[Uptown] Erb/Bridgeport/Caroline/Albert Reconstruction

[Chris]

Agree 100%. King could have been like the 16th Street Mall in Denver.

We're still getting the acrylic canopy over King St though, right?

I'm okay with this if it comes with a zipline and LED light show like Fremont Street in Vegas! Otherwise keep open spaces open.

Are there any downtown areas that have actually done that?

[Markster]

It's quite a common thing in Japan, actually. Main commercial streets that have been covered and pedestrianized. They really need it there for protection from the rain.

[BuildingScout]

Seriously, dude, spend five minutes thinking about it and you'll see how ridiculous this two way proposal is.

You would have an easier time getting your point across without the condescension and ridicule, and with perhaps some recognition that different people view streets/roads as serving different purposes.

Not sure about this. The first few rounds had a lot of info and no condescension and they didn't have any impact. 

Sometimes certain "ideas" are so ridiculous that they need to be called straight out, lest they be allowed to fester. See Trump, Donald for the effects of handling ridiculous proposals with kid gloves.

[BuildingScout]

[quote pid='22229' dateline='1464648360']
Why would Erb have its lights synchronized eastbound as a two-way street?

And what makes you think (maybe some data? maybe?) that traffic on Erb West are "going mostly to Weber or the highway"? I wouldn't assume that. I would assume that some are going to Uptown or taking King to some other destination, some are going to destinations on or near Bridgeport/Erb, and some are taking Weber. A poster pointed out earlier that, sufficiently far west on Erb, and it makes much more sense to head south on Fischer-Hallman to the Expressway, rather than cutting through the heart of Waterloo (which we don't probably want cars to be doing).

[/quote]

In answer to your first question: because that's what the proponents here of the two way streetsuggested would happen to keep the arterial nature of the street. And I agree with them. Not synchronizing the streets Erb and Bridgeport in each direction would make this proposal even more ridiculous. Without that it would be a guaranteed traffic jam.

In answer to your second question. I drive that street all the time at all times of the day since I lived on it or next to it for over nine years. The majority of the traffic on Erb and Caroline (where the constriction to one lane has happened in the past) stays together with two major exit points: Weber and the highway. Comparatively few people turn on King, Regina, Moore or Margaret. That is why I'm so familiar with the traffic jam whenever the street was constrained down to one line.

To your third point about reaching the highway I already addressed it earlier. It doesn't make more sense to drive down Fischer-Hallman, as I posted before. Since I lived on it, I had it timed to a tee. West of Amos you take FH, East of Amos you take Erb St E. Incidentally that is what taxi drivers/airport drivers do, and what google maps and GPS suggest.

Lastly it is not my duty to produce data. It's the people proposing this change who need to back it up. So far they haven't outside of "generally two way streets are nice", which is true, but these are not streets. They are arterial roads.

[MidTowner]

Sometimes certain "ideas" are so ridiculous that they need to be called straight out, lest they be allowed to fester. See Trump, Donald for the effects of handling ridiculous proposals with kid gloves.

You're comparing, say, building a 3,000 kilometre-long border wall to converting two streets in Waterloo back to two-way?

[BuildingScout]

I really don't think it would be the end of the world if Erb and Bridgeport were two-way. It would probably add less than a minute to a typical drive out of town,

Sorry but no. Just one extra traffic light already adds more than one minute. And turning two lanes into one from Erb St. W. to Erb. St. E. has already proven to add 5-10 minutes off-rush hour and 20 or more during rush hour whenever Erb St. W. was constrained to one lane at Caroline.

[MidTowner]

In answer to your first question: because that's what the proponents here of the two way streetsuggested would happen to keep the arterial nature of the street. And I agree with them. Not synchronizing the streets Erb and Bridgeport in each direction would make this proposal even more ridiculous. Without that it would be a guaranteed traffic jam.

In answer to your second question. I drive that street all the time at all times of the day since I lived on it or next to it for over nine years. The majority of the traffic on Erb and Caroline (where the constriction to one lane has happened in the past) stays together with two major exit points: Weber and the highway. Comparatively few people turn on King, Regina, Moore or Margaret. That is why I'm so familiar with the traffic jam whenever the street was constrained down to one line.

To your third point about reaching the highway I already addressed it earlier. It doesn't make more sense to drive down Fischer-Hallman, as I posted before. Since I lived on it, I had it timed to a tee. West of Amos you take FH, East of Amos you take Erb St E. Incidentally that is what taxi drivers/airport drivers do, and what google maps and GPS suggest.

Lastly it is not my duty to produce data. It's the people proposing this change who need to back it up. So far they haven't outside of "generally two way streets are nice", which is true, but these are not streets. They are arterial roads.

This “guaranteed traffic jam” stuff is pretty close to pure bunkum. It smacks a lot of the kind of predictions of traffic Armageddon and the-sky-will-fall reactions every time a bike lane or road diet is proposed. It’s not really relevant to Waterloo Region, where we don’t experience gridlock or backed-up traffic very often. And it’s not born out by reality when changes are made to the network.

The reality is, traffic is fluid and reconfiguring a street to increase or decrease capacity has effects on traffic patterns and demand. The reality here, though, is that these streets are overbuilt for the traffic volume they actually carry (based on data the Region has collected, not anyone’s ideas about how busy it feels when driving in a platoon, or walking alongside). Converting them to two-way one lane each way with turning lane would still allow for plenty of capacity for the traffic volume that actually travels here.

Your last point is your best one, and why we probably have to agree to disagree. It’s a good distinction to make, “streets” versus “roads.” I look at Bridgeport and Erb East, running right into the heart of Waterloo, with mostly single-family homes alongside and some commercial, and I see streets. You see roads to funnel traffic efficiently to the expressway. I don’t think that’s an invalid perspective; obviously roads are necessary, too. But the two different perspectives are going to lead to very different conclusions about what these streets should look like.

[BuildingScout]

Your last point is your best one, and why we probably have to agree to disagree. It’s a good distinction to make, “streets” versus “roads.” I look at Bridgeport and Erb East, running right into the heart of Waterloo, with mostly single-family homes alongside and some commercial, and I see streets. You see roads to funnel traffic efficiently to the expressway. I don’t think that’s an invalid perspective; obviously roads are necessary, too. But the two different perspectives are going to lead to very different conclusions about what these streets should look like.

They are a road, County Rd #9 to be precise.

And no, the traffic jam is not bunk, since we already saw it. I do agree that they are overbuilt and could go to two lanes (one direction) down from three. However, the traffic jam when we went down to one lane puts the ball in their court to prove that somehow this impassable constriction at Caroline somehow wouldn't have the same effect just a block down after King.

Of course we would need a full study to come to an absolute final conclusion, but given the present evidence, the ball is squarely in their court to prove that one lane of synchronized lights plus another five blocks up, non-synchronized would suffice.

[MidTowner]

They are a road, County Rd #9 to be precise.

And King Street is Regional Road #15. It is classed an arterial, but I think everyone agrees that it is a city street which exists for other uses besides moving car traffic.

So saying that Erb and Bridgeport are “County Road #9 to be precise” doesn’t preclude someone viewing these as city streets.

[panamaniac]

They are a road, County Rd #9 to be precise.

And King Street is Regional Road #15. It is classed an arterial, but I think everyone agrees that it is a city street which exists for other uses besides moving car traffic.

So saying that Erb and Bridgeport are “County Road #9 to be precise” doesn’t preclude someone viewing these as city streets.

Everyone knows that King St is a street that exists to move car traffic that doesn't really need to be on King St. 

[Pheidippides]

There's enough open data and free traffic modelling software that I'm sure it's onl a matter of time before someone in this high-tech region gives it a whirl.

Did the region decide at committee today to put the final decision on this project off a few more weeks?

[Pheidippides]

Claiming that a normal trip of 4-5min is now 20min longer is hyperbole. I'm sure that it feels like adding 20 minutes to the trip, but that does not seem plausible. Plus the current lane reductions/restrictions are temporary for construction and not relevant to the discussion, the only comparisons should be normal flows under the current conditions versus normal flows under any proposed scenarios.

The region does annual traffic signal timing reviews. Using GPS units in the field they repeated track vehicle movements along arterial roadways and to determine the location, types and extent of traffic delays at various times of day in different conditions. The data is analyzed and the timings are tweaked to try and reduce delay and improve operational efficiency. The report says, "Perfect synchronization for one direction of traffic on a street results in frequent stops and delays to the other direction. Staff tries to establish balanced traffic flow in each direction for the corridors as well as balancing major crossing arterials. If balance cannot be achieved, then staff favours the arterial and the direction with heavier traffic flow.” In November of 2010 one of the sections they focused on was Erb (Roslin to Margaret, ~2.6km, 8 intersections) and Bridgeport (Bluevale to Albert, ~2km, 8 intersections).

Before they optimize the Erb section took 4min 44sec to traverse and by the time they were done optimizing it was 3min 55sec or a 49 second (17.2%) improvement. If you don’t believe the region’s data then using Google/Bing maps it says it should take 5min in light traffic, 4min without traffic. For the Bridgeport section the before time was 4min 02sec and the after time was 3min 38sec for a 24sec (10.7%) savings. Again, supported by Google/Bing maps 4min in moderate traffic, 3min without traffic. Even now with extensive Ion detours Google suggests it would only take 6-9min in the morning rush, and 7-12min in the afternoon rush to go between Roslin to Margaret or Bluevale/Albert. 3-7min.

Any changes to the street form are going to be minimal for drivers.


As for the street types the region classes Erb and Bridgeport as “neighbourhood connectors.” “Neighbourhood Connectors are supposed to balance active transportation (bicycles and pedestrians), transit and vehicle movement, providing a higher level of priority (design and comfort) for pedestrians, cyclists and transit users. At the moment the streets are not living up to that function. Further, there are two classes of neighbourhood connectors, avenue and main street. Parts of both Erb and Bridgeport are part neighbourhood connector (avenue) and part neighbourhood connector(main street).

Bridgeport is a neighbourhood connector (avenue) from Lancaster to the Peppler pedestrian crossing, and neighbourhood connector (main street) from the Peppler pedestrian crossing to Albert (the neighbourhood connector continues as Caroline to Erb). Erb is a neighbourhood connector (avenue) from Lancaster to Devitt and a neighbourhood connector (main street) Devitt to Euclid.

What do those sub-street class designations mean?
Neighbourhood connector avenues are:
“…roads designed to support active transportation (including walking and cycling) and transit. These roads are good candidates for transit priority lanes. They can prioritize vehicular traffic, but need to support a mix of adjacent land uses that typically require individual access to and from the road.”
"Avenues have larger right-of-way’s than main streets and include many opportunities for re-urbanization. The designs for Community Connectors typically incorporate wide, landscaped centre medians.
“Avenues will serve an important future role in the Region. They represent roadways that can and should transition to transit supportive and pedestrian friendly streets.”
Typically they have an ideal width of 30m and have posted speed limits up to 50-60kph.
 
Neighbourhood connector main streets are:
“Main Streets are supportive of and prioritize active transportation and transit.”
“Main streets are located in existing built up areas characterized by buildings that address the street with small or no setbacks. Buildings, lot sizes and right-of-way widths are typically smaller that those found within Avenues.”
Typically they have an ideal width of 26m and posted speed limits up to 50kph.
 
All this to say the region is going to make these streets more complete at some point; the current status quo will be phased out at some point in the near future.

More background information at these links:
http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/doingB...ile_sz.pdf
http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/doingB...elines.pdf 
http://www.regionofwaterloo.ca/en/doingB...rkbook.pdf

[BuildingScout]

Claiming that a normal trip of 4-5min is now 20min longer is hyperbole.

It's funny how the two-way proponents keep on denying this fact, which is what happened during rush hour when Erb St. W. was reduced to one lane for several months in front of CIGI back in 2014.

They know that their argument cannot recover from this, so they just pretend it didn't happen.

Okaaaay, I think we are done with this argument.

[mpd618]

Claiming that a normal trip of 4-5min is now 20min longer is hyperbole.

It's funny how the two-way proponents keep on denying this fact, which is what happened during rush hour when Erb St. W. was reduced to one lane for several months in front of CIGI back in 2014.

They know that their argument cannot recover from this, so they just pretend it didn't happen.

Okaaaay, I think we are done with this argument.

The main two-way proposal would be two lanes of eastbound capacity + turning lanes. You're making big claims on the basis of what one single lane of eastbound capacity did, which hardly addresses the proposal. There being only two lanes of capacity per direction on the two-way section in fact suggests that three lanes of capacity on the one-way sections is overkill.

(Also, there's another possibility, of having three lanes of eastbound capacity, but splitting it with one lane on Bridgeport and two on Erb. I think the other one's probably better, though.)

[Elmira Guy]

Forgive the ignorance as I assume this has been addressed elsewhere and before, how would two-way Bridgeport and Erb be reconciled where they currently merge, and also for the southbound on-ramp for the expressway.

If you don't feel like answering, could you please point me to where I can find where that was addressed.

Cheers