(07-12-2022, 10:23 AM)neonjoe Wrote:

(07-12-2022, 09:17 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: "Planning exercise"....

You mean land use planning? The thing is, that's not how it's planned. At least at a regional level--I don't think the cities do any better. The region's transportation plan was developed in isolation. They took what they believed would be the development pattern, and used that as gospel. Engineers were very explicit, the scope of work did not include asking about the land use plan. Which is insane, because now we are developing a regional plan that...god willing...will not align with the transportation plan that they are implementing.

The Ira Needles incident was...unfortunate. I think an overreaction, or rather, reaction to complaints. They widened a road without widening the intersections. This does not increase the road capacity, all it does is permit impatient drivers to recklessly filter around slower drivers. The road was built as four lanes, but was only paved 2 wide to save money. That's why widening it was so easy. They claim development happened faster than expected but realistically I think the novelty of the roundabouts, the unusual traffic patterns they general (slow down at every intersection) was foreign to people, they perceived it as "excessive congestion" and complained to council, who then demanded that staff "fix" the non-problem, which they did by spending money widening pavements for no value, and then were angry and bitter about it after that.

I have no doubt that this kind of thing is what leads them to have a "preference" for four lanes, because unlike building unsafe, deadly infrastructure which kills people, the environment, and our city, this kind of apparent "blunder" is the thing that makes heads roll in the city.

You're not wrong. I do believe though that this is another one of the cases where having separate tiers of government causes more miscommunication where the planning doesn't match the transportation etc. Normally I would say the region does a slightly better job building more realistic roads and widening when the 'demand' comes. A road that come to mind include Fisher Hallman between Ottawa and Bleams, it opened in 2000 as a two lane road and was only widened in 2016. On the other hand the city rebuilt Huron Road with four lanes during the same era and it still never seems busy.

(07-12-2022, 05:32 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:

(07-11-2022, 05:06 PM)Bytor Wrote: I understand the differentiation that you are trying to make, but the source is still the same—adherence to manuals and standards that are out of date, through either being required to adhere by the employer or by pencil pushers unable to think independently. Whether that is "An AADT of 20,000 requires 4 lanes" (overbuilt) or "a residential road needs to be 50k/h and thus 13m from curb to curb with 2x3.5m travel lanes and 2x3m parking lanes" (over-engineered), the cause is the same.

But this simply isn't true.

There are no manuals no standards at the region, at the province, at a national level that require a road like Highland Rd. to have four lanes. This was fully acknowledged by regional staff. They said they prefer four lanes without any justification beyond a preference for four lane roads.

(07-12-2022, 05:50 PM)Bytor Wrote:

(07-12-2022, 05:32 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: But this simply isn't true.

There are no manuals no standards at the region, at the province, at a national level that require a road like Highland Rd. to have four lanes. This was fully acknowledged by regional staff. They said they prefer four lanes without any justification beyond a preference for four lane roads.

Really? When did they say that there are no standards in the Region? Citation, please.

(07-13-2022, 01:32 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: I asked in that meeting why we were building 4 lanes when it wasn't necessary and I was told that we were ATAC and we shouldn't be questioning car infra....which is ridiculous because cars are the main obstacle to AT. It was probably the beginning of the end of my tenure on ATAC.

(07-19-2022, 09:26 AM)neonjoe Wrote: Looks like a cement truck has hit an iON train in front of GRH causing heavy damage and knocking it off its tracks.
https://kitchener.citynews.ca/police-beat/police-investigating-crash-between-cement-truck-and-lrt-5597622?fbclid=IwAR2F34Mf9nkI25Y-PsH6Qs0OG3n4z_EP-dQeEcAKoI8hZfVI21jv_pNK4Bc

Edit: Pic on reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/kitchener/comments/w2r9ca/whose_keeping_tally/

(07-19-2022, 10:15 AM)bravado Wrote: I wonder if our leaders ever make the link between crap like this and deciding to cheap out on the Ion infrastructure?

(07-19-2022, 10:15 AM)bravado Wrote: Send their insurance company the bill for the track inspection and every cost from extra buses for the day.

I wonder if our leaders ever make the link between crap like this and deciding to cheap out on the Ion infrastructure?

(07-19-2022, 12:55 PM)ac3r Wrote: Anyway, it must be something about this intersection. This is like the 3rd or 4th crash at the same location. I can see the entire LRT being down for a day or so while they inspect the tracks...when a train derails, there is a lot of investigating to do. I imagine the repairs on the LRV itself will take a while and cost a lot too.

(07-19-2022, 09:55 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: This is the first professional driver to hit an LRV right?

I can't tell if that's good or bad...certainly you'd expect it to happen less frequently, but do professional drivers make up >1% of the drivers in the city?

(07-19-2022, 03:11 PM)dtkvictim Wrote:

(07-19-2022, 09:55 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: This is the first professional driver to hit an LRV right?

I can't tell if that's good or bad...certainly you'd expect it to happen less frequently, but do professional drivers make up >1% of the drivers in the city?

"Professional". At least from the Toronto news I read, cement trucks and dump trucks seem to make up a disproportionate number of pedestrian and cyclist fatalities and injuries. Maybe it's just a reporting bias (I don't know the statistics), but even if there were causing accidents in line with population it would still be pretty damning of the licensing requirements and the profession.

(07-19-2022, 03:04 PM)plam Wrote:

(07-19-2022, 12:55 PM)ac3r Wrote: Anyway, it must be something about this intersection. This is like the 3rd or 4th crash at the same location. I can see the entire LRT being down for a day or so while they inspect the tracks...when a train derails, there is a lot of investigating to do. I imagine the repairs on the LRV itself will take a while and cost a lot too.

Dunno if it's running in Kitchener but I definitely saw a train this afternoon at the University of Waterloo.