Walking in Waterloo Region

[danbrotherston]

I think this is the article: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/kitchener...-1.5352984

It includes:

Barry Cronkite, director of transportation for the City of Kitchener says changing the current roundabout at Huron and Strasburg to a a Dutch-influenced version would place a higher priority on vulnerable users, such as pedestrians and cyclists.

"There'd be an outer ring that's dedicated strictly for cycling facilities ... and we would highlight it with green paint," said Cronkite.

"We would pull the [pedestrian] crossings ... farther away from the circle itself."

I can't find an accompanying article on CBC, but a few weeks ago the City of Kitchener's Director of Infrastructure or Transportation or something similar was commenting on the possibility of protected bike lanes in roundabouts, and included mention of plans to reduce people getting his by cars, by moving the crosswalks further away from the intersections.

The logic is impeccable to me: obviously you could reduce the number of people getting hit by cars while walking to practically zero if you make walking so inconvenient that nobody does it.

So the crosswalks at that roundabout are close to the roundabout, the closest is only 4 meters, and others are 6 or 7.  I personally believe this is still acceptable, but CoK does not, but even then, they are moving the back to only 8 meters (the position of the crosswalks in the other roundabouts we were discussing).  Others have argued for more, but as the engineer points out moving them farther back reduces compliance.