Winter Walking and Cycling

[danbrotherston]

I think the whirling brushes are unable to deal with deep snow...like, greater than say 4-6 inches. While most days we get less snow than this, (and with climate change we will rarely get this amount), we get road plows pushing giant piles which they would be unable to manage.  They are also less able to deal with ice, which plows don't really deal with anyway.

That being said, they do have a number of the brush vehicles, which they use in DTK. They do work very well, but like most things in our unsustainable wasteful suburbs, we just can't afford nice things.

I assume the brushes only go up to a certain depth as you suggest. I’m not even sure about that depth — 15cm is a lot for a brush. But I’m confident brushes do better at removing the last little bit — a blade can start running on top of an ice layer and leave 2cm behind, or have trouble with any small irregularity in the surface.

I would have thought that they would be the same vehicle, just with a different attachment. Does anybody know if that’s true?

I believe they can be used on the same vehicle, or at least, I see the same vehicle in DTK with both types of attachments.

I believe the problem would be that you would need more passes.

[Bytor]

Why does it always have to be plows, though? Those whirling brush things are just as effective and do far less damage when the driver missed the proper path of the sidewalk.

I think the whirling brushes are unable to deal with deep snow...like, greater than say 4-6 inches. While most days we get less snow than this, (and with climate change we will rarely get this amount), we get road plows pushing giant piles which they would be unable to manage.  They are also less able to deal with ice, which plows don't really deal with anyway.

That being said, they do have a number of the brush vehicles, which they use in DTK. They do work very well, but like most things in our unsustainable wasteful suburbs, we just can't afford nice things.

So? Then just do it more often. If Oulu, Finland can clear within 3 hours of a 2cm fall, and do it multiple times per day if needed, we can, too. I mean, they'll keep plowing and plowing the roads until the snow stops. Just apply the same darn standards to the sidewalks that we apply to the darn roads. Oh, wait, that's too sensible for our municipal councillors.

[danbrotherston]

I think the whirling brushes are unable to deal with deep snow...like, greater than say 4-6 inches. While most days we get less snow than this, (and with climate change we will rarely get this amount), we get road plows pushing giant piles which they would be unable to manage.  They are also less able to deal with ice, which plows don't really deal with anyway.

That being said, they do have a number of the brush vehicles, which they use in DTK. They do work very well, but like most things in our unsustainable wasteful suburbs, we just can't afford nice things.

So? Then just do it more often. If Oulu, Finland can clear within 3 hours of a 2cm fall, and do it multiple times per day if needed, we can, too. I mean, they'll keep plowing and plowing the roads until the snow stops. Just apply the same darn standards to the sidewalks that we apply to the darn roads. Oh, wait, that's too sensible for our municipal councillors.

Actually they don't plow all our roads during a snowfall, only priority 1 and sometimes priority 2 roads. Side streets are not done until snowfall stops.  And in any case, the issue of snow banks remains, when the road plow goes by, it creates a bank that the brushes probably can't clear.

And while I'd love to see a higher standard of clearing, I'd settle for any level of clearing at this point. Part of the problem remains our enormous excess of roads...we simply cannot afford to maintain them based on the tax rate we pay, now matter how much they scream about taxes.

[jamincan]

So City of Waterloo voted to continue with leaf removal despite clear environmental arguments against it and it being almost the definition of a luxury service. You can't help but contrast it with the extreme resistance to clearing sidewalks of snow. I am unfortunately not surprised that passable sidewalks that are essential for lower income and often marginalized or vulnerable people is somehow a luxury that the city can't afford to address, but leaf removal that is absolutely not essential and basically just a nice thing for property owners is totally acceptable.

[danbrotherston]

So City of Waterloo voted to continue with leaf removal despite clear environmental arguments against it and it being almost the definition of a luxury service. You can't help but contrast it with the extreme resistance to clearing sidewalks of snow. I am unfortunately not surprised that passable sidewalks that are essential for lower income and often marginalized or vulnerable people is somehow a luxury that the city can't afford to address, but leaf removal that is absolutely not essential and basically just a nice thing for property owners is totally acceptable.

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by that.

Same meeting they approved a staff recommendation to remove the Columbia bike lane protection with no clear transition plan to replace it.

[ijmorlan]

So City of Waterloo voted to continue with leaf removal despite clear environmental arguments against it and it being almost the definition of a luxury service. You can't help but contrast it with the extreme resistance to clearing sidewalks of snow. I am unfortunately not surprised that passable sidewalks that are essential for lower income and often marginalized or vulnerable people is somehow a luxury that the city can't afford to address, but leaf removal that is absolutely not essential and basically just a nice thing for property owners is totally acceptable.

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by that.

Same meeting they approved a staff recommendation to remove the Columbia bike lane protection with no clear transition plan to replace it.

Very disappointing news about the bike lane. That’s an obvious location to have better bicycle infrastructure. I’m radical enough to question whether Columbia even needs four motor vehicle lanes. There should be plenty of space for excellent bicycle and pedestrian lanes.

I’m a bit confused about the leaf removal issue. The city has to remove leaves from the street itself, right? So isn’t the only difference really whether it’s legal to sweep leaves from the lawn onto the street? And if people have excess leaves, by far the most efficient way to get rid of them is to do so. It’s totally absurd to bag up leaves and pick them up one bag at a time rather than just vacuuming them up. Am I missing something?

[neonjoe]

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by that.

Same meeting they approved a staff recommendation to remove the Columbia bike lane protection with no clear transition plan to replace it.

Very disappointing news about the bike lane. That’s an obvious location to have better bicycle infrastructure. I’m radical enough to question whether Columbia even needs four motor vehicle lanes. There should be plenty of space for excellent bicycle and pedestrian lanes.

I’m a bit confused about the leaf removal issue. The city has to remove leaves from the street itself, right? So isn’t the only difference really whether it’s legal to sweep leaves from the lawn onto the street? And if people have excess leaves, by far the most efficient way to get rid of them is to do so. It’s totally absurd to bag up leaves and pick them up one bag at a time rather than just vacuuming them up. Am I missing something?

This would require the leaves to be vacuumed up almost daily. Excessive amounts of leaves on the road become extremely slippery once it rains, even more than ice left on the road. They remove any shoulder that would exist where cyclists may ride. Its very dangerous.

[danbrotherston]

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed by that.

Same meeting they approved a staff recommendation to remove the Columbia bike lane protection with no clear transition plan to replace it.

Very disappointing news about the bike lane. That’s an obvious location to have better bicycle infrastructure. I’m radical enough to question whether Columbia even needs four motor vehicle lanes. There should be plenty of space for excellent bicycle and pedestrian lanes.

I’m a bit confused about the leaf removal issue. The city has to remove leaves from the street itself, right? So isn’t the only difference really whether it’s legal to sweep leaves from the lawn onto the street? And if people have excess leaves, by far the most efficient way to get rid of them is to do so. It’s totally absurd to bag up leaves and pick them up one bag at a time rather than just vacuuming them up. Am I missing something?

The city spends something like 200,000 just on providing the service. Staff believe that would be the savings if they stopped doing it, even if there is other seasonal maintenance. As for the "most efficient way", I'm not what the most efficient way is, but I can tell you fairly certainly that having two different trucks pickup leaves is not the most efficient way, and having yard waste collection is necessary because not all yard waste is leaves.

In Kitchener, it's extra insulting, some homeowners like myself were expected to bring leaves to the dump sites ourselves. It was no issue for me, I pushed my wheelbarrow there, but apparently there weren't many dump sites. Of course, other properties have collection. Very frustrating. And of course, no sidewalks were ever clear.

As for the bike lane, you're probably right, Columbia could do with 3 lanes, but I doubt council is interested, they almost made the extension four lanes out to Erbsville. That being said, staff do correctly point out that someday....decades in the future, ION Phase 3 might take a lane away from University Ave...so of course, because of that remotely possible very long term future, we can't narrow the road today.

[ijmorlan]

OK, not sure about the whole leaf collection thing. I thought I heard something about Ottawa extending the “luxury” Rockcliffe Park service (vacuumed from the road) to the whole city because it was the most economical approach but I could be mis-remembering.

As for the bike lane, you're probably right, Columbia could do with 3 lanes, but I doubt council is interested, they almost made the extension four lanes out to Erbsville. That being said, staff do correctly point out that someday....decades in the future, ION Phase 3 might take a lane away from University Ave...so of course, because of that remotely possible very long term future, we can't narrow the road today.

By the time we’re building Ion on University, we won’t need 4 lanes on either University or Columbia. Does the transportation department have an implicit requirement that traffic never bunch up? If the roads feel crowded and slow for only 1 hour a day then we’re probably overinvested in roads; and I think they hardly ever feel crowded and slow in this city. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love setting the cruise control and going down King from Waterloo to Kitchener, as I have occasionally been able to do late at night or Sunday morning, but I don’t have a problem with occasionally actually having to adapt my driving to other vehicles at ordinary times of day or even wait behind others to pass a traffic light at busy times; and even if I did have a problem with it that wouldn’t be a valid reason to spend millions of dollars on road widenings.

[danbrotherston]

OK, not sure about the whole leaf collection thing. I thought I heard something about Ottawa extending the “luxury” Rockcliffe Park service (vacuumed from the road) to the whole city because it was the most economical approach but I could be mis-remembering.

As for the bike lane, you're probably right, Columbia could do with 3 lanes, but I doubt council is interested, they almost made the extension four lanes out to Erbsville. That being said, staff do correctly point out that someday....decades in the future, ION Phase 3 might take a lane away from University Ave...so of course, because of that remotely possible very long term future, we can't narrow the road today.

By the time we’re building Ion on University, we won’t need 4 lanes on either University or Columbia. Does the transportation department have an implicit requirement that traffic never bunch up? If the roads feel crowded and slow for only 1 hour a day then we’re probably overinvested in roads; and I think they hardly ever feel crowded and slow in this city. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love setting the cruise control and going down King from Waterloo to Kitchener, as I have occasionally been able to do late at night or Sunday morning, but I don’t have a problem with occasionally actually having to adapt my driving to other vehicles at ordinary times of day or even wait behind others to pass a traffic light at busy times; and even if I did have a problem with it that wouldn’t be a valid reason to spend millions of dollars on road widenings.

You're absolutely right. We waste money on roads. But I think the worst thing that the regional engineers have done is refuse to even plan for flat or decreasing VMT. The current traffic plan still accounts for significant VMT increase. It's like, you're planning for failure...it's a great way to fail.

[Bytor]

You're absolutely right. We waste money on roads. But I think the worst thing that the regional engineers have done is refuse to even plan for flat or decreasing VMT. The current traffic plan still accounts for significant VMT increase. It's like, you're planning for failure...it's a great way to fail.

Given how swiftly our population is increasing, VMT is going to increase no matter what, even with GRT ridership growing as fast as it usually does. Even though vehicle mode share is slowly decreasing, the raw VMT is still growing.

[danbrotherston]

You're absolutely right. We waste money on roads. But I think the worst thing that the regional engineers have done is refuse to even plan for flat or decreasing VMT. The current traffic plan still accounts for significant VMT increase. It's like, you're planning for failure...it's a great way to fail.

Given how swiftly our population is increasing, VMT is going to increase no matter what, even with GRT ridership growing as fast as it usually does. Even though vehicle mode share is slowly decreasing, the raw VMT is still growing.

This is a fundamentally defeatist position. If VMT continues to rise over 30 years (their planning horizon) we will absolutely fail to address climate change. We need to stop accepting failure, we need to plan for success.

The most frustrating thing is that with transportation especially, planning for success is the best way to guarantee success. If instead of building and widening all our roads, we built bike lanes and expanded transit, we would have less cars.

And the examples you cite (growing VMT) are occurring because that is explicitly what we planned for. We need to stop thinking of the results of our decisions as "inevitable" and start thinking of them as "the results of our choices".

[plam]

Given how swiftly our population is increasing, VMT is going to increase no matter what, even with GRT ridership growing as fast as it usually does. Even though vehicle mode share is slowly decreasing, the raw VMT is still growing.

This is a fundamentally defeatist position. If VMT continues to rise over 30 years (their planning horizon) we will absolutely fail to address climate change. We need to stop accepting failure, we need to plan for success.

The most frustrating thing is that with transportation especially, planning for success is the best way to guarantee success. If instead of building and widening all our roads, we built bike lanes and expanded transit, we would have less cars.

And the examples you cite (growing VMT) are occurring because that is explicitly what we planned for. We need to stop thinking of the results of our decisions as "inevitable" and start thinking of them as "the results of our choices".

I don't think VMT has to increase, and I don't think we can afford for VMT to increase given climate. Although I believe even NZ is not planning for VMT to decrease to get to net 0, they're just planning for more EVs for the most part.

[danbrotherston]

This is a fundamentally defeatist position. If VMT continues to rise over 30 years (their planning horizon) we will absolutely fail to address climate change. We need to stop accepting failure, we need to plan for success.

The most frustrating thing is that with transportation especially, planning for success is the best way to guarantee success. If instead of building and widening all our roads, we built bike lanes and expanded transit, we would have less cars.

And the examples you cite (growing VMT) are occurring because that is explicitly what we planned for. We need to stop thinking of the results of our decisions as "inevitable" and start thinking of them as "the results of our choices".

I don't think VMT has to increase, and I don't think we can afford for VMT to increase given climate. Although I believe even NZ is not planning for VMT to decrease to get to net 0, they're just planning for more EVs for the most part.

Yeah, EVs aren't going to cut it unfortunately. If VMT doesn't rise, that would be a good start, sadly WR's transit plan include significant VMT increases.

I will say that the climate action plans being proposed and passed do have significant VMT reductions included in them. They are based in science with an eye towards what we need to do to succeed (or at least, are closer to that than other plans).

The problem is that the regional (and to some extent CoW) policies are not in alignment with that plan. And of course the Region redid their 10 year transportation plan in 2018...so they should redo it again in 2028, and it will start taking effect in 2030...or to put it another way...way too fucking late.

Of course, how could our transportation engineers have known that climate change would be a thing in 2021 all the way back in *checks notes*...2017.

We will see what council does, but I fear they will not be willing to force a change in staff's policy and culture, and I have little hope of Regional or CoW staff doing that on their own at this point. It is doubly difficult since they will be working against the existing transportation plan...a plan, which staff and council seem quite willing to compromise in the wrong direction...we can't even achieve the policy that will lead us to failure.

[jeffster]

So City of Waterloo voted to continue with leaf removal despite clear environmental arguments against it and it being almost the definition of a luxury service. You can't help but contrast it with the extreme resistance to clearing sidewalks of snow. I am unfortunately not surprised that passable sidewalks that are essential for lower income and often marginalized or vulnerable people is somehow a luxury that the city can't afford to address, but leaf removal that is absolutely not essential and basically just a nice thing for property owners is totally acceptable.

Having clear sidewalks make the city accessible to the less fortunate, something Waterloo would never do.