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+--- Forum: Transportation and Infrastructure (https://www.waterlooregionconnected.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=25)
+--- Thread: Trails (/showthread.php?tid=378)
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RE: Trails - tomh009 - 05-29-2016
I understand the plan now, but I think it would be better to realign the trail at Stirling & Courtland to the intersection and the signaled crosswalks. The above proposal is better than today's situations, but there are no lights, and traffic may or may not stop.
Speed bumps aren't really a realistic option on thoroughfares such as Courtland, Stirling or Victoria.
RE: Trails - Canard - 05-29-2016
The "may or may not stop" is the problem - the ambiguity. A cyclist will not feel safe if they do not know if a motorist will stop or not. A motorist may feel unsure about what they're supposed to do. Signage needs to be improved to make it very clear who is supposed to yield to who. Right now, all the Spur Line crossings are ambiguous, although the stop sign on the trail would suggest that vehicular traffic still has the right of way. But motorists seeing the "Crossing" sign ahead may interpret that as "I should yield to the cyclist I see waiting there." But the motorist coming the other way may not interpret it the same way, and then you have a cyclist under a car.
RE: Trails - KevinL - 05-29-2016
Thanks to clasher for posting the design images! I always remember seeing these things but can never find the original documents again.
RE: Trails - tomh009 - 05-30-2016
Current Iron Horse Trail signage at the Stirling crossing. Not highly visible.
RE: Trails - clasher - 05-30-2016
The only time there is a lot of traffic at Stirling and Courtland is during the rush hours and even then it's not terrible to use the lights but it's also when the bus stop in front of southwood plaza is usually busy and there's not really any room to walk a bike through the crowd. I drive through that intersection a lot too and it seems most people just ride their bikes through the crosswalks and continue on the trail. I think a speed bump is a bit much on a busy street like this but Stirling is a lot less busy than Courtland even though it's got more lanes. I think if they put stop lines and a "do not block trail crossing" sign it might encourage people to leave a gap for trail users to make it to the island and if the light is red on Courtland the only traffic would be left turns from Stirling since most right turns would use the lane on the other side of the island. The annoying thing would be random people stopping on Courtland when the light is green and causing dangerous ambiguity of who has the right of way... but at least there would be an island to wait on.
Here's the Iron Horse Trail Improvement Strategy page on the CoK website
RE: Trails - panamaniac - 05-30-2016
Now that is one strange sign. My best guess is that it is telling you that you are supposed to get off your bike, walk it to the intersection, and cross at the lights. That leaves the "yield to traffic" rather up in the air, however.
Any other interpretations?
RE: Trails - Markster - 05-30-2016
(05-30-2016, 10:57 AM)clasher Wrote: The annoying thing would be random people stopping on Courtland when the light is green and causing dangerous ambiguity of who has the right of way... but at least there would be an island to wait on.
At least on Courtland, with a median island for crossing, it's not that bad. You occasionally get that on Queen St at the Iron Horse Trail. No one can pass the stopped car, so as a trail user you don't fear for your life in these non-standard-right-of-way situations.
Realistically, I don't expect many people to yield to the crossing.
RE: Trails - tomh009 - 05-30-2016
(05-30-2016, 02:03 PM)Markster Wrote: At least on Courtland, with a median island for crossing, it's not that bad.
I think "median island" is a bit of a misnomer here. There are four lanes of traffic on Stirling from the east (!) side to the island, and just the turning lane to WB Courtland on the other side of the island. On Queen, there is one lane of traffic on either side of the island.
RE: Trails - Markster - 05-30-2016
"Median island" was not referring to the triangle plot.
I am referring only to the crossing of Courtland Ave. There is a small island proposed between Courtland's north-bound and south-bound (er, west and east) lanes. It is quite analogous to Queen there.
Stirling is another question entirely. I expect it to be a waiting game there.
RE: Trails - clasher - 05-30-2016
I don't really fear for my life in most of these crossing situations, the only place I regularly ride that I am kind of afraid of it the Wilson/Fairway intersection.
I think Stirling could do with a road diet, it never really busy enough for 4 lanes of traffic over that short stretch where it is 4 lanes.
RE: Trails - tomh009 - 05-30-2016
(05-30-2016, 03:15 PM)Markster Wrote: "Median island" was not referring to the triangle plot.
I am referring only to the crossing of Courtland Ave. There is a small island proposed between Courtland's north-bound and south-bound (er, west and east) lanes. It is quite analogous to Queen there.
Ah, the proposed island on Courtland (and not on Stirling). Sorry, I got confused on that.
RE: Trails - Pheidippides - 06-15-2016
Thanks to Zanate over on the cycling thread pointing out the that the City of Waterloo's active transportation counters on their trails was available via their open data portal I have been playing around with visualizing the data in Tableau.
Feel free to explore:
https://public.tableau.com/views/ActiveTransportationCounts/ActiveTransportation?:embed=y&:display_count=yes&:showTabs=y
The data is not a real-time feed so I'll have to manually download the data every month, but it currently up to 31-May-2016.
I'm still new to Tableau so let me know if you see anything wonky and I'll try and fix it!
RE: Trails - danbrotherston - 06-16-2016
So, I've been itching for a while to see a better Iron Horse Trail connection from Glasgow, so I designed one. This is one of the more uncomfortable missing connections, at least that I experience on a regular basis, largely due to the incline.
So, I'm open to thoughts and opinions on the design.
I'm also open to thoughts and suggestions for the actual presentation. I built it in Google Earth which wasn't terrible difficult, but certainly isn't the prettiest, so I'm interested in tips on this too.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1...SGmhH66O0o
Also, I wasn't sure what the usual policy was on this message board, I would generally have created a new thread for something like this, but seems like that isn't the right thing to do here.
RE: Trails - MidTowner - 06-17-2016
The Laurel Trail is blocked at Seagram (Seagram is also closed). It’s completely open at University, at least for the moment, so as far as I can tell, someone coming from University will be presented with an open trail, and then fencing blocking them from getting onto Seagram.
There was a person in lieu of a sign on Seagram today, but he had less information than you might reasonably expect from a post with a sign on it- so no idea how long the closure will last.
I wonder why they can’t put up signs giving half a day’s notice for these sorts of things (I know that won’t always be possible), or at least put signs up when the closure actually happens. The bicycle detour signs point directly to a blocked trail.
RE: Trails - clasher - 06-17-2016
I've long since given up trying to use the trail between uptown and the university.