General Road and Highway Discussion

[Acitta]

Why no through traffic across Courtland?

I never noticed that sign. I always go straight through if I am going that way on my bike because I am heading for the bridge to Mill Street.

[ijmorlan]

Why no through traffic across Courtland?

I never noticed that sign. I always go straight through if I am going that way on my bike because I am heading for the bridge to Mill Street.

Hang on a second, it says “no through traffic”, not red-circle-with-a-slash-on-a-straight-arrow. So I don’t think going straight through the intersection is prohibited; actually it’s not clear to me that anything is prohibited. The sign just provides similar information to a “Dead End” sign. There is no point in continuing on Benton unless one is getting to one of the streets in that neighbourhood west of Courtland.

Why the lane marking is missing separating the right turn lane from the straight-through, I don’t know.

[Acitta]

I never noticed that sign. I always go straight through if I am going that way on my bike because I am heading for the bridge to Mill Street.

Hang on a second, it says “no through traffic”, not red-circle-with-a-slash-on-a-straight-arrow. So I don’t think going straight through the intersection is prohibited; actually it’s not clear to me that anything is prohibited. The sign just provides similar information to a “Dead End” sign. There is no point in continuing on Benton unless one is getting to one of the streets in that neighbourhood west of Courtland.

Why the lane marking is missing separating the right turn lane from the straight-through, I don’t know.

It looks like the lane marking has just been worn away. It looks like it is still faintly there.

[dtkvictim]

The region has literally no plans whatsoever. If it was left to regional staff, they'd repave it 4 lanes again.

But I'd appreciate you signing my petition: https://www.change.org/betterbenton

I'll be presenting these plans to regional council hopefully in September.

Also see:

https://betterbenton.netlify.app/

I have indeed signed this back when you first posted it. It just makes so much more sense than what we currently have...

Hang on a second, it says “no through traffic”, not red-circle-with-a-slash-on-a-straight-arrow. So I don’t think going straight through the intersection is prohibited; actually it’s not clear to me that anything is prohibited. The sign just provides similar information to a “Dead End” sign. There is no point in continuing on Benton unless one is getting to one of the streets in that neighbourhood west of Courtland.

Why the lane marking is missing separating the right turn lane from the straight-through, I don’t know.

It looks like the lane marking has just been worn away. It looks like it is still faintly there.

I think you are actually right. I checked street view and the straight through lane markings have always been quite faded, so maybe it's just gotten even worse. For some reason it just felt quite different from the previous times I had walked through. The sharrows are new though.

[dtkvictim]

MSP 20210813-IMG_0115 by Matt, on Flickr

An accurate capture of how this section feels. I love how you can see the word "Weber" in the lights from the bus.

[jeffster]

on Flickr

An accurate capture of how this section feels. I love how you can see the word "Weber" in the lights from the bus.

Sharp eye, I took me a while to find it, and I would have never found it had it never been mentioned.

[jamincan]

I can't quite comprehend why they widened that section of Weber, because it never really seems busy enough to justify it. Of course, that's true for far too many roads to count in this region.

[ac3r]

Is that the bend near the cemetery? That's a pretty busy section of Weber most of the time, especially for any traffic coming from Ottawa or the Stanely Park/Centerville/Grand River South areas. It beats using King Street IMO, especially near the Highway 7/8 interchange. That thing gets so backed up at certain times of the day, it's crazy.

[danbrotherston]

I can't quite comprehend why they widened that section of Weber, because it never really seems busy enough to justify it. Of course, that's true for far too many roads to count in this region.

Hitting the nail on the head here. Regional staff are obsessed with widening every road they can to four or five lanes. They are widening Highland Rd. right now even though they in the public consultation stated they don't expect traffic volumes to justify it even in their 30 year timeframe and their justification for widening it is to allow buses not to block traffic.

Yet our conservative self proclaimed "fiscal conservative" council doesn't even flinch.

I can rant about this any day any time.

[ijmorlan]

… their justification for widening it is to allow buses not to block traffic.

How much do you want to bet their design doesn’t even accomplish that?

Specifically, I imagine an intersection where a stopped bus occupies the right lane, while vehicles waiting to turn left occupy the left lane, resulting in no straight through traffic being able to proceed. Then the light turns red and everybody waits for another cycle.

If they really want to keep stopped buses out of the flow of traffic, they should put in bus bays and/or turn lanes as appropriate.

That being said, it’s OK if a certain amount of traffic has to wait for a bus once in a while. If they want to reduce delays to non-transit traffic, they should fix some of the signals on the LRT system where pedestrian and/or motor traffic is held even when there is no conflict with the LRT (King/Conestogo, King/Northfield, Erb/Caroline, King/Allen, King/Moore, King/Francis, Charles/Victoria, Charles/Benton, Duke/Frederick, Charles/Borden, Charles/Ottawa, Ottawa/Mill; wow, more than I realized when I started typing this). It’s just a pure deadweight loss, with no benefit to transit whatsoever.

[dtkvictim]

I can't quite comprehend why they widened that section of Weber, because it never really seems busy enough to justify it. Of course, that's true for far too many roads to count in this region.

their justification for widening it is to allow buses not to block traffic.

So they are widening it for a bus lane, right? Right...?

[danbrotherston]

… their justification for widening it is to allow buses not to block traffic.

How much do you want to bet their design doesn’t even accomplish that?

Specifically, I imagine an intersection where a stopped bus occupies the right lane, while vehicles waiting to turn left occupy the left lane, resulting in no straight through traffic being able to proceed. Then the light turns red and everybody waits for another cycle.

If they really want to keep stopped buses out of the flow of traffic, they should put in bus bays and/or turn lanes as appropriate.

That being said, it’s OK if a certain amount of traffic has to wait for a bus once in a while. If they want to reduce delays to non-transit traffic, they should fix some of the signals on the LRT system where pedestrian and/or motor traffic is held even when there is no conflict with the LRT (King/Conestogo, King/Northfield, Erb/Caroline, King/Allen, King/Moore, King/Francis, Charles/Victoria, Charles/Benton, Duke/Frederick, Charles/Borden, Charles/Ottawa, Ottawa/Mill; wow, more than I realized when I started typing this). It’s just a pure deadweight loss, with no benefit to transit whatsoever.

Nah, don't worry, they do accomplish that, they absolutely have turn lanes lol. More lanes is always better or so the Regional engineering mantra goes.

That being said, I'll give them credit, bus bays are bad for transit riders because buses are often delayed getting into traffic, and our regional engineers don't seem keen on implementing those. But I can only imagine it's because of institutional inertia, not because of any thoughtful consideration of the situation...or at least, that's what I assume based on all their other decisions that seem rooted in inertia.

And yeah, the signal issues are big time problematic for everyone. I think this is why I say it's inertia, none of their decisions seem to be based in careful consideration, just blindly applying rules, and those rules are derived from car dependent policies.

[jeffster]

I can't quite comprehend why they widened that section of Weber, because it never really seems busy enough to justify it. Of course, that's true for far too many roads to count in this region.

I don't think it was widened, as it has always been 2 lanes each way, or are you referring to road width? The did change the rail guards though. Still too many people zipping down that stretch way too fast. When you're crossing lanes (especially the yellow lane), you're moving too fast.

[danbrotherston]

I can't quite comprehend why they widened that section of Weber, because it never really seems busy enough to justify it. Of course, that's true for far too many roads to count in this region.

I don't think it was widened, as it has always been 2 lanes each way, or are you referring to road width? The did change the rail guards though. Still too many people zipping down that stretch way too fast. When you're crossing lanes (especially the yellow lane), you're moving too fast.

I mean, it wasn't widened in this most recent reconstruction, I assume Jaminican was referring to whenever in the past it was widened...it certainly hasn't always been 4 lanes.

[ijmorlan]

Nah, don't worry, they do accomplish that, they absolutely have turn lanes lol. More lanes is always better or so the Regional engineering mantra goes.

Not always. There are lots of places around the Region where there are 4 lane roads without turn lanes; many intersections would operate more smoothly if they were 2 lanes plus turn lanes than the way they actually are. I agree they want more lanes than are appropriate; I even agree that there is a pro-motor-vehicle bias; but it’s not a very smart pro-motor-vehicle bias. Even if one takes the position that motor vehicles must move smoothly they’re not doing a very good job of spending the road money.

That being said, I'll give them credit, bus bays are bad for transit riders because buses are often delayed getting into traffic, and our regional engineers don't seem keen on implementing those. But I can only imagine it's because of institutional inertia, not because of any thoughtful consideration of the situation...or at least, that's what I assume based on all their other decisions that seem rooted in inertia.

And yeah, the signal issues are big time problematic for everyone. I think this is why I say it's inertia, none of their decisions seem to be based in careful consideration, just blindly applying rules, and those rules are derived from car dependent policies.

Not sure how far back your memory of the Region goes, but some years ago they removed a number of bus bays. For example, there used to be one on King northbound at the highway interchange / Manulife entrance. I remember that they specifically adopted a policy of removing them because of the trouble buses had getting back into traffic. So at this point it’s institutional inertia, but it was deliberately adopted as an intentional policy at one time.