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General Road and Highway Discussion
(02-28-2018, 01:17 PM)Section ThirtyOne Wrote: The speed humps as they are installed now do nothing to slow down traffic along that stretch. Cars can go over them without issue at 60km/h+, I see it regularly riding along this stretch. I'd love to see how much money has been spent on rebuilding this road to the state it is now.

IMO this appears to be a perfect example of an influential, vocal group getting whatever they want despite little to no actual improvement in safety.

I don't know that the "influential, vocal group" got "whatever they wanted".   They got something but as folks have posted, speed has not really been reduced and bike safety has not really been improved.  And they got a streetscape that is quite unattractive.  I wonder if the city has acted out of spite.  If I lived on glasgow, I would want the street returned to its former glory and I would pester police to be present to ticket speeders.
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According to The Record, WRPS did a grand total of 1.1 hours of traffic enforcement on that entire section of Glasgow St in 2015.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/612...oo-region/
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Rumble strips on the white line would do more to keep cars from drifting into the bike lane than those stupid curbs.
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Everyone move to the back of the bus and we all get home faster.
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I was driving past the construction for the new Victoria Street bridge and it seemed like there was an absolutely enormous pier on the east side of the highway. I don't drive by there everyday, and I'm usually focused on the road, so it might have just been a form (it seems a bit quick for a pier to pop up), but it makes me wonder if they might be doing some preliminary work on the final interchange at this point in time to limit interruptions to traffic.
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(04-10-2018, 09:55 PM)jamincan Wrote: I was driving past the construction for the new Victoria Street bridge and it seemed like there was an absolutely enormous pier on the east side of the highway. I don't drive by there everyday, and I'm usually focused on the road, so it might have just been a form

I saw that yesterday as well.  Today it was lying on its side so it's just a form.  They're putting in the bridge piers.
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City of Waterloo is considering an incremental 1.5% annual tax increase for 10 years to enable infrastructure repairs. Based on my interpretation, it's a 1.5% increase in the first year, maintained for 10 years, not ten 1.5% increases over 10 years. (in 2032 the RIM Park payments will be completed, freeing $2M per year.)
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/839...e-repairs/

1.5% of the current tax base is about $1.1M, so this is not a massive amount of money. The current capital budget is roughly $40M/year, so this is not even a 3% increase on that. Unless I'm wrong and they plan to do 10 increases of 1.5%.
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I think its a 1.5% increase each year.
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(04-17-2018, 03:58 PM)SammyOES Wrote: I think its a 1.5% increase each year.

That would take the total to about 16% in the 10th year, or about $11M.  Bumped by a further $2M once RIM Park is paid off.

If correct, this would be much more significant. And if the council can gather enough courage and actually vote in the tax increase.
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(04-17-2018, 04:12 PM)tomh009 Wrote: If correct, this would be much more significant. And if the council can gather enough courage and actually vote in the tax increase.

Well, since the decision is after the election, they can vote it in and be safe for at least 4 years. Although it'll interesting to see if anyone gets voted in being specifically against the increase then votes for it and uses the "I didn't have all the info" excuse. Or maybe they're hoping for some miracle funding to come from another layer of government.

The pattern of municipal tax increases seems to be city/regional staff warn of needing X% increases due to reasons, scare the public for a few weeks, then the city/region passes an increase of (X/n)% and look like they gave taxpayers a break. Meanwhile, every year we get to read about infrastructure deficits growing i just about every city & region.

I realize I'm sounding awfully cynical here. I think there are a lot of issues in spending and revenue generation for cities that need to be dealt with, some at the provincial level (who I'm sure would love money from the federal level). So far I'm not hearing much talk of this in the lead-up to the provincial election. Sure, all the money comes from somewhere but some taxes/tools are less painful than others, and right now cities only have one tool.
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What's notable about the story Jeff Outhit put in The Record is that the do-nothing approach takes our current stock of poor condition infrastructure from 30% today to 62% in 2042, while the current proposal takes it from 30% today to 42% in 2042. So as much as council is talking about not wanting to keep kicking the can down the road, they're still kicking the can down the road, buying a bit of time, but not buying an actual solution.
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My beef is with trucks who hog the centre lane when the right lane is clear. Keep right except to pass should be enforced. People would learn fairly quick.
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The rule for trucks on highways is as follows:

2 lanes: can occupy either lane; keep right except to pass (which they always seem to do at a 1 km/h speed delta, creating a massive clog behind them)
3 lanes: can occupy right two lanes. Cannot travel in leftmost lane.
4 lanes: can occupy right three lanes. Cannot travel in leftmost lane.
Etc.

I’ve noticed almost every-other day that trucks traveling WB at afternoon rush hour on 401 between 24 and 8 will jump into the left lane to bypass the slower traffic on the right. This is so incredibly dangerous and drives me nuts when I see them do it.
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