Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[danbrotherston]

Kitchener has been doing such a good job at retrofitting trail crossings to be safer, but the Region just hasn't. And of course all of the regional roads are the busiest ones. The Dom Cardillo Trail has at least 3 crossings across 4 lanes of traffic with absolutely zero pedestrian infrastructure (two on River, one on Fairway, ranging from 80m-440m away from the nearest protected intersection). There's this presumed push to make sure everyone has good access to greenspace near their homes, but those sorts of crossings are like a chasm you have to navigate, and a lot of people won't, especially if they have mobility issues or small kids.

This is exactly on point. My parents always ask why we moved away when we had a kid, they'd have been less upset if we didn't have a kid...well...it's the reverse, I moved away BECAUSE we had a kid....because I'm willing to be an asshole and risk my life to fight to make the city better...but I'm unwilling to sacrifice my child or their freedom to that same goal, I moved because the city ran out of time to make itself a place I wanted to raise a child.

As for the crossing...yeah, the Weber crossing is probably the single event that cause me to lose any belief in the competence of our regional engineers. Like, before, I thought they didn't want to build non-car infra, that they were tasked with prioritizing cars. It was only after they built the Weber crossing, that I realized they were incapable of building good infrastructure. After I saw that I knew that it wasn't just a matter of changing a few minds...you needed new people. And frankly, I think that also explains a little bit why there is such a resistance...these engineers see their own skills becoming obsolete, they don't even have to be car brained, it's basic self preservation. No different than oil workers being terrified at the prospect of having their entire industry relegated to the scrapheap of history.