Trails

[Spokes]

Popular Iron Horse Trail to be widened, paved and lit in 2019

In 2018, Kitchener spent $1.7 million to install lights and put in new benches, widen and repave the trail between Glasgow and David streets.

In 2019, the rest of the trail — up to the Waterloo border and down to Ottawa Street — will be paved and widened.

Pending council approval, those sections will also be lit, and an old wooden rail trestle replaced with a steel bridge.
...
Work is slated to begin in May on the southern section while the work on the north section will happen in late fall.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/912...it-in-2019/

[clasher]

Did anyone make it to the meeting yesterday? I forgot all about it... curious if there was any drawings posted...

[dtkmelissa]

Did anyone make it to the meeting yesterday? I forgot all about it... curious if there was any drawings posted...

I popped in briefly. Apparently staff were pleased with the turnout at that point, with some folks showing up even before the start time of 4 They had a bunch of presentation boards set up and one of the Stantec team said they would all be online shortly. Not sure of the timing on that though. It all looked pretty promising to me, with raised crossings even being suggested. The first one is proposed for the IHT crossing at Mill.

[Canard]

Does a raised crossing inherently mean that the trail would then have priority, and Mill would have a stop sign?

[Viewfromthe42]

Will there be online feedback possibilities when presentation is online? Couldn't make it.

Disappointed but not surprised that people are complaining about the widening of the trail so far. It was barely widened, not up to anything substantial, and they're saying everything has been destroyed. To me, this means that not much was there to begin with, and that they were asking the city to do their privacy or nature habitats for them, when, if they have a property, they could put it on their property. A bit like when someone decides they want to grow a bush barrier between backyards, but if they asked their neighbour to put it in on their property only.

I still say that any street which might be considered for 40km/h or less that the trail crosses, should by default have a speed table, trail-priority crossing. If they're worried about snowplows, they could angle the start of the speed table to more closely match the plow angle, while keeping the flat section wide enough that the trail doesn't need to deviate.

But sometimes solutions are simple. The IHT right now doesn't even follow the rules we give for roadways regarding visibility. There are rules around intersections, where you need clearance so that if you are stopped at an intersection, you can see approaching cross-traffic (and vice versa) for safety, but the IHT at gage and elsewhere, the Spur line all over, they have a lot of property-edge tall vegetation that blocks views of roadway traffic, sometimes even forcing you onto the roadway to see cross-traffic, and that is plain not safe.

[Spokes]

Does a raised crossing inherently mean that the trail would then have priority, and Mill would have a stop sign?

I'm not saying that this is what it is, but I just pictured one of those crossings that sits on top of a speed hump

[danbrotherston]

Does a raised crossing inherently mean that the trail would then have priority, and Mill would have a stop sign?

It depends on the crossing treatment, they haven't decided where the raised crossings would be, so I don't think it's clear if they would only put it somewhere that the trail has priority.

Currently in the city, there are raised crossings at locations where the trail does not have priority.

I'm a little torn on this, at the one hand, raising a crossing makes it more likely drivers would incorrectly yield the right of way, which is dangerous.  On the other hand, the resulting lower speeds from a raised crossing would make it safer for everyone.

Certainly when the trail has the right of way (like at PXOs) it makes perfect sense.

[Canard]

IMHO (as both a driver and a trail user) trail should have priority on all minor side streets. 50% of motor traffic (incorrectly) stops anyway which just leads to confusion. Obviously at Victoria and Union (and I suppose Queen), traffic gets to go first and trail yields.

[danbrotherston]

Will there be online feedback possibilities when presentation is online? Couldn't make it.

Disappointed but not surprised that people are complaining about the widening of the trail so far. It was barely widened, not up to anything substantial, and they're saying everything has been destroyed. To me, this means that not much was there to begin with, and that they were asking the city to do their privacy or nature habitats for them, when, if they have a property, they could put it on their property. A bit like when someone decides they want to grow a bush barrier between backyards, but if they asked their neighbour to put it in on their property only.

I still say that any street which might be considered for 40km/h or less that the trail crosses, should by default have a speed table, trail-priority crossing. If they're worried about snowplows, they could angle the start of the speed table to more closely match the plow angle, while keeping the flat section wide enough that the trail doesn't need to deviate.

But sometimes solutions are simple. The IHT right now doesn't even follow the rules we give for roadways regarding visibility. There are rules around intersections, where you need clearance so that if you are stopped at an intersection, you can see approaching cross-traffic (and vice versa) for safety, but the IHT at gage and elsewhere, the Spur line all over, they have a lot of property-edge tall vegetation that blocks views of roadway traffic, sometimes even forcing you onto the roadway to see cross-traffic, and that is plain not safe.

The "complaining about widening the trail" largely comes from the requirement to have a journalistic requirement to have "both sides" represented, no matter how much of a minority, or (and not in this case I want to make clear) how ridiculous one side is.  We see this in everything from vaccines, to climate change, and yes, to widening and lighting our trail (again, where the objectors are a minority, not ridiculous).

The ironic thing is the location where the quoted person points out things being destroyed, they were in fact destroyed as part of other projects (hydro enhancements and catalyst) and to remove invasive species, not related to trail work at all.

[dtkmelissa]

Does a raised crossing inherently mean that the trail would then have priority, and Mill would have a stop sign?

I'm not saying that this is what it is, but I just pictured one of those crossings that sits on top of a speed hump

There were six options, of which I'm thinking just some where raised. Some gave priority to those crossing, others did not. Wishing I had taken photos of the proposed options now! Here's a list of the proposed plans for crossings though:

Union: PXO/pedestrian island
Glasgow: PXO/narrowed lanes
Gage: PXO
Victoria: Pedestrian island (Regional approval)
West: PXO/pedestrian island
Queen: Crossride/crosswalk (Regional approval)
Mill: PXO/raised crossing
Madison: PXO
Stirling: Crossride/crosswalk (Regional approval
Palmer: Driveway condition (not sure what that means)
Kent: PXO
Borden: Regional approval for LRT

I do think staff said it's unlikely that any Regional roads would get raised crossings.

[danbrotherston]

Thanks Melissa for noting this here! I forgot to document exactly which crossings were being considered.

This is by far the most exciting thing I've heard in my time living here since LRT was approved.

It would be nice if the PXOs could be activated by bicycles approaching, instead of having to reach and stumble for the button (of course, whether this is legal now I don't know).

For regional roads, I think everything is up to the region, but Victoria they seem to have traction on. Of course, I very much want to see the designs for the ped island before it's approved because I have little to no faith that it will be reasonable, between the bike lanes, and limited space, I fear it will basically criminally narrow like Weber St, I'm ready to speak to council again.

As for "driveway conditions", I'm hoping that's a reflection of the fact that Palmer is a dead end there:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.4412225,-...312!8i6656

And basically all that's on the other side is a driveway for a rarely used municipal vehicle lot. What should happen is the trail should continue through uninterrupted and the driveway should be a driveway entrance onto the road through the trail. Of course sadly, Palmer was rebuilt recently (1-2 years ago) and this was not done, not even close...one of the bumpier crossings---such a massive fail, because nobody even thinks about these things, so this might be a while off.

[dtkmelissa]

Thanks Melissa for noting this here! I forgot to document exactly which crossings were being considered.

This is by far the most exciting thing I've heard in my time living here since LRT was approved.

It would be nice if the PXOs could be activated by bicycles approaching, instead of having to reach and stumble for the button (of course, whether this is legal now I don't know).

For regional roads, I think everything is up to the region, but Victoria they seem to have traction on.  Of course, I very much want to see the designs for the ped island before it's approved because I have little to no faith that it will be reasonable, between the bike lanes, and limited space, I fear it will basically criminally narrow like Weber St, I'm ready to speak to council again.

As for "driveway conditions", I'm hoping that's a reflection of the fact that Palmer is a dead end there:

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.4412225,-...312!8i6656

And basically all that's on the other side is a driveway for a rarely used municipal vehicle lot.  What should happen is the trail should continue through uninterrupted and the driveway should be a driveway entrance onto the road through the trail.  Of course sadly, Palmer was rebuilt recently (1-2 years ago) and this was not done, not even close...one of the bumpier crossings---such a massive fail, because nobody even thinks about these things, so this might be a while off.

Yes, I had thought the same about the PXOs being activated instead of requiring a button to be pushed.

And I also agree about Palmer. It seems like it should be one of the more ideal crossings given the lack of traffic there, but it's not lovely at all.

[ijmorlan]

The ironic thing is the location where the quoted person points out things being destroyed, they were in fact destroyed as part of other projects (hydro enhancements and catalyst) and to remove invasive species, not related to trail work at all.

If that is so the journalist should have pointed that out in the article. It’s called fact-checking, people…

[Viewfromthe42]

As exciting as PXOs can be (if done properly, such that a bicycle can easily trigger them without needing to dismount), some of the quiet streets where it is mostly residential I would still prefer to see as speed tables where signage would indicate that road traffic must yield to the trail users. We have many such streets that Spur Line and Iron Horse trails cross, and in neighbourhoods asking for traffic calming.

Palmer and Kent both should have a re-leveling, so that it is not such a painful bump to go from trail-roadway-trail. Several of the Spur line crossings between Guelph and UpTown show this very well.

Crossrides at Stirling would be great *IF* all four crossings get them. Otherwise, you could wait 3 cycles to cross, if they only go on half the crossings.

[tomh009]

Drempels!