Times when staff didn't follow best practices or local policies for new infra

[danbrotherston]

What times are there where our Region's or Cities' planning staff did not follow best practices or local policies/guidelines for pedestrian safety and active transportation? Like if they didn't put a crosswalk in a place where it was recommended or recommended a type of crosswalk that was substandard, or left out bike lanes in a place where policy says new and reconstructed roads must have them. All examples welcome.

I would like to see crosswalks lit up (as in flashing white light). They seem extinct, yet there was one on Queen St at one time close to Courtland. Others have mentioned, the lack of crossing in/at the hydro corridor where the LRT runs. I would also would have liked trails, like Iron Horse also lit up. The colour for our LED lights on streets are wrong, as is the brightness. I'd also suggest a slight delay when the walk sign goes up, and when the light changes green. A lot of the things I mention could be changed now, or fairly easily. It makes it safer for pedestrians and when they interact with drivers, they reduce liabilities (real) for the driver (by making poor outcomes less likely).

Care to define "wrong"?

But yes, lighting on trails is a big missing items, the IHT is apparently getting lighting for it's entire length, many sections already have it, this is only added in the past couple years, but we have many other trails. It's worth noting that many MUTs do not have proper lighting because the lighting was focused on the roadway leaving the MUT very dark, and especially bad place is the MUT along Weber were it diverts to cross the tracks just before the spur line trail.

As for "crosswalks lit up with flashing white light", I'm not sure what you mean by this, do you mean with the overhead yellow flashing lights that look like this?

https://www.bulwarklegal.ca/blog/wp-cont...12x320.png

If so, Ontario has some very strange pedestrian crossing laws...frankly, some of the worst in North America.  What you are describing is an invented in Ontario idea called a "pedestrian crossover"...it is legally different from a crosswalk, and drivers have different responsibilities (they're supposed to stop). Up until a few years ago, it needed to have EXACTLY that signage and lighting, the requirements are very specific. ONLY when that signage was present did it change from being a "crosswalk" where drivers may or may not have to stop depending on some complex and obscure chriteria that nobody knows, to a pedestrian crossover (PXO) where they always must stop.

I'm not entirely sure why, but these went way out of vogue many years ago, there are still a few in the region [1] but they are no longer popular. I know a few contributing reasons, they were expensive that lighting is not cheap, and in many places the cost wasn't warranted, and it was also in effective, drivers still don't stop most of the time.

[1] Maybe, the one I was thinking of was onCourtland near Kent, but it's apparently an IPS now
https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.438715,-8...312!8i6656

The "new hotness" was intersection pedestrian signals (IPS) which are more or less a full traffic signal. It has the benefits that drivers fairly reliably stop, but the disadvantages of being even more expensive and having a very poor quality of service for peds and drivers (peds must wait much longer for a signal, drivers must wait till the signal is green even if the ped is long gone) they are generally just terrible, IMO, but sadly, seems the only way to get drivers to stop. There are a bunch of these around, like on University at the Laurel Trail.

In the past few years, Ontario approved for use a new form of PXO however, that provides more options for signage. It uses the rapidly flashing beacons, instead of the slow flash of the traditional PXO. It comes in many forms, from plain signs, to signs with lights, to the full overhead lighting system of the traditional PXO. Because it has more options for signage, engineers can use it in places where they couldn't afford and didn't feel the need to put a full overhead PXO, but still felt that they wanted to give peds the right of way. These are starting to appear in a few places, like in Victoria Park on Jubilee, and on West and Patricia at the trail to Sobeys, and on Park St. at the new trail to the transit terminal.  You'll also find these at every roundabout, technically, this is what the crossing at roundabouts are called, because if they were just crosswalks, they couldn't legally enforce the right of way of pedestrians since there is no traffic signal.

However, the "new hotness" comes with the old problems, drivers simply do not stop very often. Of course, in some cases this is simply due to the fact that Ontario laws are terrible, I think they had good intentions, but in most places drivers must always stop at crosswalks, in Ontario, only sometimes, and I bet 100% of drivers cannot tell you all the circumstances when you must stop and when you shouldn't, frankly, I don't think I could without looking it up, and I've looked it up before. So because there is no consistency in our law, there is no consistency in the behaviour, and that makes things dangerous.

Anyway, that rant aside, I guess part of my point is our traffic systems are broken at almost every level.

Oh, and for bonus points, the law doesn't allow PXOs and crossrides to be combined, therefore despite the addition of crossrides to the design guides there is no way to legally allow cyclists to cross at a PXO, because we couldn't risk Ontario doing something entirely right. This is the root cause of the (hey, something to add to the list) "Dutch inspired roundabout" giving pedestrians the right of way, but not cyclists...which is definitely not ever going to confuse any drivers ever.