Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

[crs1026]

Signs are generally useless. Speed limit signs are useless. In fact, with Vision Zero, they do away with signs and replaced them with raised crosswalks, raised intersections, narrowing traffic lanes (adding segregated cycling lanes), narrowing corners (using truck aprons for the long truck and trailers), chicanes and lane shifts, street parking, roundabouts instead of signalled intersections, etc.

Raised sidewalks at intersections (and mid-way along any sustained straight stretch, since a significant proportion of pedestrian injuries/fatalities occur mid-block) are a very inexpensive and easy to install proposition. We should be doing far more of these.

Ontario is also a very lax jurisdiction with lane and crossing paint. OK, we do have weather, but we could do a lot better, and again paint is pretty cheap.

- Paul

 

[tiffer24]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1456710333922521096

 

[afransen]

This all cost money that they don't feel justified to install at every school. That's the problem.

Maybe that is why the city needs 7.5M reasons to care.

We need to make this painful for cities, pour encourager les autres. We are still building shitty new suburbs with these same design mistakes.

 

[sche]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1456576996704669704

Link to the design guide, for those interested:

https://documents.ottawa.ca/sites/documents/files/protectedintersection_dg_en.pdf

Wow this is actually incredible. Never thought I would see almost Dutch design guidelines for protected intersections in a North American city this soon. Almost all the protection guidelines are almost spot on, and it even talks about fully protected signal phases! Hopefully this spreads to more places and is actually implemented fully.

Intersections have always been the biggest shortfall of North American bicycle infrastructure, even people comfortable with cycling in painted line bike lanes on medium speed (50km/h) roads are often not comfortable with the intersections because of how many conflicting traffic movements exist. Left turns are especially difficult since it is not clear what exactly you should do, and even if you know it's really not made clear by the infrastructure so drivers get confused. Even on otherwise protected cycle tracks, intersections are a huge problem where everything becomes unclear to road users.

I've always found it baffling that protection on cycle tracks in North America usually ends before the intersection and starts after. Intersections are where protection is most needed! On low speed streets without protected cycle tracks in the Netherlands, the opposite is true - if that street is intersecting a higher speed street, the protection begins right before the intersection and ends right after.

Now we just need coloured asphalt, better traffic signals with very short minimum phases that quickly react to actual road users, fully protected phases for all traffic movements on major roads, 45 degree angled curbs for cycle paths to make them less hazardous, grade separated crossings of high-speed roadways, and prioritizing different modes on completely different roads to effectively create separate road networks for each mode to improve efficiency and further reduce conflicts. Protected intersections are definitely a very good start though, and probably one of the most important aspects.

 

[W. K. Lis]

Wow this is actually incredible. Never thought I would see almost Dutch design guidelines for protected intersections in a North American city this soon. Almost all the protection guidelines are almost spot on, and it even talks about fully protected signal phases! Hopefully this spreads to more places and is actually implemented fully.

Intersections have always been the biggest shortfall of North American bicycle infrastructure, even people comfortable with cycling in painted line bike lanes on medium speed (50km/h) roads are often not comfortable with the intersections because of how many conflicting traffic movements exist. Left turns are especially difficult since it is not clear what exactly you should do, and even if you know it's really not made clear by the infrastructure so drivers get confused. Even on otherwise protected cycle tracks, intersections are a huge problem where everything becomes unclear to road users.

I've always found it baffling that protection on cycle tracks in North America usually ends before the intersection and starts after. Intersections are where protection is most needed! On low speed streets without protected cycle tracks in the Netherlands, the opposite is true - if that street is intersecting a higher speed street, the protection begins right before the intersection and ends right after.

Now we just need coloured asphalt, better traffic signals with very short minimum phases that quickly react to actual road users, fully protected phases for all traffic movements on major roads, 45 degree angled curbs for cycle paths to make them less hazardous, grade separated crossings of high-speed roadways, and prioritizing different modes on completely different roads to effectively create separate road networks for each mode to improve efficiency and further reduce conflicts. Protected intersections are definitely a very good start though, and probably one of the most important aspects.

With the current crop of councillors and bureaucrats, heaven forbid someone upsets the automobile gods...

From link.

 

[TossYourJacket]

I'm sure somehow council will invent some excuse about Ottawa is just SO DIFFERENT than Toronto that this is somehow not remotely applicable, and so we must have city staff study the report 16 separate times and then create a completely useless "made in Toronto" plan that misses all the key ideas instead.

 

[DSC]

I posted this in another thread (Mayor Tory's Toronto) but it may also fit here. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/05/us-free-parking-spaces-climate-cost

 

[W. K. Lis]

I posted this in another thread (Mayor Tory's Toronto) but it may also fit here. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/05/us-free-parking-spaces-climate-cost

...Many businesses will reflexively object to the conversion of free parking spaces in front of their shops, fearing a loss of customers. But often, business owners overestimate how much their customers are arriving by car, said Firth. A study in Seattle found that sales revenue increased 5.4% among downtown restaurants after paid parking hours were extended, Richards said, because more customers were coming and going. “Instinctively, everyone’s like if you got rid of free parking, our business will die. That is wrong,” he said....

 

[tiffer24]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1457471561854767112

 

[Admiral Beez]

Many of the suburban arterial roads have very w-i-d-e traffic lanes, designed for the "safety" of speeders doing 100+ km/h. Over the years, I have seen the suburban roads reduce their speed limits from 60 km/h down to 50 km/h (sometimes down to 40 km/h), but the traffic lanes remain at their old w-i-d-e widths. They signs may say "50 km/h" (or no signs, since the default urban speed limit is 50 km/h), but because the road design hasn't changed, the motorists continue to do 100+ km/h. The road design should be changed to FORCE motorists to slow down.

Many of the suburban arterial roads can be narrowed to include segregated cycling lanes and wider (or new) sidewalks, but the suburban councillors continue to veto that for their fiefdoms. See link.

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Dated Thu., July 18, 2019

Where does the Sidewalk End? In Etobicoke, of course​

Do these signs have any impact?

 

[Admiral Beez]

The driver was charged with careless driving causing death and making an unsafe turn. From what I understand the driver was turning left from Birchmount to go EB on Danforth and hit the girl while she was walking in the crosswalk

I thought of your post yesterday as I drove along Danforth WB at Birchmount and notice they've now installed an electronic speed warning sign. Speed on Danforth had no link to the student's death.

 

[nfitz]

Speed on Danforth had no link to the student's death.

I hadn't seen an article yet about the factors in the collision. Is there a link?

 

[crs1026]

Well. It does happen, I guess.

- Paul

 

[ShonTron]

It was the operator of a heavy electric scooter (with those useless pedals that allows it to be called a "bicycle" that hit the pedestrian, not a bicycle or a proper pedal assist e-bike.

 

[Admiral Beez]

It was the operator of a heavy electric scooter (with those useless pedals that allows it to be called a "bicycle" that hit the pedestrian, not a bicycle or a proper pedal assist e-bike.

Those things should have the exact same regulations as Mopeds. EV Vespas and the like hitting you at 30 kph is just as deadly as a gas powered version.

Ontario Moped Laws

www.moped2.org