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Road design, safety and Vision Zero
There's a big thread about Ira Needles Rd. on reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/waterloo/commen...attention/

It's reminding me why I left the city. It's shocking how little people think about pedestrians...even ones who honestly believe they are trying to make things better for pedestrians.

And that's before you even reckon with the ones who actively state they don't bother looking for pedestrians at roundabouts and peds shouldn't try to cross the at the roundabout when they're coming because they'll get hit.

There have been zero fatal car crashes in our city. It's so frustrating...death is a policy choice, why do we choose death.
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One of the major limitations of the region's annual collision report is that it only captures collisions on regional roads and at signalized intersections. For example, there were 20 road fatalities in the region in 2020 according to WRPS, but only 7 listed in the traffic report.

I also seriously question whatever methodology regional staff are using to gather data on excess speed, and that "speeding on
regional roads is not a significant factor in collisions". It's not believable that only 40 out of 7975 collisions involved drivers exceeding that speed limit, or that excess speed was only a factor in 175 collisions. WRPS says excess speed was a factor in the majority of fatalities in 2020, and Statistics Canada says it's a factor in around 20% overall in Canada, and anyone who drives knows most drivers routinely exceed the speed limit.

Pretty much any time residential speed limits are discussed, people demand data showing actual pedestrian collisions and fatalities in residential areas to justify any improvement in road safety. They frequently point to the annual collision reports showing most pedestrian collisions occur at signalized intersections, which is presumably in part because the reports literally don't include any data that could show otherwise. Of course, it also ignores the fact that collision data doesn't capture near misses or the perception of safety, and that traffic calming makes neighbourhoods more walkable and pedestrian-friendly with little impact on vehicle traffic. I don't need someone to be killed in front of my home to know my street is dangerous, given all three streetlights in my little 90m section of street have been taken out by vehicles coming around the corner too fast while I've lived here. And to be clear, I don't think just lowering speed limits makes much difference, but even discussing it brings out the "war on cars" people in force demanding data that doesn't seem to exist to justify any kind of change, regardless of the benefits.

This doesn't specifically address the issue, but the Kitchener GeoHub has a dataset of traffic collision locations from 2005 to 2018. I made a combined map showing collision locations, traffic light locations, and city roads marked. Any blue dot on this map on a marked road that isn't at a red dot is a collision that wasn't captured in the annual traffic report. You can zoom in and check your own street if you live in Kitchener. I'm unclear on whether this actually includes pedestrian collisions, but it's pretty clear that traffic collisions in general happen all over the place, including most residential areas.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/in...96e69cacde
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(03-29-2023, 05:06 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: One of the major limitations of the region's annual collision report is that it only captures collisions on regional roads and at signalized intersections. For example, there were 20 road fatalities in the region in 2020 according to WRPS, but only 7 listed in the traffic report.

I also seriously question whatever methodology regional staff are using to gather data on excess speed, and that "speeding on
regional roads is not a significant factor in collisions". It's not believable that only 40 out of 7975 collisions involved drivers exceeding that speed limit, or that excess speed was only a factor in 175 collisions. WRPS says excess speed was a factor in the majority of fatalities in 2020, and Statistics Canada says it's a factor in around 20% overall in Canada, and anyone who drives knows most drivers routinely exceed the speed limit.

Pretty much any time residential speed limits are discussed, people demand data showing actual pedestrian collisions and fatalities in residential areas to justify any improvement in road safety. They frequently point to the annual collision reports showing most pedestrian collisions occur at signalized intersections, which is presumably in part because the reports literally don't include any data that could show otherwise. Of course, it also ignores the fact that collision data doesn't capture near misses or the perception of safety, and that traffic calming makes neighbourhoods more walkable and pedestrian-friendly with little impact on vehicle traffic. I don't need someone to be killed in front of my home to know my street is dangerous, given all three streetlights in my little 90m section of street have been taken out by vehicles coming around the corner too fast while I've lived here. And to be clear, I don't think just lowering speed limits makes much difference, but even discussing it brings out the "war on cars" people in force demanding data that doesn't seem to exist to justify any kind of change, regardless of the benefits.

This doesn't specifically address the issue, but the Kitchener GeoHub has a dataset of traffic collision locations from 2005 to 2018. I made a combined map showing collision locations, traffic light locations, and city roads marked. Any blue dot on this map on a marked road that isn't at a red dot is a collision that wasn't captured in the annual traffic report. You can zoom in and check your own street if you live in Kitchener. I'm unclear on whether this actually includes pedestrian collisions, but it's pretty clear that traffic collisions in general happen all over the place, including most residential areas.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/in...a0d339c0b8

Yeah, I agree with all of this. I've seen this discussion going on online.

I really don't know what to think. I suspect this is mostly bad faith--i.e., these people wouldn't support lowering the speeds on ... say... arterial streets either.

But I do think this is an important policy. We need to use every tool at our disposal. Lower speed limits isn't a complete solution in and of itself, but it is a component of every other solution. You cannot use ASE to enforce a lower speed than the limit, our engineers refuse to design a road for a lower speed than the limit, police refuse to call "speed" a factor in a collision where the driver was travelling even remotely close to the limit at the time of impact.

It also is a policy which does have some effect on it's own. If even 5% of drivers lowered their speed as a result of the change, on a two lane residential street that would lower the speed of traffic because drivers who refuse to slow down still cannot go faster than those in front of them.

I also think it's a policy that's easy to support. Yes...tons of people make often bad faith, always selfish arguments against it, but most people, and especially most people who have the most political sway (you know, own houses) live in residential areas and don't like people speeding past their homes. It's a policy which wealthy drivers can see themselves benefiting from. I am, frankly, surprised, and disappointed that Waterloo reversed their decision on the 30km/h limit. It makes no sense, these people made that decision, but they didn't seem to run on that as a platform, and I think it should have been subject to the usual 60% bar on reversing a previous council's decision.

*sigh*...I just don't get it...why are people so afraid of having nice things?
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(03-29-2023, 05:06 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: One of the major limitations of the region's annual collision report is that it only captures collisions on regional roads and at signalized intersections. For example, there were 20 road fatalities in the region in 2020 according to WRPS, but only 7 listed in the traffic report.

I also seriously question whatever methodology regional staff are using to gather data on excess speed, and that "speeding on
regional roads is not a significant factor in collisions". It's not believable that only 40 out of 7975 collisions involved drivers exceeding that speed limit, or that excess speed was only a factor in 175 collisions. WRPS says excess speed was a factor in the majority of fatalities in 2020, and Statistics Canada says it's a factor in around 20% overall in Canada, and anyone who drives knows most drivers routinely exceed the speed limit.

Pretty much any time residential speed limits are discussed, people demand data showing actual pedestrian collisions and fatalities in residential areas to justify any improvement in road safety. They frequently point to the annual collision reports showing most pedestrian collisions occur at signalized intersections, which is presumably in part because the reports literally don't include any data that could show otherwise. Of course, it also ignores the fact that collision data doesn't capture near misses or the perception of safety, and that traffic calming makes neighbourhoods more walkable and pedestrian-friendly with little impact on vehicle traffic. I don't need someone to be killed in front of my home to know my street is dangerous, given all three streetlights in my little 90m section of street have been taken out by vehicles coming around the corner too fast while I've lived here. And to be clear, I don't think just lowering speed limits makes much difference, but even discussing it brings out the "war on cars" people in force demanding data that doesn't seem to exist to justify any kind of change, regardless of the benefits.

This doesn't specifically address the issue, but the Kitchener GeoHub has a dataset of traffic collision locations from 2005 to 2018. I made a combined map showing collision locations, traffic light locations, and city roads marked. Any blue dot on this map on a marked road that isn't at a red dot is a collision that wasn't captured in the annual traffic report. You can zoom in and check your own street if you live in Kitchener. I'm unclear on whether this actually includes pedestrian collisions, but it's pretty clear that traffic collisions in general happen all over the place, including most residential areas.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/in...a0d339c0b8

"You do not have permission to access this web map."
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(03-30-2023, 02:47 PM)Bytor Wrote:
(03-29-2023, 05:06 PM)Bob_McBob Wrote: One of the major limitations of the region's annual collision report is that it only captures collisions on regional roads and at signalized intersections. For example, there were 20 road fatalities in the region in 2020 according to WRPS, but only 7 listed in the traffic report.

I also seriously question whatever methodology regional staff are using to gather data on excess speed, and that "speeding on
regional roads is not a significant factor in collisions". It's not believable that only 40 out of 7975 collisions involved drivers exceeding that speed limit, or that excess speed was only a factor in 175 collisions. WRPS says excess speed was a factor in the majority of fatalities in 2020, and Statistics Canada says it's a factor in around 20% overall in Canada, and anyone who drives knows most drivers routinely exceed the speed limit.

Pretty much any time residential speed limits are discussed, people demand data showing actual pedestrian collisions and fatalities in residential areas to justify any improvement in road safety. They frequently point to the annual collision reports showing most pedestrian collisions occur at signalized intersections, which is presumably in part because the reports literally don't include any data that could show otherwise. Of course, it also ignores the fact that collision data doesn't capture near misses or the perception of safety, and that traffic calming makes neighbourhoods more walkable and pedestrian-friendly with little impact on vehicle traffic. I don't need someone to be killed in front of my home to know my street is dangerous, given all three streetlights in my little 90m section of street have been taken out by vehicles coming around the corner too fast while I've lived here. And to be clear, I don't think just lowering speed limits makes much difference, but even discussing it brings out the "war on cars" people in force demanding data that doesn't seem to exist to justify any kind of change, regardless of the benefits.

This doesn't specifically address the issue, but the Kitchener GeoHub has a dataset of traffic collision locations from 2005 to 2018. I made a combined map showing collision locations, traffic light locations, and city roads marked. Any blue dot on this map on a marked road that isn't at a red dot is a collision that wasn't captured in the annual traffic report. You can zoom in and check your own street if you live in Kitchener. I'm unclear on whether this actually includes pedestrian collisions, but it's pretty clear that traffic collisions in general happen all over the place, including most residential areas.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/in...a0d339c0b8

"You do not have permission to access this web map."

Yeah, me too.

FWIW...I really love the irony of the fact that the quote isn't rendered correctly here though.
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This link should work:

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/in...96e69cacde
Reply
(03-30-2023, 02:57 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: But I do think this is an important policy. We need to use every tool at our disposal. Lower speed limits isn't a complete solution in and of itself, but it is a component of every other solution. You cannot use ASE to enforce a lower speed than the limit, our engineers refuse to design a road for a lower speed than the limit, police refuse to call "speed" a factor in a collision where the driver was travelling even remotely close to the limit at the time of impact.

Of course you can’t and they refuse. By definition, it’s not illegal to drive under the speed limit, and it’s obviously insane to have a road designed to be unsafe at the posted limit (just as insane as having the normal road design be unsafe for non-drivers).

That being said, the fix would be to lower the limit in many cases, re-design the street for the new limit, and enforce the new limit, including with automated techniques.

Quote:I also think it's a policy that's easy to support. Yes...tons of people make often bad faith, always selfish arguments against it, but most people, and especially most people who have the most political sway (you know, own houses) live in residential areas and don't like people speeding past their homes. It's a policy which wealthy drivers can see themselves benefiting from. I am, frankly, surprised, and disappointed that Waterloo reversed their decision on the 30km/h limit. It makes no sense, these people made that decision, but they didn't seem to run on that as a platform, and I think it should have been subject to the usual 60% bar on reversing a previous council's decision.

I’m pretty sure the 60% bar is on reversing the same council’s decision. City government is allowed to change previous policies, just not keep flip-flopping during a single council term depending on who is away that day.
Reply


Music 
(03-31-2023, 07:41 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(03-30-2023, 02:57 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: But I do think this is an important policy. We need to use every tool at our disposal. Lower speed limits isn't a complete solution in and of itself, but it is a component of every other solution. You cannot use ASE to enforce a lower speed than the limit, our engineers refuse to design a road for a lower speed than the limit, police refuse to call "speed" a factor in a collision where the driver was travelling even remotely close to the limit at the time of impact.

Of course you can’t and they refuse. By definition, it’s not illegal to drive under the speed limit, and it’s obviously insane to have a road designed to be unsafe at the posted limit (just as insane as having the normal road design be unsafe for non-drivers).

That being said, the fix would be to lower the limit in many cases, re-design the street for the new limit, and enforce the new limit, including with automated techniques.

Quote:I also think it's a policy that's easy to support. Yes...tons of people make often bad faith, always selfish arguments against it, but most people, and especially most people who have the most political sway (you know, own houses) live in residential areas and don't like people speeding past their homes. It's a policy which wealthy drivers can see themselves benefiting from. I am, frankly, surprised, and disappointed that Waterloo reversed their decision on the 30km/h limit. It makes no sense, these people made that decision, but they didn't seem to run on that as a platform, and I think it should have been subject to the usual 60% bar on reversing a previous council's decision.

I’m pretty sure the 60% bar is on reversing the same council’s decision. City government is allowed to change previous policies, just not keep flip-flopping during a single council term depending on who is away that day.

Well this simply isn't true.

Speed limits are upper limits, despite how they are treated. There are many cases where it is unsafe to travel at the posted limit. Obviously in bad weather, but also if your vehicle is less capable, for example, because you have an emergency tire.

You can argue that those are contextual issues that lower the safe speed, but even road design is often unable to be made safe at the legal speed limit. Bends in major roads are one example. The top local example being Weber St. Now you may point out that the bend has a "lower speed limit" but it doesn't, it has a yellow advisory sign recommending a lower speed, but it is not a legal requirement. As far as the law is concerned, you can travel at the speed limit given on the previous white regulatory sign and you cannot be ticketed for exceeding the speed limit.

But even leaving that aside, there are still roads which do not meet the design speed of 50km/h, and do not have a lower speed limit.

For example, here is an alley near Downtown Kitchener: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4571863,...312!8i6656

It is a legal public road in the city. It has no signed limit, which means the default limit of 50km/h applies here.

It is clear to everyone that driving down this road at 50km/h would be extremely unsafe.

Engineers build these roads all the time. Yet they will argue with a straight face that that they cannot design YOUR street with a design speed less than 60km/h because it would be unsafe.

As usual, the engineering profession just makes shit up, they're full of bullshit.

There is no reason they couldn't design a road for a lower speed, they do it all the time. They can, they simply refuse to, because they have drank their own koolaid...they believe they are practising engineering, not divination, but they're wrong.

And yes, I'm reading Walkable Cities by Jeff Speck...he pulls no punches when speaking about engineers.

As for the 60% requirement....that's possible, I'm not the council clerk so I'm not exactly expected to know these specifics...but it really pisses me off that they reversed the decision. That being said, I don't think it's actually true that it would be required but only because of a bullshit bureaucratic technicality. They voted on the "implementation" of the policy, in the first instance they directed staff the develop the implementation plan. Two different things, technically they can reverse. Of course, that never happens when it comes to building or widening roads.

FWIW...I'm frustrating it's taking this long. The City of Waterloo is going to have taken MORE time to lower the speed limits in the city than it took Seoul Korea to demolish an entire raised freeway. Bureaucracy like this is \a tool to enforce the establishment. This should have been doable in like 2-3 months, maybe for the whole city rollout, a year. Instead it's going to be 2-3 years at least. We saw the same thing with the Region's "rapid protected bike lane pilot" which took longer to do than it was supposed to last.
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I'll point out that New Zealand's 100km/h limit on highways is often... dicey. These are most often two-lane undivided highways, so the limit would be 80 in Ontario and 90 in Quebec. Some people drive at 110 but you'd often find me at 80 or 90.
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(03-31-2023, 08:55 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:
(03-31-2023, 07:41 AM)ijmorlan Wrote: Of course you can’t and they refuse. By definition, it’s not illegal to drive under the speed limit, and it’s obviously insane to have a road designed to be unsafe at the posted limit (just as insane as having the normal road design be unsafe for non-drivers).

That being said, the fix would be to lower the limit in many cases, re-design the street for the new limit, and enforce the new limit, including with automated techniques.


I’m pretty sure the 60% bar is on reversing the same council’s decision. City government is allowed to change previous policies, just not keep flip-flopping during a single council term depending on who is away that day.

Well this simply isn't true.

Speed limits are upper limits, despite how they are treated. There are many cases where it is unsafe to travel at the posted limit. Obviously in bad weather, but also if your vehicle is less capable, for example, because you have an emergency tire.

You can argue that those are contextual issues that lower the safe speed, but even road design is often unable to be made safe at the legal speed limit. Bends in major roads are one example. The top local example being Weber St. Now you may point out that the bend has a "lower speed limit" but it doesn't, it has a yellow advisory sign recommending a lower speed, but it is not a legal requirement. As far as the law is concerned, you can travel at the speed limit given on the previous white regulatory sign and you cannot be ticketed for exceeding the speed limit.

But even leaving that aside, there are still roads which do not meet the design speed of 50km/h, and do not have a lower speed limit.

For example, here is an alley near Downtown Kitchener: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.4571863,...312!8i6656

It is a legal public road in the city. It has no signed limit, which means the default limit of 50km/h applies here.

It is clear to everyone that driving down this road at 50km/h would be extremely unsafe.

You make some excellent points. In particular, you’re absolutely right that many public routes with no speed limit signs cannot support travel at the default speed limit. Nevertheless you say it yourself — “you cannot be ticketed for exceeding the speed limit” (referring to exceeding advisory limits on curves). I think that applies both to automatic speed enforcement and enforcement done by police. If you’re going to have automatic speed enforcement, there needs to be a sign forbidding the behaviour which triggers the enforcement mechanism.

I agree that Council should not have reversed their decision. They should at least try the lower limits for a while, rather than cancelling the program before it’s even implemented.
Reply
(04-02-2023, 10:19 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: You make some excellent points. In particular, you’re absolutely right that many public routes with no speed limit signs cannot support travel at the default speed limit. Nevertheless you say it yourself — “you cannot be ticketed for exceeding the speed limit” (referring to exceeding advisory limits on curves). I think that applies both to automatic speed enforcement and enforcement done by police. If you’re going to have automatic speed enforcement, there needs to be a sign forbidding the behaviour which triggers the enforcement mechanism.

I agree that Council should not have reversed their decision. They should at least try the lower limits for a while, rather than cancelling the program before it’s even implemented.

So if you drive at the speed limit in the curve and it's actually too fast and you crash your car, you can still get a ticket for unsafe driving. Would you? That's another question.
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(04-03-2023, 12:00 AM)plam Wrote:
(04-02-2023, 10:19 PM)ijmorlan Wrote: You make some excellent points. In particular, you’re absolutely right that many public routes with no speed limit signs cannot support travel at the default speed limit. Nevertheless you say it yourself — “you cannot be ticketed for exceeding the speed limit” (referring to exceeding advisory limits on curves). I think that applies both to automatic speed enforcement and enforcement done by police. If you’re going to have automatic speed enforcement, there needs to be a sign forbidding the behaviour which triggers the enforcement mechanism.

I agree that Council should not have reversed their decision. They should at least try the lower limits for a while, rather than cancelling the program before it’s even implemented.

So if you drive at the speed limit in the curve and it's actually too fast and you crash your car, you can still get a ticket for unsafe driving. Would you? That's another question.

I assume police could ticket for unsafe driving, but what I’m suggesting is that automatic enforcement couldn’t issue a ticket simply for speeding as such.

It’s not really a big deal and doesn’t prevent automatic enforcement; you just need to lower the limit to whatever speed you want to use for automated enforcement. I started discussing this because Dan was complaining that the City wouldn’t use automated enforcement to enforce a speed slower than the limit. I’m just saying that of course they wouldn’t. The core of his complaint remains: the roads department will use just about any excuse not to do something (except when they don’t, which makes it even weirder — it’s not like they’re consistently and malevolently anti-pedestrian, just sometimes).
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(04-03-2023, 08:16 AM)ijmorlan Wrote:
(04-03-2023, 12:00 AM)plam Wrote: So if you drive at the speed limit in the curve and it's actually too fast and you crash your car, you can still get a ticket for unsafe driving. Would you? That's another question.

I assume police could ticket for unsafe driving, but what I’m suggesting is that automatic enforcement couldn’t issue a ticket simply for speeding as such.

It’s not really a big deal and doesn’t prevent automatic enforcement; you just need to lower the limit to whatever speed you want to use for automated enforcement. I started discussing this because Dan was complaining that the City wouldn’t use automated enforcement to enforce a speed slower than the limit. I’m just saying that of course they wouldn’t. The core of his complaint remains: the roads department will use just about any excuse not to do something (except when they don’t, which makes it even weirder — it’s not like they’re consistently and malevolently anti-pedestrian, just sometimes).

All true, sure.
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Kitchener Council has come out against the closure of the Lancaster St Bridges. 
https://archive.is/Pb2kG

The ramps are an 'Asset to our community'

Cars Win!
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In this case, they are confusing the word “asset” with “liability”, but why would that sort of small thing matter to council anyways.
local cambridge weirdo
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