Waterloo Region Connected
General Road and Highway Discussion - Printable Version

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RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - rangersfan - 11-17-2016

An article in The Record talking about the Fountain St project.

http://m.therecord.com/news-story/6972964-residents-frustrated-at-plan-to-close-fountain-street-for-two-years


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - Pheidippides - 11-19-2016

Weber Street Reconstruction, Queen Street To Borden Avenue, City Of Kitchener – Approval Of Project 

Recommended Improvements
Based on a review of the technical information gathered for this project as well as a review of all public comments received, the Project Team is now recommending that Regional Council approve the Recommended Design Concept for the improvements to Weber Street described as follows:
• Complete replacement of the pavement structure including new concrete curbs on each side of Weber Street;
• Replacement of the storm sewers as well as the City’s watermain and sanitary sewers within the project limits including water and sanitary sewer service connections;
• Replacement of existing sidewalks within the project limits;
• Replacement of transit landing pads and installation of new concrete pads for future Grand River Transit shelters;
• Installation of a new signalized crossing for pedestrians at Fairview Avenue;
• Installation of grassed boulevards between curb and sidewalk, with street trees (where possible) from Cameron Street to Borden Avenue;
• Installation of narrow, coloured concrete boulevards between curb and sidewalk from Queen Street to Cameron Street; and
• Implementation of the following improvements at the “S” curves east of Stirling Avenue to enhance safety for motorists and pedestrians:
- Corrections to the pavement cross-slope;
- Replacement of guide rails on the north (school) side;
- New guide rails on the south (cemetery) side;
- Preserving current 30km/h recommended speed; and
- Preserving yellow flashing warning lights in both directions.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - jwilliamson - 11-19-2016

No mention of any bike infrastructure.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - timio - 11-19-2016

Not enough space.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - panamaniac - 11-19-2016

(11-19-2016, 12:01 AM)Pheidippides Wrote: Weber Street Reconstruction, Queen Street To Borden Avenue, City Of Kitchener – Approval Of Project 

Recommended Improvements
Based on a review of the technical information gathered for this project as well as a review of all public comments received, the Project Team is now recommending that Regional Council approve the Recommended Design Concept for the improvements to Weber Street described as follows:
• Complete replacement of the pavement structure including new concrete curbs on each side of Weber Street;
• Replacement of the storm sewers as well as the City’s watermain and sanitary sewers within the project limits including water and sanitary sewer service connections;
• Replacement of existing sidewalks within the project limits;
• Replacement of transit landing pads and installation of new concrete pads for future Grand River Transit shelters;
• Installation of a new signalized crossing for pedestrians at Fairview Avenue;
• Installation of grassed boulevards between curb and sidewalk, with street trees (where possible) from Cameron Street to Borden Avenue;
• Installation of narrow, coloured concrete boulevards between curb and sidewalk from Queen Street to Cameron Street; and
• Implementation of the following improvements at the “S” curves east of Stirling Avenue to enhance safety for motorists and pedestrians:
- Corrections to the pavement cross-slope;
- Replacement of guide rails on the north (school) side;
- New guide rails on the south (cemetery) side;
- Preserving current 30km/h recommended speed; and
- Preserving yellow flashing warning lights in both directions.

I was a bit surprised when I first heard that this was in the works, but I guess the underground services were not replace when Weber was widened (and all those trees came down!) back in the '60s (or was it '70s? Memories fade).


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - Pheidippides - 11-19-2016

(11-19-2016, 12:49 AM)jwilliamson Wrote: No mention of any bike infrastructure.

"d) Request to Reduce Weber Street to Two Through Lanes and a Centre Left Lane to Allow For Cycling Lanes

Project Team Response:
With respect to cycling lanes, this section of Weber Street has very limited opportunity to provide any space for a cycling facility. The photo in Figure 2 shows the constraints in the corridor, with narrow boulevards and many fronting residential buildings immediately behind the sidewalk. The Region’s approved Active Transportation Master Plan (ATMP) acknowledged this constrained corridor on Weber Street and in fact did not designate any section of Weber Street in Kitchener as an official cycling route because of the challenges with introducing any pavement widening. Cycling facilities are instead available on adjacent local streets such as East Avenue, Cedar Street, Borden Avenue and sections of Frederick Street, in lieu of cycling facilities on Weber Street.
...
When considering how many lanes are required for acceptable operations on a road, many factors are considered including volume of traffic, number of accesses, bus
operations, the presence of turn lanes, intersection delay, maintenance requirements, traffic speed, land use, collision history, and cycling/pedestrian facility requirements.
Because of the nature of the Weber Street corridor (many driveways, high volumes of bus traffic and goods movement, many turning vehicles, and multiple lanes required at
intersections to avoid high intersection delays), the Project Team is recommending four traffic lanes be maintained today and into the future. The Project Team is therefore not
recommending that the through lanes on Weber Street be reduced to accommodate cycling."


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - plam - 11-19-2016

(11-19-2016, 11:22 AM)Pheidippides Wrote: Project Team Response:
With respect to cycling lanes, this section of Weber Street has very limited opportunity to provide any space for a cycling facility. The photo in Figure 2 shows the constraints in the corridor, with narrow boulevards and many fronting residential buildings immediately behind the sidewalk. The Region’s approved Active Transportation Master Plan (ATMP) acknowledged this constrained corridor on Weber Street and in fact did not designate any section of Weber Street in Kitchener as an official cycling route because of the challenges with introducing any pavement widening. Cycling facilities are instead available on adjacent local streets such as East Avenue, Cedar Street, Borden Avenue and sections of Frederick Street, in lieu of cycling facilities on Weber Street.

Well, Weber usually feels less sketchy than Erb/Bridgeport. It is, however, far more direct than the recommended alternatives, which just don't go all the way through. So I do often finding myself biking on Weber.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - danbrotherston - 11-19-2016

What bugs me about this response is that it's untrue. East Ave. is not a parallel road, nor does it continue as far south as Weber.

Equivalent parallel roads would be King, Charles, Courtland, all of which have been or are being rebuilt, and none of them are getting bike infrastructure.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - panamaniac - 11-19-2016

(11-19-2016, 01:53 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: What bugs me about this response is that it's untrue.  East Ave. is not a parallel road, nor does it continue as far south as Weber.

Equivalent parallel roads would be King, Charles, Courtland, all of which have been or are being rebuilt, and none of them are getting bike infrastructure.

Is it just me - I'm not seeing "parallel" in the Project Team Response.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - danbrotherston - 11-19-2016

(11-19-2016, 02:47 PM)panamaniac Wrote:
(11-19-2016, 01:53 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: What bugs me about this response is that it's untrue.  East Ave. is not a parallel road, nor does it continue as far south as Weber.

Equivalent parallel roads would be King, Charles, Courtland, all of which have been or are being rebuilt, and none of them are getting bike infrastructure.

Is it just me - I'm not seeing "parallel" in the Project Team Response.

Yes, my mistake, they said "adjacent"...but East is also not really adjacent.  The point is, East is not really an alternate route for Weber.  The real alternate routes are Charles, Courtland, and King, none of which have planned infra.  

East diverges from Weber and heads north, then ends at Frederick.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - tomh009 - 11-19-2016

(11-19-2016, 01:53 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: What bugs me about this response is that it's untrue.  East Ave. is not a parallel road, nor does it continue as far south as Weber.

Equivalent parallel roads would be King, Charles, Courtland, all of which have been or are being rebuilt, and none of them are getting bike infrastructure.

I think King (from Cedar to Ottawa or so, at least) would be the best alternative.  It's central, there is available width, and the traffic volumes are far smaller than on Weber.  If we push for an East-West cycling route, that would be the one to push for.

Charles is constrained by the LRT and Courtland has a fair bit of traffic as well. 

Are either King or Charles due to get sharrows?  I think at least on Charles they should work fairly well.  Or would investing further in the IHT be the best option in the end?


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - plam - 11-19-2016

(11-19-2016, 10:24 PM)tomh009 Wrote:
(11-19-2016, 01:53 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: What bugs me about this response is that it's untrue.  East Ave. is not a parallel road, nor does it continue as far south as Weber.

Equivalent parallel roads would be King, Charles, Courtland, all of which have been or are being rebuilt, and none of them are getting bike infrastructure.

I think King (from Cedar to Ottawa or so, at least) would be the best alternative.  It's central, there is available width, and the traffic volumes are far smaller than on Weber.  If we push for an East-West cycling route, that would be the one to push for.

Charles is constrained by the LRT and Courtland has a fair bit of traffic as well. 

Are either King or Charles due to get sharrows?  I think at least on Charles they should work fairly well.  Or would investing further in the IHT be the best option in the end?

King in downtown Kitchener has had "super sharrows" for a while, although not from Cedar to Ottawa. I think we've seen that King/Cedar has a lot of collisions for some reason, but for the rest of it it doesn't seem too bad to me (but not super awesome, of course). I still kind of prefer Weber, although traffic does move more slowly on King. Around there the IHT is still a bit far, although not as far as at Victoria.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - danbrotherston - 11-20-2016

(11-19-2016, 11:37 PM)plam Wrote:
(11-19-2016, 10:24 PM)tomh009 Wrote: I think King (from Cedar to Ottawa or so, at least) would be the best alternative.  It's central, there is available width, and the traffic volumes are far smaller than on Weber.  If we push for an East-West cycling route, that would be the one to push for.

Charles is constrained by the LRT and Courtland has a fair bit of traffic as well. 

Are either King or Charles due to get sharrows?  I think at least on Charles they should work fairly well.  Or would investing further in the IHT be the best option in the end?

King in downtown Kitchener has had "super sharrows" for a while, although not from Cedar to Ottawa. I think we've seen that King/Cedar has a lot of collisions for some reason, but for the rest of it it doesn't seem too bad to me (but not super awesome, of course). I still kind of prefer Weber, although traffic does move more slowly on King. Around there the IHT is still a bit far, although not as far as at Victoria.

King has super sharrows, but I don't consider sharrows infrastructure, and seems like the vast majority of people don't either, and as you say, the traffic congestion affect law following cyclists as well.  

The south end of King was recently approved to be reconstructed with no infrastructure.  Charles is already rebuilt with no infra (and worse, with a width which is just wide enough to make drivers universally bullying, but narrow enough to make passing dangerous), and Courtland (which is pretty near the IHT) was also rebuilt with no proper cycle lanes (although wide enough in most places to allow safe passing).  Ironically, Courtland was rebuilt without cycle lanes, because the most recent cycling plan said Mill St. is supposed to get cycle lanes, only problem is, Mill was rebuilt a year before also without cycle lanes, thus the cycling plan was effectively used to quash any cycle lanes in the area for a minimum of two decades.


Personally I think your right, King St. is where they should be, but I expect this to be a long term hole in the cycling network in the city.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - rangersfan - 11-21-2016

The section of Weber St from Ottawa to Borden is in very terrible shape I am surprised it is not also part of the project. The few times I biked along there this year I couldn't believe how rough the edges of the road were, littered with potholes.


RE: General Road and Highway Discussion - jamincan - 11-21-2016

Krug under the expressway is another spot where this is really problematic for cyclists. The outside edges are littered with gigantic pot holes, but they are very difficult to see during the day because the lighting is only on at night.