Road design, safety and Vision Zero

[danbrotherston]

I believe garbage trucks, buses and firetrucks (and medium trucks of all kinds) can navigate a 9 m turn radius without significant disruption.

It was roads without bus routes or major commercial destinations can manage with a smaller turn radii designed for sedans 1-3 m...larger vehicles can still navigate those roads by significantly exceeding the single lane space, but those vehicles are unusual, no need for to design for them.  There's an argument to be made for garbage trucks as being "frequent", but those come 1-2 times per week, not a high frequency. And emergency vehicles like firetrucks are already intended to monopolize the whole road.

But I mean, this is the recommendation of our complete streets guide in Kitchener, it's not a particularly extreme position. Yet our regional engineers routinely (to this day) use 15m+ turn radii on residential streets. The disconnect is enormous.

Is it the regional engineers using 15m, whereas the city engineers are following the recommendations?

Yes, while it's not hard and fast (there are better regional engineers, and worse city engineers) in my experience city engineers are on average far more progressive. The complete streets guide is an example of real progress, but even in individual projects, they often do better without that specific guidance.

Regional engineers on average seem to be focused almost exclusively on maximizing vehicular throughput. There are some signs of change (regional engineers called it a good thing that speeds decreased with the COVID pilot, also, the COVID pilot), but they have a lot of catching up to do. And worse, their roads are the biggest problem with road safety and with active transport in the region.

My pointing out of the city guide was only to demonstrate that my ask (9 m corner radii maximum with a 3 meter typical for smaller roads) isn't a crazy ask, and is in fact the recommendation in certain places.