Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[danbrotherston]

So, the ASE pilot is actually happening now, which is great news. It also appears to be effective...which is even better.

https://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/automated-s...-1.5892592

This is not a surprise to anyone. The media coverage kind of is. I'm surprised that they didn't choose to interview anyone opposing them, or complaining about a cash grab. Seems that is actually common, if unnecessary and problematic. It's pretty typical for the kind of false "both sides" nonsense that most media uses. So I am impressed here.

However, a tip for the public communication folks (at the region, and the paper) specifically the quote from Bob Henderson is poor.

"Approximately a five to six kilometre per hour reduction in the speeds"

This implies that everyone has slowed down by 5 or 6 km/h. Even if he more correctly said "average speeds", which he may have and it just got lost, it really isn't the important bit.

If everyone was going 45km/h and they slowed down to 39 or 40km/h. That would still be good, but would be a lot less meaningful than the ACTUAL change which is that most people were already doing 40-45km/h but SOME people were doing 50-70km/h and THOSE people have slowed down.

This is alluded to later in the article but it is buried pretty deeply, but good communications should raise it much more prominently because it focuses more on the biggest problem, and also those most impacted (i.e., the people getting tickets).

One other thing I noticed:

"He said there were some unanticipated costs, including hydro metering, and the hiring of electrical contractors to make connections between ASE sites and hydro services."

How did they not anticipate needing to make electrical connections to electrically powered cameras?

In any case, good on them for FINALLY getting these in place and in service. Seems like they dragged their feet on this, but the results speak for themselves.