Trails

[ijmorlan]

The Weber crossing is a whole other beast.  There is plenty of room to make it wider and the fact that it is so terribly under sized makes me unwilling to trust engineers.  So when they come and say this is what we are doing on Queen or suggest that it cannot be widened I am less likely to take their word for it.

The King St. bicycle lanes are another example of a clear screw-up that reduces my default faith in expertise.

[ijmorlan]

Queen: Do you know for a fact that a snowplough could fit through a narrower lane with curbs on both sides?

Weber: Please draw a diagram explaining how you think it could have been made wider without moving the outside lanes, encroaching nearby properties.

Not sure about Queen, but on Weber there are boulevards on both sides. On the west side there is a strip of grass between the sidewalk and the parking lot and building. Also, I strongly suspect the traffic lanes are wider than they need to be. Given the nature of the road, it’s probably appropriate to have wide lanes for most of the road, but there is no reason they couldn’t narrow slightly near the crossing. Even taking 20cm from each lane (i.e., not much) would give an extra 80cm to the island. Or take a full lane width by using the boulevard space. Or a combination. It’s pretty obvious when you look at it in Google Maps:

https://goo.gl/maps/GqTjSJpwZxR2

A quick measurement suggests that the space between the existing sidewalks is over 20m, which is enough for 4 lanes 3.75m wide (wider than the approximately 3.6m currently in place) plus a 5m island. Of course I wouldn’t be in favour of eliminating the boulevard completely but it’s pretty clear there is space.

Even if encroachment on neighboring properties were needed, I fail to see how this is a problem. If the traffic engineers determined that a longer left turn lane was needed, and this required encroachment, they would probably just go ahead and do it. Why should non-motor-vehicle infrastructure be any different?

[danbrotherston]

Queen: Do you know for a fact that a snowplough could fit through a narrower lane with curbs on both sides?

Weber: Please draw a diagram explaining how you think it could have been made wider without moving the outside lanes, encroaching nearby properties.

I am out of town right now so I can't exactly give you on the ground pictures.

Queen I am just looking at the satellite pictures.  The edge line should be painted 3.35 - 3.65 m from the median. Snow plows are just trucks that are less than 3 meters wide, so they would definitely fit.

Now neither I nor the region actually knows what the effect of narrowing the lane to just 3.65 curb to curb distance would be on operations, perhaps they could test it, say using temporary materials or something but in my experience the engineers have absolutely no interest or incentive to testing out something which isn't written in their design books.

As for Weber there are no images on maps yet but I looked carefully when I was there because I was astonished how narrow it was.  There are boulevards on both sides with a possibility of needing to move a hydro pole.  But even without moving the pole the road actually narrows after the culvert to where the island is.

Edit: I realize I already have a picture of the boulevard from during construction:

   

There is space to widen without moving poles on one side.

[jamincan]

I think there's a good case to be made for narrowing the traffic lanes before and after the traffic lane island anyway as it's an effective way to slow down traffic.

[Viewfromthe42]

The more I use the UpTown segregated bike lanes, while I do always see at least one car parked on them, and several more wanting to make a 1m+ gap to traffic lanes and so their tires are well onto part of the path, my bigger trouble has been pedestrians, and the same now in Waterloo Park. We don't have a lot of places in the region where it's clear whether the surface is a sidewalk (pedestrians only), a MUT (pedestrians and bicycles), or a separate bike lane (bikes only, like UpTown and Waterloo Park). Even at intersections, pedestrians are staring at the back-set crossrides with a bike symbol, and they line up to walk in those, rather than the crosswalk. Away from intersections, there are plenty of pedestrians who walk in the bike lanes, see me coming, and don't even move as I approach, or slow down. In Germany, the red colour of the bike lanes is very well avoided by pedestrians, and we might need to start using consistent markings to indicate pedestrian/mixed/bike pathways, along with appropriate education campaigns.

Any suggestions for the safest way to get from Victoria Park to Galt by bike? I've never gone farther south than Rockway and maybe one trip to MEC.

[Canard]

I do the following as I approach clueless pedestrians:

1. :single ding of bell:
2. :double ding of bell:
3. :begin 2.0+/- 0.2 Hz unending dinging of bell:
4. Swerve around them while firmly stating “BIKE LANE” at them as they look up from their phones, mortified that there is a world around them, and wonder what is happening

...I have also discovered another trick. If you’re cycling and you make eye contact with a group of oncoming pedestrians in a wide clump taking up the whole MUT, they will not move. They assume “ah, he saw me, he’ll move around me so I can just stay where I am hogging the whole trail. Not my problem!”.

BUT! If you notice them... and then avert your gaze, when they see that you aren’t looking directly at them, they assume “oh, I have to move I guess” AND THEY MOVE. It’s pure magic. I do this all the time now.

[timc]

My solution for MUTs is to ride on the road.

[ijmorlan]

BUT! If you notice them... and then avert your gaze, when they see that you aren’t looking directly at them, they assume “oh, I have to move I guess” AND THEY MOVE. It’s pure magic. I do this all the time now.

Awesome! I think the only thing left for you to do is combine two interests, and fix a train horn to your bicycle. Somewhere there is footage of people driving around in a very small car equipped with a train horn.

[tomh009]

BUT! If you notice them... and then avert your gaze, when they see that you aren’t looking directly at them, they assume “oh, I have to move I guess” AND THEY MOVE. It’s pure magic. I do this all the time now.

Awesome! I think the only thing left for you to do is combine two interests, and fix a train horn to your bicycle. Somewhere there is footage of people driving around in a very small car equipped with a train horn.

Or a cow-catcher!

[chutten]

The more I use the UpTown segregated bike lanes, while I do always see at least one car parked on them, and several more wanting to make a 1m+ gap to traffic lanes and so their tires are well onto part of the path, my bigger trouble has been pedestrians, and the same now in Waterloo Park. We don't have a lot of places in the region where it's clear whether the surface is a sidewalk (pedestrians only), a MUT (pedestrians and bicycles), or a separate bike lane (bikes only, like UpTown and Waterloo Park). Even at intersections, pedestrians are staring at the back-set crossrides with a bike symbol, and they line up to walk in those, rather than the crosswalk. Away from intersections, there are plenty of pedestrians who walk in the bike lanes, see me coming, and don't even move as I approach, or slow down. In Germany, the red colour of the bike lanes is very well avoided by pedestrians, and we might need to start using consistent markings to indicate pedestrian/mixed/bike pathways, along with appropriate education campaigns.

Any suggestions for the safest way to get from Victoria Park to Galt by bike? I've never gone farther south than Rockway and maybe one trip to MEC.

Riding home this evening through Waterloo Park I noticed they had installed the first "pedestrians this side, cyclists that side" sign pair up by the ION station. Nice design, and people were following it.

Now they need to install a second pair of signs at the bridges on the Perimeter Institute side and I think that'll sort most trail users through that stretch. Very pleasant.

[Canard]

Oh thank god.

[tomh009]

Good for pedestrians too.

[tomh009]

I can't believe that dangerous gates such as those are on the plan. Have we not learned anything?

Have there been serious injuries or deaths caused by such gates, that we should have learned from? Am not trolling, I simply would like to know the severity of the issue and the incidents that we should have learned from.

[danbrotherston]

I can't believe that dangerous gates such as those are on the plan. Have we not learned anything?

Have there been serious injuries or deaths caused by such gates, that we should have learned from? Am not trolling, I simply would like to know the severity of the issue and the incidents that we should have learned from.

A cyclist was killed in Victoria park after crashing into the gates around the railway.  It is a main reason that the crossing was reconstructed and the gates were opened .

[tomh009]

Have there been serious injuries or deaths caused by such gates, that we should have learned from? Am not trolling, I simply would like to know the severity of the issue and the incidents that we should have learned from.

A cyclist was killed in Victoria park after crashing into the gates around the railway.  It is a main reason that the crossing was reconstructed and the gates were opened .

Thanks. What were the circumstances? For example, was it in the dark? (Now the trail is lit.) Or were there other contributing factors why the cyclist had such a serious (and presumably high-speed) crash?

Does this regularly happen in other cities, too? My attempts at searching were unsuccessful, possibly I'm not using the right keywords for the search.