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+--- Thread: Walking in Waterloo Region (/showthread.php?tid=189)
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - MidTowner - 08-10-2016
From the CBC: City of Kitchener to spend $3M on snow storage facility on Battler Road
...which made me wonder, was there ever any more news on that study on municipal clearing of sidewalks?
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - kitborn - 08-10-2016
In St Augustine Beach, they have several areas to cross the road. These designated areas have red flags that people use to warn drivers that they are crossing. The flag is then deposited in a holder on the other side. Something like this would be a good idea for Victoria park in a few locations.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 08-10-2016
(08-10-2016, 11:23 AM)Markster Wrote: I personally would be against blocking through traffic through the park. It's just too useful a connection.
That said, I'd be entirely in favour of adding pedestrian-priority crossings of the road. One or two standard "Level 1" pedestrian crossings would be perfect. The addition of sidewalks should also help make it seem less like a "parkway".
Honestly, I think Pokemon GO has been one of the greatest things for traffic control in the park. There are countless people crossing Jubilee at the Boathouse now, and the cars seem to be going slower for it.
Define "too useful". I don't think it sees *that* much traffic. The detour to go up Joseph is about 500 meters farther, or approximately 45 seconds at 50 km/h, even including turns, lights and stops, it's probably only a minute or so. This amount of savings is worth having the highway through our park?
And again, you find it useful because it exists, but if it didn't exist, we wouldn't be arguing to build it because it would be *useful*. For example, it would be extremely useful to many people (many profs live in uptown) to have a road from uptown all the way directly to the university, pretty much the exact route the LRT is taking. It would cut a fair bit of time off the current alternative routes. It meets the same criteria of "useful", but I don't think anyone's arguing for it.
There are probably 4 locations or more that there should be crossings, but anyways, see below.
Quote:tomh009
While the road may or may not be necessary, it surely is not absurd. It provides the connectivity from Park to Courtland, which would otherwise need to detour through Victoria/Joseph/Queen or Victoria/West/Highland/Queen.
If the speeds are a problem (not my experience, but I'll admit that's only anecdotal) then putting a few speed humps on the through-the-park section would address that without having to dead-end or eliminate the road.
I don't necessarily think speed is the biggest problem, I mean, driver's basically ignore entirely the 30 km/h limit, but generally stay under 50. Maybe that's still too fast, but I think the real problem is that it is a park.
How much does this detract from our park, parents can't let their children play, lest they wander into the road, you can't go running for an errant frisbee or soccer ball without looking for traffic.
From a philosophical point of view, I don't think there should be traffic in a park. We have very few traffic free area's in this country, the fact that our crown jewel of a park isn't one of them, I mean, if we should start anywhere, it should be there, IMO.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - Markster - 08-10-2016
(08-10-2016, 12:45 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Define "too useful".As a person who lives in the neighbourhood, I use it every time I drive to any destination in Waterloo between Westmount and King.
It needs to be fixed, not removed.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 08-10-2016
(08-10-2016, 01:13 PM)Markster Wrote:(08-10-2016, 12:45 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: Define "too useful".As a person who lives in the neighbourhood, I use it every time I drive to any destination in Waterloo between Westmount and King.
It needs to be fixed, not removed.
I also live in the neighbourhood, and I also use it most times I drive. That doesn't mean that I can't objectively see that it does more harm than good. My personal benefit of saving a minute or two isn't worth having a road through the park, in my opinion. But you don't have to share that opinion. I'm just surprised. I guess I shouldn't be.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - Markster - 08-10-2016
And I hold this opinion as someone who frequently visits the park on foot! My biggest gripe is that it can be frustrating to cross, because they don't give pedestrians priority anywhere other than Jubilee/David.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - jamincan - 08-10-2016
How can it be both a highway through the park and also see so little traffic that scarcely anyone would be bothered by shutting it down?
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - tomh009 - 08-10-2016
I also live in the neighbourhood. I am mostly there on foot, and yet I see it as useful rather than harmful. There is plenty of space for children, football and frisbee without having to play right next to the road.
We can all have different opinions, but let's not automatically dismiss others' opinions as "absurd" or worse.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - MidTowner - 08-10-2016
It’s obviously not literally a highway, but it is too fast, I would guess in part because it doesn’t get all that much traffic. It’s signed as 30km/h, but I would wager that the vast majority of motorists are going much faster than that. They can because there’s not a lot in their way in terms of other vehicles.
It is a bit silly to have cars be able to drive straight through the park, especially as the park is not vast in size. This isn’t New York’s Central Park we’re talking about here- as danbrotherston point out, having to drive around it wouldn’t add very much time to very many people’s journeys.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - tomh009 - 08-10-2016
(08-10-2016, 12:45 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: The detour to go up Joseph is about 500 meters farther, or approximately 45 seconds at 50 km/h, even including turns, lights and stops, it's probably only a minute or so.
I checked on Google Maps (which has rather a lot of data), from Queen/Courtland to Park/Cherry.
1.1 km via Jubilee: 3 minutes
1.7 km via Joseph: 6 minutes
2.3 km via West: 6 minutes
And that's before we put the additional traffic onto Joseph and/or West.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - KevinL - 08-10-2016
What if we put in a pedestrian crossing with the *opposite* of a beg button? Have the default be a red light for traffic and a white light for pedestrians. When a car comes up to the light, a detector loop changes the pedestrian signal to a flashing red, then we go pedestrian-red vehicle-green.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 08-10-2016
(08-10-2016, 02:30 PM)jamincan Wrote: How can it be both a highway through the park and also see so little traffic that scarcely anyone would be bothered by shutting it down?
I never said anything like that, what I said was that the detour is not so substantial as to be a major inconvenience for those who would be detoured.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - MidTowner - 08-10-2016
(08-10-2016, 02:57 PM)KevinL Wrote: What if we put in a pedestrian crossing with the *opposite* of a beg button? Have the default be a red light for traffic and a white light for pedestrians. When a car comes up to the light, a detector loop changes the pedestrian signal to a flashing red, then we go pedestrian-red vehicle-green.
You just blew my mind.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - danbrotherston - 08-10-2016
(08-10-2016, 02:47 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(08-10-2016, 12:45 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: The detour to go up Joseph is about 500 meters farther, or approximately 45 seconds at 50 km/h, even including turns, lights and stops, it's probably only a minute or so.
I checked on Google Maps (which has rather a lot of data), from Queen/Courtland to Park/Cherry.
1.1 km via Jubilee: 3 minutes
1.7 km via Joseph: 6 minutes
2.3 km via West: 6 minutes
And that's before we put the additional traffic onto Joseph and/or West.
And that's before you tune lights and timing to favor traffic traveling the detour route.
And besides, I don't think a 3 minute detour is too excessive anyway, that's literally the worse case scenario where someone from Courtland is going to Park.
Also, the Jubilee time is optimistic highly optimistic, it takes me far more than that to go Jubilee Dr. when I follow the speed limit, and once you start putting pedestrian priority crossings, it will get longer anyway.
RE: Walking in Waterloo Region - tomh009 - 08-10-2016
Google's travel times are based on real data, and a lot of it. So if you feel they re being to optimistic or pessimistic on their routes, please do feel free to contact them and ask them to adjust their algorithms.