General Road and Highway Discussion

[plam]

Does anyone know how advanced our traffic signal system is or how it compares with this:

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/...interview/

Seems like they're not only able to accommodate cyclists but able to achieve a much higher level of service for drivers as well.

Amazing. Pretty sure we don't have anything close to that. No ubiquitous sensors for sure.

"Before, it was believed green waves would make life better for people, but that is simply not true. It was very difficult to arrange and only if you were lucky it would work, for one direction, possibly."

So maybe that's how to make bi-directional Erb and Bridgeport work.

Also the warning-for-green, which exists in a more rudimentary form in some European countries as the yellow-red before green. Switzerland has it but Paris doesn't.

[BuildingScout]

Does anyone know how advanced our traffic signal system is or how it compares with this:

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/...interview/

Seems like they're not only able to accommodate cyclists but able to achieve a much higher level of service for drivers as well.

Amazing. Pretty sure we don't have anything close to that. No ubiquitous sensors for sure.

"Before, it was believed green waves would make life better for people, but that is simply not true. It was very difficult to arrange and only if you were lucky it would work, for one direction, possibly."

So maybe that's how to make bi-directional Erb and Bridgeport work.

Two things stand out:

1) "But a roundabout is not always the best solution. At the moment there are 65 signalised intersections in the municipality of ʼs-Hertogenbosch."

Contrast this to the current absolute preference for roundabouts at the RoW even in places where it seems a controlled traffic intersection is better.

2) "What you perceive as a green wave is really a series of quickly getting green because you were detected and there was time in the cycle to give you green at just the right moment!"

This is just a green wave implemented through a distributed protocol, but a green wave nonetheless.

[eizenstriet]

Does anyone know how advanced our traffic signal system is or how it compares with this:

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2016/...interview/

Seems like they're not only able to accommodate cyclists but able to achieve a much higher level of service for drivers as well.

A very interesting article. Two phenomena are making this system work to potential in the Netherlands. One, the intelligent application of available software and hardware. Two, the on-the-ground understanding and integration of the flesh-and-blood users, on which the traffic engineers explicitly rely.

I have no doubt that our Region could implement Factor One. Factor Two would be the monkey wrench in the works, as one views the befuddlement with which we approach roundabouts and the inability/unwillingness of about 60% of road users to follow even the simple convention of "Move to the right after passing".

[timc]

People are not stupid, they won’t start moving before their path is clear!

Oh my.

[danbrotherston]

People are not stupid, they won’t start moving before their path is clear!

Oh my.

Works in the Netherlands, but then so do one lane roads (that's one lane for two directions), and uncontrolled intersections.

[danbrotherston]

1) "But a roundabout is not always the best solution. At the moment there are 65 signalised intersections in the municipality of ʼs-Hertogenbosch."

Contrast this to the current absolute preference for roundabouts at the RoW even in places where it seems a controlled traffic intersection is better.

2) "What you perceive as a green wave is really a series of quickly getting green because you were detected and there was time in the cycle to give you green at just the right moment!"

This is just a green wave implemented through a distributed protocol, but a green wave nonetheless.

1) I don't know that we have an "absolute preference" for roundabouts here, there are numerous examples of regional staff considering roundabouts and then deciding on signalized intersections, Weber and Victoria and Weber and Wellington are examples I can think of off the top of my head.

2) That depends on who you ask, traffic engineers see a "green wave" as timing the lights specifically so that vehicles receive greens all the way along.  The point is, you don't need to do that in order to achieve the same effect for traffic, which removes many restrictions from lights.

[danbrotherston]

Also the warning-for-green, which exists in a more rudimentary form in some European countries as the yellow-red before green. Switzerland has it but Paris doesn't.

They actually mentioned this in the article, the claim at least, was that there is time in the cycle reserved for the "red-yellow" phase, whereas the system in the netherlands does not guarantee that there is time in the cycle for these, and a driver may not always receive the warning-for-green.

I also noticed this on the wait timers for the bicycle lights, I believe they showed the maximum wait time, and very very often they would accelerate or jump directly to green while still showing substantial time remaining.

[BuildingScout]

1) "But a roundabout is not always the best solution. At the moment there are 65 signalised intersections in the municipality of ʼs-Hertogenbosch."

Contrast this to the current absolute preference for roundabouts at the RoW even in places where it seems a controlled traffic intersection is better.

2) "What you perceive as a green wave is really a series of quickly getting green because you were detected and there was time in the cycle to give you green at just the right moment!"

This is just a green wave implemented through a distributed protocol, but a green wave nonetheless.

1) I don't know that we have an "absolute preference" for roundabouts here, there are numerous examples of regional staff considering roundabouts and then deciding on signalized intersections, Weber and Victoria and Weber and Wellington are examples I can think of off the top of my head.

2) That depends on who you ask, traffic engineers see a "green wave" as timing the lights specifically so that vehicles receive greens all the way along.  The point is, you don't need to do that in order to achieve the same effect for traffic, which removes many restrictions from lights.

Sure, there was a bit of hyperbole there, but the fact that they would even consider a roundabout at Weber and Victoria is plain nuts.

p.s. by the way, I was proposing roundabouts in smaller intersections (at a different municipality) back in the late 90s, and I'm still in favour of them in many intersections in town that are currently traffic light controlled. All I'm saying is that currently the town planners are too enamored with them. In general, they seem to latch on to trends rather than maintain a steady-as-she goes case-by-case decision mode. Road diets are another good example, some places are prime candidates for it, some remain essentially unchanged before and after (save for the expense of the diet, e.g. Davenport which is as dead as it was before) and others would be positively worse (e.g. Erb E. because all it would do is bring a traffic jam there) .

[timc]

Road diets are another good example, some places are prime candidates for it, some remain essentially unchanged before and after (save for the expense of the diet, e.g. Davenport which is as dead as it was before)

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Although it may not have a lot of traffic, the Davenport road diet has done a lot to reduce the speed of drivers racing through the area, and made it a much nicer place for pedestrians and cyclists.

[danbrotherston]

Road diets are another good example, some places are prime candidates for it, some remain essentially unchanged before and after (save for the expense of the diet, e.g. Davenport which is as dead as it was before)

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Although it may not have a lot of traffic, the Davenport road diet has done a lot to reduce the speed of drivers racing through the area, and made it a much nicer place for pedestrians and cyclists.

As someone who rides Davenport occasionally, I agree, its definitely better than it was before.  Although there are a few remaining issues, (apparently there are trails nearby which I have no idea how to connect to, and getting into the mall is still harrowing), but its a bit improvement, and cars seem to be slower.

That being said, I didn't really understand what Scout meant by "dead".

[BuildingScout]

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. Although it may not have a lot of traffic, the Davenport road diet has done a lot to reduce the speed of drivers racing through the area, and made it a much nicer place for pedestrians and cyclists.

It has, but there are no such pedestrian or cyclists on it. I take it all the time as an alternative to King St which is currently under construction to reach Columbia from Conestoga Mall (as do many other drivers) and I can count on the fingers of one hand the total number of pedestrians and cyclists I've seen there, ever.

It made it much nicer for imaginary pedestrians, to me that's wasted money.

[KevinL]

In my experience Dutch road design is just that bit more polished than I see on this side of the pond. They have roundabouts, yes, but only for intersections that fit them; this tends to be either large, high-speed junctions where the traffic flow fits, or small, low-speed ones.

Most full crossroads are signalized; a four-way stop is not very common in their design vocabulary. T-intersections are generally for a faster through-road connected to a slower sideroad; this is still not marked with stop signs, but with yields.

[MidTowner]

It has, but there are no such pedestrian or cyclists on it. I take it all the time as an alternative to King St which is currently under construction to reach Columbia from Conestoga Mall (as do many other drivers) and I can count on the fingers of one hand the total number of pedestrians and cyclists I've seen there, ever.

It made it much nicer for imaginary pedestrians, to me that's wasted money.

This is the definition of anecdotal. You take this street "all the time" (let's be generous and say that means daily), but it's a kilometre between Conestoga and Lexington along Davenport- going 50 kilometres per hour, you're spending about a minute there each trip. Thankfully, planners don't take daily minute-long snap shots of how many people are using a street.

You've just heard from at least one person who takes Davenport by bike (I have, too, by bike and car). And adjacent to Davenport are parks, churches, schools and residential neighbourhoods with adults and children alike wanting to cross Davenport. Maybe you didn't notice them traveling down Davenport, but people are crossing it and why shouldn't the car traffic be tamed to allow them to? There's a bus route traveling along Davenport, useless if people don't feel safe crossing to the other side of the street at the beginning or end of their bus trip.

Just because you haven't noticed people on bike or foot doesn't mean there aren't. And, as for the "wasted money," how much do you really suppose was spent on this road diet that only serves people who are using the road at times other than the seven minutes a week that you do? These projects are not expensive, in the grand scheme of municipalities' budgets.

[BuildingScout]

This is the definition of anecdotal. You take this street "all the time" (let's be generous and say that means daily), but it's a kilometre between Conestoga and Lexington along Davenport- going 50 kilometres per hour, you're spending about a minute there each trip. Thankfully, planners don't take daily minute-long snap shots of how many people are using a street.

Sorry dude, but pretty much all we do here is trade anecdotal information, with the occasional reference to a cool study. This is not an academic forum.

And by the way you haven't provided any data, so my anecdotal data is one over your posting which contains none.

Anyone with common sense can tell why there are no pedestrians there: nothing fronts on that street. It's fully fenced by house backyards and goes from the parking lot at Conestoga Mall to nowhere for pedestrian purposes. This would be in contrast to a road diet on King (say as it happened in Kitchener) where there are plenty of destinations to attract pedestrians to the slower, safer street.

The fact that it wasn't that much money ($3 million) is a lame excuse, by the way.

[notmyfriends]

I don't know about you, but my input here is always academic (by some form of the word)...