ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[danbrotherston]

I have a masters degree in architecture/planning and this is seriously one of the weirdest things I've ever seen and it's obviously problematic.

We have architects, planners, and engineers to thank for the horrendously pedestrian-unfriendly cities we currently find ourselves in, and this exact intersection. Within that context, this is an incredibly unpersuasive appeal to authority.

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I think with this particular intersection, it's useful to compare it to Caroline & Erb as both have unprotected slip lanes.

King -> Victoria:
- light use with LRT
- slow
- pedestrian island very small and unclear due to unfortunate similarities between crosswalk marks and the textured indicators at the edge of the island, it's not readily apparent whether pedestrians should wait on the "island"
- risk is relatively low: professional operators of LRT vehicles, and slow speed in a position where pedestrians are expected; pedestrians on the other hand might be less attentive to the presence of the LRT

Caroline -> Erb:
- cars only
- heavy use by cars
- fast, commonly disregard the pedestrian crossing
- pedestrian island large and clear
- risk is high: inattentive drivers, little requirement to stop due to nature of intersection, except pedestrians; pedestrians on the other hand are more likely to be highly attentive due to risk

It would seem to me, that both intersections would warrant improvements and that Caroline to Erb is a much higher priority due to the risk involved. At the same time, it's hard to understand why they couldn't just move the beg buttons to other side of the tracks and delay the walk signal until the LRT has passed. As low as the risk is, if you roll the dice enough times, eventually you roll snake eyes.

I'm not sure in pure square footage if the Caroline island is any larger. What is clear though, is that it is massively undersized, both in its ability to *BE* larger (there is tons of wasted road space) and in its NEED to be larger (there are big crowds of people using it). But it helps that it is clearly defined by asphalt instead of the the concrete LRT tracks.

As for moving the buttons, that could have been done when it was built, but can no longer be done easily, there are no poles on the others side to put either the button or the pedestrian signal. I suspect it would require significant work to run wiring under the tracks to get to the other side. But also, these aren't beg buttons, they're just accessibility buttons. If the correct sensors are present in the track (which I don't know that they are) the lights could just be programmed not to come on when the train is passing. Of course, this would be very frustrating to pedestrians who are on the island and would now be crossing illegally. In terms of easy improvements, the LRT right of way could be painted, I know Aus has used yellow hashmarks on theirs. But I'm not totally convinced that someone who doesn't notice the tracks would notice yellow markings.

Pretty much anything you do is going to be a trade off unless we are willing to do expensive reworking of curbs. But I agree, it is not the top of the priority list. For me, it is very very low down the list. I'm not exaggerating when I say there are probably five hundred intersections I'd fix before this one.