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.

This could be a thread which rivals the ION thread.

There are a few classes of these things, each with a few examples:

1.  Staff straight up did not follow their own or provincial guidelines.

Staff install "cyclists dismount" signs despite that being explicitly counter-indicated by the MTOs traffic manuals.

Many new "refuge islands" are between slightly and extremely substandard.

Bike lanes that are too narrow, see Park St. to meet the standards.

Staff proposed removing a sidewalk on the Weber St. LRT overpass, and putting in a bike lane next to the vertical bridge abutment, this violates MTO guidelines for width on bridges...I brought this up in council, and the tranportation commissioner stated I was wrong. Later this design was withdrawn.

Staff proposed cutting down trees to widen Westmount Rd. for turn lanes but without bike lanes, even though bike lanes are required in all regional transportation plans. Transportation commissioner stated in council that this was a simple "shave and pave" no real work was being done, just a few turn lanes, and no trees are lost. Again, this design was withdrawn later.

2. Staff interpret guidelines in an aggressively car focused manner, and use it as an excuse for inadequate designs which do not meet best practices.

We have some "context sensitive design guidelines"...meaning, some places should be car focused some places should be less car focused. I have never in my life seen the "less car focused" context applied.

Lane widths are never below the "reccommended" for cars, for bicycles, they rarely exceed the "absolute minimum", staff have on several occasions now pitted bicycles against pedestrians by saying that the sidewalk or bike lane would have to be substandard (below "recommended") while refusing to even acknowledge that the vehicle lanes could be narrowed instead (again, narrowed only from "recommended" to "absolute minimum").

Turn radii very often exceed design guidelines, sometimes by orders of magnitude, virtually every intersection in the city, even ones with quiet residential streets (like John and Westmount) are designed with enormous turn radii.

There is a nomagraph for what cycling infra should be on a road given that roads average speed and AADT, rarely is this guideline followed by regional staff, or it is interpreted to give the least protection.

Staff statement that the Northfield bike lanes "meet current standards"...while technically true, no reasonable person can believe they are safe.

3. Design guidelines do not follow best practices.

Basically, our design guides (specifically the ones that the region writes) are garbage. They assume that every road must be able to handle a semi-truck as the design vehicle, and require unnecessarily wide lanes.

I mean, I can go on and on and on...and I do...but this message really must end.