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Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - tvot - 03-08-2016
[First time poster, long time lurker. Sorry if I'm posting in the wrong place. I did a search and didn't find an existing thread to use.]
Got the notification for new sidewalks in Uptown West in the mail today. Here are the links to the city website:
Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study
Preliminary Sidewalk Designs
Public information session:
Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2016
Time: Drop in any time between 6 and 8 p.m.
Location: Knox Waterloo Presbyterian Church, 50 Erb St. W., Waterloo
Interesting to see a few sections of streets becoming one way:
- Dawson, between Beverly & Roslin
- Norman, between Roslin & Dunbar
- Severn
Another interesting choice is the sidewalk on Roslin from William to John will switch sides at Norman.
What do people think?
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - MidTowner - 03-08-2016
Welcome to the forum, tvot! Great first post.
I don't live in the neighbourhood, and only occasionally find myself passing through there, so don't feel comfortable having a strong opinion about the specific measures being taken. I think a lot of the tools that they are proposing to use are very exciting to see in a strategic way like this in an established neighbourhood and I hope the various municipalities consider using them more extensively. I can see one-way streets for cars, or diverters, being useful in my own neighbourhood for traffic calming.
I will say this: you're right that it's interesting that the sidewalk on Roslin switches sides, and I really don't understand why putting sidewalks on both sides of the street can't be done. I'm sure there's a reason of which I'm ignorant, but it seems to me that sidewalks (continuous ones, on both sides of the street) should be a priority in a neighbourhood so close to Waterloo's core.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - megabytephreak - 03-09-2016
I used to live in the north-west quadrant of this neighborhood. At the time I didn't have a car, so I did a lot of walking and biking. I generally found it nice to walk in and certainly never felt that vehicle speeds were leading to an unsafe situation.
I can get behind the sidewalks, the streets here are straight and fast enough to justify them. In general I'm not always a fan, I've lived in some suburban areas that were perfectly walkable without even curbs. They had reasonably wide, but generally curvy streets, and interacted much less with arterial roads.
A lot of the traffic calming measures seem excessive and confusing. Some of the more basic things, like the speed bumps on Roslin make sense to me. The diverters (never heard them called that before, seems like a way to avoid saying 'make impassable') seem undesirable to me, as they break up internal traffic flow as well. I'd prefer to see speed bumps/raised intersections.
Some one ways might work well if applied carefully. From a ease of navigation standpoint it seems like long one way segments, or short ones with the remainder being two way are much better than the opposed segments. Nothing more fustrating than being able to see your destination, but having to go around the long way to get there. I know this is somewhat at odds with traffic calming. Perhaps opposing the segments off a fixed inner road is a good alternative (eg. opposing one ways running North-South branching off of William.
Anyways, that's my initial thoughts.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - jamincan - 03-09-2016
I used to live at Dawson and Roslin, so I know the area quite well. I don't really see the necessity for the one way on Dawson. Scarcely anyone uses it as it is and speed has never been a huge issue along it due to the high number of stop signs.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - tomh009 - 03-09-2016
Could it be to allow for separated bike lanes?
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - chutten - 03-09-2016
I ride Dawson nearly its entire length when I bike home from work. There is essentially no one using that road but me and the occasional resident.
Now, that's just a slice of time in the early evening on some weekdays, and that's just the present (who knows what uptown intensification projects might do)... but everything South of Erb and North of Alexandra has no access to uptown at all, so I don't see what might drive traffic to the streets in between.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - BuildingScout - 03-09-2016
(03-09-2016, 11:17 AM)chutten Wrote: I ride Dawson nearly its entire length when I bike home from work. There is essentially no one using that road but me and the occasional resident.
Now, that's just a slice of time in the early evening on some weekdays, and that's just the present (who knows what uptown intensification projects might do)... but everything South of Erb and North of Alexandra has no access to uptown at all, so I don't see what might drive traffic to the streets in between.
I think the neighbourhood might be overreacting to increased traffic due to the construction, forgetting that once the LRT is finished things would go back to normal, meaning I never drove in any of those streets in over 20 years of residence @ RoW... until the LRT construction.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - MidTowner - 03-09-2016
(03-09-2016, 12:15 PM)BuildingScout Wrote: I think the neighbourhood might be overreacting to increased traffic due to the construction, forgetting that once the LRT is finished things would go back to normal, meaning I never drove in any of those streets in over 20 years of residence @ RoW... until the LRT construction.
I expect you’re very right that the neighbourhood is seeing increased rat-running as a result of LRT construction- mine is, too, and I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not a permanent situation, but one that will abate a bit soon.
But the results of the study weren’t based on LRT construction traffic- the study was commissioned three years ago as a response to neighbourhood comments. Feedback from residents was gathered two years ago, I think.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - tvot - 03-09-2016
Thankfully, the meeting on the 30th is just on the sidewalks, and not on the other proposals. Those were covered by a meeting the other year and thankfully the city & council decided to take a wait & see approach instead of acting with no evidence. Living in the neighbourhood I saw most of the plans as being more inconvenience for residents, and there are no studies to show any traffic calming is needed.
As for sidewalks, I'm generally in favour of sidewalks. I'm primarily a pedestrian/cyclist/transit person. I know the traffic is usually not bad in theses spots, and I see plenty of people walking along Dawson, but I'm aware of a few close calls. Generally it's at night, since Dawson was really dark between Roslin & Beverly (they just added a new street light in January on the new hydro pole). Traffic does pick up for services at Our Lady of Lourdes and at the mosque at Erb & Westmount (people park along Dawson from Westmount to Roslin).
Talking with neighbours yesterday, the one-way section on Dawson might be a way to mitigate problems due to the grade in this area. One of the driveways is pretty steep going down into a garage, way too steep to be nice to walk on as a sidewalk. If the street remains 2-way, either the sidewalk would be uncomfortably slanted or that driveway would be a problem for vehicles. I'm not sure how the sidewalk will impact stormwater & drainage.
I haven't heard anyone against the plan, but as to whether sidewalks are needed it seems to be a 50-50 split.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - mpd618 - 03-10-2016
(03-09-2016, 12:41 PM)MidTowner Wrote: But the results of the study weren’t based on LRT construction traffic- the study was commissioned three years ago as a response to neighbourhood comments. Feedback from residents was gathered two years ago, I think.
There's a strong sentiment from this neighbourhood that it shouldn't have to have vehicular through traffic of any quantity, that it can be someone else's problem. Maybe even in someone else's backyard.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - MidTowner - 03-10-2016
(03-10-2016, 12:12 AM)mpd618 Wrote: There's a strong sentiment from this neighbourhood that it shouldn't have to have vehicular through traffic of any quantity, that it can be someone else's problem. Maybe even in someone else's backyard.
I don’t live in this neighbourhood and only occasionally pass through it, but if you’re correct in saying that the sentiment is that they shouldn’t have “vehicular through traffic of any quantity,” I don’t think that’s unreasonable. Why should people be able to rat run in their cars on these residential streets?
It’s not fair to imply that residents who don’t want to see through traffic on their streets are selfish or NIMBYish. We have built arterial streets to accommodate through traffic, and those are what through traffic should use. Residential streets like these, with families living alongside them, should be maintained for local traffic and other uses.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - schooner77 - 03-10-2016
Agreed, residential streets are exactly that, for residential traffic, not a shortcut for impatience. Categorizing the people of that neighbourhood as NIMBYish, doesn't really help.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - Markster - 03-10-2016
The exercise started as a reaction to a City of Waterloo planning document that casually labelled some of the streets as "minor collectors". due to their relative straightness and directness through the neighbourhood.
That sparked a strong reaction, as there was a fear that this would lead to upgrading of the streets to directly serve through traffic. (i.e. widening, eliminating stop signs, etc)
And so through their Councillor Melissa Durrell, they had this classification reversed, and, as a active preventative measure, the Uptown West Traffic Study was initiated for the purpose of preemptively stopping a hypothetical dramatic increase of traffic due to the new condo construction on King St.
Personally, I think it's absurd.
The neighbourhood is fine as-is. I've done the "cut through the local streets" thing in there, and the existing network of stop signs already does a fine job of discouraging it. It's rarely faster. Yes, these are "local" streets, but they are still public streets, and provide useful disaster-relief for the road network. Look at the chaos that happened around the Columbia closure at the railway tracks. When there is literally no redundancy, one closure has huge effects.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - MidTowner - 03-10-2016
They’re actually not “local” streets in quotation marks; they are just local streets. Isn’t that their designation?
I understand the need for redundancy in the network, but none of these streets seem to provide redundancy that isn’t provided somewhere else. I’m also not sure how big a consideration should be given to relief from “disasters” (which are by definition infrequent) compared with the every day liveability of our neighbourhoods.
It’s a good idea to plan the street network proactively when development can be foreseen. I’ve lived in neighbourhoods with significant rat-running- the practice pre-dated me and so I couldn’t very well complain. Additionally, though, it would have been pretty unlikely to get significant traffic calming put in place when so many people in cars were accustomed to using the neighbourhood streets as through-streets. If these streets are not commonly used by rat-runners (but, apparently, to some extent), but we can anticipate that they might be because they’re straight and traffic-generators are being built nearby, it’s a perfect time to implement traffic calming to discourage through traffic. If residents are reactionary instead of proactive, in ten years they might find themselves wanting solutions to genuinely unsafe and unpleasant conditions, but up against a significant number of motorists who have come to see themselves as entitled to drive through their neighbourhoods.
I think a lot of what things like this come down to, unfortunately, is what different people think a street should be. It can’t be disputed that these are public streets, but not all streets should prioritize fast car traffic.
RE: Uptown West Neighbourhood Transportation Study -- Sidewalks - Markster - 03-10-2016
(03-10-2016, 01:00 PM)MidTowner Wrote: I think a lot of what things like this come down to, unfortunately, is what different people think a street should be. It can’t be disputed that these are public streets, but not all streets should prioritize fast car traffic.
I completely agree with that!
I think these streets shouldn't prioritize cars. However, I also think that they shouldn't break the grid.
Stop signs, yield signs, mini-roundabouts, and neck-downs are great solutions that I would be on board with.