Waterloo Region Connected
General Road and Highway Discussion - Printable Version

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RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - nms - 11-13-2017

I read somewhere that a portion of Highway 401 will be closed in Waterloo Region from Nov 17 to Nov 19 (or thereabouts) to allow for bridge installation/replacement. However, I can't find the notice online.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - DHLawrence - 11-13-2017

Could it be in Milton? I know the GO bus loop is going to be closed that weekend. I think all Waterloo Region overpasses and bridges have been replaced or expanded.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - p2ee - 11-13-2017

(11-13-2017, 02:28 PM)nms Wrote: I read somewhere that a portion of Highway 401 will be closed in Waterloo Region from Nov 17 to Nov 19 (or thereabouts) to allow for bridge installation/replacement.  However, I can't find the notice online.

It's happening in Milton at RR25, for 18 hours, on November 18 and 19th. Here are more details (in the Traffic Impact box):

http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/traveller/trip/construction_reports-central.shtml#Contract2014-2009


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - jwilliamson - 11-13-2017

There are leading pedestrian intervals on Frederick at Otto and Lancaster.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - Pheidippides - 11-14-2017

I haven't finished watching the planning and works meeting yet, but so far I am not impressed.

First of all the chart comparing the rate of fatal collisions between Waterloo Region and Sweden (also found on page 111) does not seem like a fair comparison.
   

For one, it seems like they are comparing the number of collisions resulting in a fatality it Waterloo Region per 100,000 vs. the number of fatalities resulting from collisions in Sweden (severe collisions can often result in more than one fatality per collision which would result in a higher rate). I can confirm the regional values, but not the Swedish ones because there is no data source cited for the Swedish data.

Plus, something doesn't feel right about the fact that they are looking at fatalities on the regional road network (~700km), but using the entire regional population as the denominator.

Then there was the interpretation of this chart as a "trend line moving down." I see fluctuations around the average:
   

Some of the quotes in the staff presentation are pretty infuriating too:
“…given the complexities of intersections and traffic signals turning motorists often don’t see because of the complexities of turning they don’t see pedestrians crossing in crosswalks...“ - so simplify the design or give a protective phase

“…pedestrians they are not running out on to the road when they are not supposed to be…” - so make those mistakes more forgiving when that does happen by lowering speed limits/narrowing streets

“…cyclists are riding through crosswalks and that might be contributing factor to those collisions…” - find out why they riding on sidewalk and fix that

“…the region is really in a nutshell operating quite well in terms of the number of fatal collisions that are occurring on its roads…” - so anything above zero is ok then?

I just got to the councillors' comments and questions in the recording and had to turn it off because I got too upset by the first set of comments and questions that asked why pedestrians can't be targeted with education to not wear all dark clothing and why more signage couldn't be added to help motorist look out for pedestrians.

No mentions of lower speed limits or sharper turning radius anywhere.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - timc - 11-15-2017

"Complexities of turning"? I don't believe it at all. People are impatient and distracted. They drive too fast and don't take the time to look out for others. I don't even know if we can redesign roads to fix the problem; it's more like we need to redesign modern society.

The rest of it just sounds like victim blaming. Angry


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - plam - 11-15-2017

(11-15-2017, 11:04 AM)timc Wrote: "Complexities of turning"? I don't believe it at all. People are impatient and distracted. They drive too fast and don't take the time to look out for others. I don't even know if we can redesign roads to fix the problem; it's more like we need to redesign modern society.

The rest of it just sounds like victim blaming.  Angry

When you drive on Bridgeport or Erb, you feel like you can drive faster than you can drive on, say, Moore. Street design certainly affects driver behaviour.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - MidTowner - 11-15-2017

It certainly does. And if motorists are finding the turns here too complex, the streets need to be redesigned to slow them down so they have time to take it all in. There should be no excuses for not seeing someone crossing in a sidewalk.

I wonder how many fatalities have been caused by people "running out on to the road"?


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - NotStan - 11-15-2017

(11-14-2017, 11:52 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: I haven't finished watching the planning and works meeting yet, but so far I am not impressed.

First of all the chart comparing the rate of fatal collisions between Waterloo Region and Sweden (also found on page 111) does not seem like a fair comparison.


For one, it seems like they are comparing the number of collisions resulting in a fatality it Waterloo Region per 100,000 vs. the number of fatalities resulting from collisions in Sweden (severe collisions can often result in more than one fatality per collision which would result in a higher rate). I can confirm the regional values, but not the Swedish ones because there is no data source cited for the Swedish data.

Plus, something doesn't feel right about the fact that they are looking at fatalities on the regional road network (~700km), but using the entire regional population as the denominator.

Then there was the interpretation of this chart as a "trend line moving down." I see fluctuations around the average:


Some of the quotes in the staff presentation are pretty infuriating too:
“…given the complexities of intersections and traffic signals turning motorists often don’t see because of the complexities of turning they don’t see pedestrians crossing in crosswalks...“ - so simplify the design or give a protective phase

“…pedestrians they are not running out on to the road when they are not supposed to be…” - so make those mistakes more forgiving when that does happen by lowering speed limits/narrowing streets

“…cyclists are riding through crosswalks and that might be contributing factor to those collisions…” - find out why they riding on sidewalk and fix that

“…the region is really in a nutshell operating quite well in terms of the number of fatal collisions that are occurring on its roads…” - so anything above zero is ok then?

I just got to the councillors' comments and questions in the recording and had to turn it off because I got too upset by the first set of comments and questions that asked why pedestrians can't be targeted with education to not wear all dark clothing and why more signage couldn't be added to help motorist look out for pedestrians.

No mentions of lower speed limits or sharper turning radius anywhere.

It seems odd to compare with Sweden.  Wouldn't it make more sense to compare with London (similar population) or Ontario or Canada.   Sweden just seems random or is it somehow the gold standard for traffic comparisons.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - tomh009 - 11-15-2017

(11-15-2017, 12:32 PM)NotStan Wrote: It seems odd to compare with Sweden.  Wouldn't it make more sense to compare with London (similar population) or Ontario or Canada.   Sweden just seems random or is it somehow the gold standard for traffic comparisons.

Sweden initiated the Vision Zero concept in 1997, so they have the most experience with it, and the chart shows a significant drop in fatalities. I believe that's the rationale for referring to the Swedish data. Comparing on region's regional roads only to an entire country is not really an apples-to-apples comparison, though.

The Swedish data is available from the Swedish statistics agency:
https://www.trafa.se/en/road-traffic/road-traffic-injuries/


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - NotStan - 11-15-2017

(11-15-2017, 12:52 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(11-15-2017, 12:32 PM)NotStan Wrote: It seems odd to compare with Sweden.  Wouldn't it make more sense to compare with London (similar population) or Ontario or Canada.   Sweden just seems random or is it somehow the gold standard for traffic comparisons.

Sweden initiated the Vision Zero concept in 1997, so they have the most experience with it, and the chart shows a significant drop in fatalities. I believe that's the rationale for referring to the Swedish data. Comparing on region's regional roads only to an entire country is not really an apples-to-apples comparison, though.

The Swedish data is available from the Swedish statistics agency:
https://www.trafa.se/en/road-traffic/road-traffic-injuries/

Thanks for putting this in context


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - Pheidippides - 11-16-2017

(11-14-2017, 11:52 PM)Pheidippides Wrote: Plus, something doesn't feel right about the fact that they are looking at fatalities on the regional road network (~700km), but using the entire regional population as the denominator.

I think I figured out what bothered me about the use of the entire region as a denominator.

If you are going to use all of the population of a geographic area in the denominator then you need to use all of the fatalities in a geographic area in the numerator; not just the ones on regional roads (I understand that the region only has control over its roads, and there is no way of knowing the true size of the population that uses regional roads so this was the best approximation they could do, but I think to most people who hear this reported would be misled because they don't understand the differentiation between a city road and regional road).

According to public health, deaths to Waterloo residents (not deaths occurring in the region on regional roads) resulting from "land transport" injuries occurred at a rate of 4.8 / 100,000 in 2012 (where "...land transport collisions are predominantly represented by motor vehicle collision deaths, but also include deaths in collisions involving other modes of land transportation such as trains, street cars and animal-drawn vehicles...").

So that is higher than Sweden's rate in 2012 and I think that is excluding cyclist and pedestrian deaths.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - SammyOES - 11-16-2017

I don't think the problem is in using the entire population as the denominator or just fatalities on regional roads as the numerator.  That seems most consistent with the Swedish numbers to me.  

That doesn't mean its an apples-to-apples comparison though because like you say the usage of the road network is going to vary and even the types of roads are going to be very different.  Something like fatalities per mile driven seems more fair.  And you could also probably break that down by urban, rural, highway, etc. roads.

In the end though, these comparisons are always going to be pretty flawed.  Looking at the trends can be useful, but.... if you're just looking at any single high-level comparison its almost always going to be flawed.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - tomh009 - 11-16-2017

(11-16-2017, 09:18 AM)Pheidippides Wrote: According to public health, deaths to Waterloo residents (not deaths occurring in the region on regional roads) resulting from "land transport" injuries occurred at a rate of 4.8 / 100,000 in 2012 (where "...land transport collisions are predominantly represented by motor vehicle collision deaths, but also include deaths in collisions involving other modes of land transportation such as trains, street cars and animal-drawn vehicles...").

So that is higher than Sweden's rate in 2012 and I think that is excluding cyclist and pedestrian deaths.

I do believe that would include pedestrian and cyclist deaths, assuming a motor vehicle was involved. Now, if a pedestrian was killed by a speeding bicyclist, that might not be included but I don't think that would be very common ...


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - Pheidippides - 11-16-2017

(11-16-2017, 10:20 AM)SammyOES Wrote: I don't think the problem is in using the entire population as the denominator or just fatalities on regional roads as the numerator.  That seems most consistent with the Swedish numbers to me.  

I will have to disagree. Sweden is measuring all of the deaths on all of its roads so it makes sense to use the total national population as the denominator. The region is only measuring collisions that resulted in one or more death on regional roads. The actual unit of measure is different (fatalities vs. fatal collisions).

Also, regional roads make up 20% of the road network within the region (the rest being city, province, or private) and 60% of the total length of those regional roads is in rural areas (defined arbitrarily as being in the four townships). On top of that 11% of the region's population is rural. So they are looking at a fraction of the road total road network, and the largest portion of the regional network is used by the smallest portion of the population.

If you look at the urban parts of Sweden the rates are around 1.5/100,000, the rural areas are around 6.7/100,000 for 2016.


Also, I checked the public health definition.

Fatalities from "land transport" injuries includes:
Motor Vehicle Collisions (Traffic and Non-traffic)
Pedestrian (Motor-vehicle Traffic only, Motor-vehicle Non-traffic, Other, non-motor vehicle)
Cyclist (Motor-vehicle Traffic only, Motor-vehicle Non-traffic, Other, non-motor vehicle)
Public Transportation (Bus occupant, All railway train or railway vehicle transport accidents, Street car occupant)
Off-road transport accidents (Both traffic, non-traffic including drivers, passengers and unspecified occupants of snowmobiles and Other all-terrain or off-road vehicle..

Where a traffic accident is one that occurs on a public highway/road, and a non- traffic accident occurs in another place other than a highway/road. 

So it actually would include pedestrian vs. cyclist, or pedestrian vs. pedestrian, or cyclist vs. cyclist fatalities (however rare), but also includes other modes of transport and locations that would be beyond the traditional road network. So probably a slight overestimation, but better than what was presented.