles turn into each house per day, and they generally turn slowly because driveways are short and the turns are sharp. On Victoria, you have commercial driveways that could carry 100s of cars per day, turning in and out of massive driveways with turning radii in the 100s of meters allowing turns to happen at above 50 km/h on a very busy road with high speed traffic and high pressure maneuvers. It's RIPE for danger, but when asked about this staff parrot "oh, it's below the number of driveways for a MUT", when they have literally refused to build one on a road with houses for that reason.

Like I said, I have very little trust in staff's statements for this type of reason, this is hardly the only example, but it's the one you mentioned.

To be clear, I support the new MUTs, only because the current situation is well, lets of with HELL, but the new plan only demonstrates staffs incompetence, not good planning.

To be honest, ATAC asked them for enhanced visual identification of the crossings, they refused, they are implementing a standard MUT...