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Homer Watson and Ottawa Three Lane Roundabouts
#61
   

Heart  Heart  Heart  Heart  Heart

It's so... beautiful! :: tear ::
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#62
(08-09-2017, 03:26 PM)Canard Wrote: Heart  Heart  Heart  Heart  Heart

It's so... beautiful!  :: tear ::

Not a popular opinion among the locals, but you do you.
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#63
I just like seeing impressive things. The more complicated, the better! It's no Magic Roundabout, but it's a close second!
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#64
Maybe it's the resolution, I'm not even sure what to make of it?

And as much as I prefer the most direct route, it sure looks like an area to avoid...at least for me anyways
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#65
Finally looked over the PDF - we're getting near the end of Stage 3, and transition to Stage 4 is probably within the week. Exciting!
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#66
For the Ottawa/Alpine roundabouts, my biggest grief is with the treatment of the sidewalks.

Here's the path to drive east/west through there:
   

And here's the path to walk:
   

It's yet another case of design for cars, and then pedestrians get fit in where there's space. They could have at least put in some effort to line up the multiple crosswalks that cross some of those roads, instead of having zig-zag-a-thons.
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#67
What would that look like in this context?
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#68
It's really interesting hearing the comments about the walking thing - so, what do you propose?  Sidewalks cannot be placed closer to roundabouts.  It is not safe.  Look at how other cities, everyone does it this way.  It is not a case of "Cars first! So unfair!", it's a case of... it's the best design for the goals at hand.

If you're walking and have to walk another little bit, you'll be even healthier.  This is like people who duck under the extra unused queue rails when there's one or two aisles open in theme park rides instead of just walking around to get to the end of the line up, and then they still have to stand still for an hour.  I totally don't get the mindset.  Just walk around!!

Am I the only one who feels this way?

I biked an extra 6 km last night, making my 24 km bike ride home from work 30 km, because Fountain St. is crap right now, and I didn't care at all - it was a beautiful day and I loved it.
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#69
(08-10-2017, 10:29 AM)Canard Wrote: It's really interesting hearing the comments about the walking thing - so, what do you propose?  Sidewalks cannot be placed closer to roundabouts.  It is not safe.  Look at how other cities, everyone does it this way.  It is not a case of "Cars first! So unfair!", it's a case of... it's the best design for the goals at hand.

It's the best design for vehicular throughput and convenience, with the best design for pedestrian safety (but not convenience) given that initial constraint.

Look at this:
   

Why did the pedestrian crossing on that northbound right turn lane go there?  And cause that zig-zag in that tiny pedestrian island?  Almost certainly because they followed the design book of "set back pedestrian crossing X metres from intersection", and not because that's where one would make sense.  They could have pushed back the pedestrian crossing for that right turn lane a few more metres and made the design much more accessible for people on mobility devices.

The zig-zag is also caused by the heavy flaring of the driving approaches to the circle.  Roundabout approaches don't need to flare out the way they do in our city. Many cities have them approach in a more direct fashion. The straight-through lane going north here almost seems designed to encourage and support right turns.

A bunch of the extra walking created by the roundabout crossings could also be reduced by just paving some trivial desire lines. These go through large grassy fields, and cut off a big chunk of the walk. There was no design from a pedestrian perspective.

   

Quote:I biked an extra 6 km last night, making my 24 km bike ride home from work 30 km, because Fountain St. is crap right now, and I didn't care at all - it was a beautiful day and I loved it.

That's wonderful that you feel that way, and I don't doubt that there are others who do, but when it gets down to it, for permanent civil infrastructure, I don't.
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#70
In another world, where road design was responsive to not just the needs, but also the wants of everything-but-cars, this could have been the pedestrian diagram:

   

And you know what I see there?  I see an opportunity for that northern path to be a trail with access for bikes.


(And here with the roundabout diagram below)
   
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#71
(08-10-2017, 11:22 AM)Markster Wrote: In another world, where road design was responsive to not just the needs, but also the wants of everything-but-cars, this could have been the pedestrian diagram:

And you know what I see there?  I see an opportunity for that northern path to be a trail with access for bikes.

(And here with the roundabout diagram below)

While the direct path would be nice, you'd still need the original path for people wanting to cross in the other direction. And I think two separate paths is probably what prevents this direct route. Maybe the one path should be somewhere in between the two?

This also reminded me - does anyone know if they are building the "possible multi-use trail" shown in the original design recommendation?

   
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#72
(08-10-2017, 11:33 AM)highlander Wrote: While the direct path would be nice, you'd still need the original path for people wanting to cross in the other direction. And I think two separate paths is probably what prevents this direct route. Maybe the one path should be somewhere in between the two?

And they should have the original path too! Cars get 6 lanes, surely the pedestrians can have an extra sidewalk?
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#73
(08-10-2017, 11:22 AM)Markster Wrote: In another world, where road design was responsive to not just the needs, but also the wants of everything-but-cars, this could have been the pedestrian diagram:

That's really not a big change as such, but we're a bit late in the game. What's the cost of building maybe 200-300m of MUT?  I'm guessing it shouldn't cost much more than $200K per kilometre, so 300m might be $60K, not so much to gain a big improvement.  Maybe worth reaching out to the region to see whether theu might be able to consider it?
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#74
But the new design gives pedestrians the right of way. The old design with lights meant they had to push "BEG BUTTONS!!!!" to get the privelage of crossing.

Now you can just keep on walking and cars yeild to you.

So it's really not fair to say there's no advantage here to pedestrians.
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#75
(08-10-2017, 11:12 AM)Markster Wrote: A bunch of the extra walking created by the roundabout crossings could also be reduced by just paving some trivial desire lines.  These go through large grassy fields, and cut off a big chunk of the walk.  There was no design from a pedestrian perspective.

What do you think about this design?

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Ooh, a roundabout. No, *you* cycled round it 3 times. <a href="https://t.co/tLBzVOgB5L">pic.twitter.com/tLBzVOgB5L</a></p>&mdash; The Euro Highwayman (@RantyHighwayman) <a href="https://twitter.com/RantyHighwayman/status/895970343713722369">August 11, 2017</a></blockquote>
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