General Road and Highway Discussion

[Pheidippides]

I haven't finished watching the planning and works meeting yet, but so far I am not impressed.

First of all the chart comparing the rate of fatal collisions between Waterloo Region and Sweden (also found on page 111) does not seem like a fair comparison.
   

For one, it seems like they are comparing the number of collisions resulting in a fatality it Waterloo Region per 100,000 vs. the number of fatalities resulting from collisions in Sweden (severe collisions can often result in more than one fatality per collision which would result in a higher rate). I can confirm the regional values, but not the Swedish ones because there is no data source cited for the Swedish data.

Plus, something doesn't feel right about the fact that they are looking at fatalities on the regional road network (~700km), but using the entire regional population as the denominator.

Then there was the interpretation of this chart as a "trend line moving down." I see fluctuations around the average:
   

Some of the quotes in the staff presentation are pretty infuriating too:
“…given the complexities of intersections and traffic signals turning motorists often don’t see because of the complexities of turning they don’t see pedestrians crossing in crosswalks...“ - so simplify the design or give a protective phase

“…pedestrians they are not running out on to the road when they are not supposed to be…” - so make those mistakes more forgiving when that does happen by lowering speed limits/narrowing streets

“…cyclists are riding through crosswalks and that might be contributing factor to those collisions…” - find out why they riding on sidewalk and fix that

“…the region is really in a nutshell operating quite well in terms of the number of fatal collisions that are occurring on its roads…” - so anything above zero is ok then?

I just got to the councillors' comments and questions in the recording and had to turn it off because I got too upset by the first set of comments and questions that asked why pedestrians can't be targeted with education to not wear all dark clothing and why more signage couldn't be added to help motorist look out for pedestrians.

No mentions of lower speed limits or sharper turning radius anywhere.