News   Mar 27, 2024
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Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

The wrong answer to a tragic death of a boy walking home from school

See Spacing Toronto, at this link.

The walkway Councillor Karygiannis will unilaterally close on Monday morning after Duncan Xu’s death
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Instead, they should be raising the intersection as per this link.
raised-intersections-1.jpg

Raised intersections are flush with the sidewalk and ensure that drivers traverse the crossing slowly.
 
Is there any mention of if the pedestrian was crossing where or when they shouldn't? I understand that we should prevent as many as we can but if Pedestrians are going to do stupid things like cross at red lights or run across a busy road and expect that cars will stop for them then we will still have a problem. It's like with railroad crossing you will always have the people that think they can beat the train across it when the light starts flashing and barriers drop.

Of course pedestrians, like all other road users, should follow the rules of the road. (Personally, I wish more pedestrians understood how crossing signals worked)

But we live in a world where one only needs to observe traffic for a few minutes to see how many drivers don't follow the rules of the road. The problem at hand involves drivers injuring and killing pedestrians, again and again. When we have story after story after story of drivers hitting pedestrians at cross-walks, on sidewalks, at bus stops, etc., it's clear that the fundamental problem does not lie with pedestrians. The issue is not pedestrians not following the rules.

Even in those cases where pedestrians are crossing at locations without a cross-walk, the issue is usually road design which treats pedestrians as dispensible and actively discourages them from being anywhere near the roads. Roads where motor vehicles were the only users taken into account during the design phase. Roads where cars routinely zip through communities at speeds which are inherently unsafe, regardless of whether pedestrians are following the rules of the road or not. Roads which have so few pedestrian crossings, and usually no pedestrian crossings where pedestrians would want to cross (at bus stops, etc.), that pedestrians are actually made to be unsafe. Drivers demand road networks to cater to them, but somehow we blame pedestrians whenever they try to make roads work for them.

This has nothing to do with railway crossings. Not the same at all.
 
Of course pedestrians, like all other road users, should follow the rules of the road. (Personally, I wish more pedestrians understood how crossing signals worked)

But we live in a world where one only needs to observe traffic for a few minutes to see how many drivers don't follow the rules of the road. The problem at hand involves drivers injuring and killing pedestrians, again and again. When we have story after story after story of drivers hitting pedestrians at cross-walks, on sidewalks, at bus stops, etc., it's clear that the fundamental problem does not lie with pedestrians. The issue is not pedestrians not following the rules.

Even in those cases where pedestrians are crossing at locations without a cross-walk, the issue is usually road design which treats pedestrians as dispensible and actively discourages them from being anywhere near the roads. Roads where motor vehicles were the only users taken into account during the design phase. Roads where cars routinely zip through communities at speeds which are inherently unsafe, regardless of whether pedestrians are following the rules of the road or not. Roads which have so few pedestrian crossings, and usually no pedestrian crossings where pedestrians would want to cross (at bus stops, etc.), that pedestrians are actually made to be unsafe. Drivers demand road networks to cater to them, but somehow we blame pedestrians whenever they try to make roads work for them.

This has nothing to do with railway crossings. Not the same at all.

Agree completely.

But taking the specific mention of bus stops and crossing locations, another low-hanging fruit idea for Vision Zero....

Bus stop rationalization, including removing crosswalks (if close to each other or a traffic light) when bus stops are removed.

Many of us here recognize that there are too many bus stops in close proximity. (less than 250m apart) .

If you went through a rationalization on a major route, you could help pedestrians, transit users and motorists in one fell swoop.

I'll use a practical example.

Victoria Park Avenue, south of Dawes Road.

It has southbound stops at Ripon, Brenton and Medhurst.

These are 188m apart and 188m apart (yes the same).

There really is no need for that.

Because of these frequent stops, an additional traffic light was installed on VP where traffic did not merit it.

It was installed for transit users.

But it only serves one of the stops.

You can't possibly justify lights/crosswalks for each.

One could credibly argue for just one stop, though this would put a distance upwards of 500m between stops, which I understand can be a burden for some.

But rationalizing 3 stops into 2 (replacing Brenton and Medhurst w/Donora) would allow a single light to serve where were 2 crossing points.

It would also make a ponderously slow bus route a bit faster for riders.

This is one important way of thinking about how to create win-win scenarios in which pedestrians, transit riders and motorists are all better off and at the same or lower cost than the way things are currently.

***

A more expensive, but important thing to look at long term is breaking up the limited-access subdivisions in suburbia w/more main-road access points.

The idea is not merely a convenience to motorists.

It can also provide access for pedestrians, cyclists, transit users (shorter routes to bus stops), and in some cases accommodate new bus routes.

It also serves to reduce the time a driver needs to spend on that main road, which interestingly may allow for capacity reduction in some cases (ie. road narrowing) by removing a turn lane; or making a 4-lane road, 2 lanes + bike lanes, while not slowing traffic materially.

***

In reference to recent death of a child.....

The City is wrong in closing a convenient school access for walkers.

But they do indirectly raise a point.

These access points often exist, because of the circumloquitious routes of subdivision roads.

Barring whole sale fixes to bad urban design, many of these accesses would benefit from the acquisition of one adjacent home, so that they were more high visibility to motorists (and others).
 
Agree completely.

But taking the specific mention of bus stops and crossing locations, another low-hanging fruit idea for Vision Zero....

Bus stop rationalization, including removing crosswalks (if close to each other or a traffic light) when bus stops are removed.

Many of us here recognize that there are too many bus stops in close proximity. (less than 250m apart) .

If you went through a rationalization on a major route, you could help pedestrians, transit users and motorists in one fell swoop.

I'll use a practical example.

Victoria Park Avenue, south of Dawes Road.

It has southbound stops at Ripon, Brenton and Medhurst.

These are 188m apart and 188m apart (yes the same).

There really is no need for that.

Because of these frequent stops, an additional traffic light was installed on VP where traffic did not merit it.

It was installed for transit users.

But it only serves one of the stops.

You can't possibly justify lights/crosswalks for each.

One could credibly argue for just one stop, though this would put a distance upwards of 500m between stops, which I understand can be a burden for some.

But rationalizing 3 stops into 2 (replacing Brenton and Medhurst w/Donora) would allow a single light to serve where were 2 crossing points.

It would also make a ponderously slow bus route a bit faster for riders.

This is one important way of thinking about how to create win-win scenarios in which pedestrians, transit riders and motorists are all better off and at the same or lower cost than the way things are currently.

***

A more expensive, but important thing to look at long term is breaking up the limited-access subdivisions in suburbia w/more main-road access points.

The idea is not merely a convenience to motorists.

It can also provide access for pedestrians, cyclists, transit users (shorter routes to bus stops), and in some cases accommodate new bus routes.

It also serves to reduce the time a driver needs to spend on that main road, which interestingly may allow for capacity reduction in some cases (ie. road narrowing) by removing a turn lane; or making a 4-lane road, 2 lanes + bike lanes, while not slowing traffic materially.

***

In reference to recent death of a child.....

The City is wrong in closing a convenient school access for walkers.

But they do indirectly raise a point.

These access points often exist, because of the circumloquitious routes of subdivision roads.

Barring whole sale fixes to bad urban design, many of these accesses would benefit from the acquisition of one adjacent home, so that they were more high visibility to motorists (and others).

But @Northern Light, all of this would require thinking about our roads as complete streets and balancing the needs of motorists, transit riders, cyclists and pedestrians!

This is Toronto. Roads are for cars. Problems would be solved if pedestrians watched where they're going and wore bright colours.
 
Agree completely.

But taking the specific mention of bus stops and crossing locations, another low-hanging fruit idea for Vision Zero....

Bus stop rationalization, including removing crosswalks (if close to each other or a traffic light) when bus stops are removed.

Many of us here recognize that there are too many bus stops in close proximity. (less than 250m apart) .

If you went through a rationalization on a major route, you could help pedestrians, transit users and motorists in one fell swoop.

I'll use a practical example.

Victoria Park Avenue, south of Dawes Road.

It has southbound stops at Ripon, Brenton and Medhurst.

These are 188m apart and 188m apart (yes the same).

There really is no need for that.

Because of these frequent stops, an additional traffic light was installed on VP where traffic did not merit it.

It was installed for transit users.

But it only serves one of the stops.

You can't possibly justify lights/crosswalks for each.

One could credibly argue for just one stop, though this would put a distance upwards of 500m between stops, which I understand can be a burden for some.

But rationalizing 3 stops into 2 (replacing Brenton and Medhurst w/Donora) would allow a single light to serve where were 2 crossing points.

It would also make a ponderously slow bus route a bit faster for riders.

This is one important way of thinking about how to create win-win scenarios in which pedestrians, transit riders and motorists are all better off and at the same or lower cost than the way things are currently.

***

A more expensive, but important thing to look at long term is breaking up the limited-access subdivisions in suburbia w/more main-road access points.

The idea is not merely a convenience to motorists.

It can also provide access for pedestrians, cyclists, transit users (shorter routes to bus stops), and in some cases accommodate new bus routes.

It also serves to reduce the time a driver needs to spend on that main road, which interestingly may allow for capacity reduction in some cases (ie. road narrowing) by removing a turn lane; or making a 4-lane road, 2 lanes + bike lanes, while not slowing traffic materially.

***

In reference to recent death of a child.....

The City is wrong in closing a convenient school access for walkers.

But they do indirectly raise a point.

These access points often exist, because of the circumloquitious routes of subdivision roads.

Barring whole sale fixes to bad urban design, many of these accesses would benefit from the acquisition of one adjacent home, so that they were more high visibility to motorists (and others).

Are you Joe Warmington's copy editor?
 
Are you Joe Warmington's copy editor?

Not even in jest would I would I accept such a comparison!

His writing is unforgivable and opinions ill-informed.

Mine are unassailable :)

In all seriousness - where did you get that from?
 
Not even in jest would I would I accept such a comparison!

His writing is unforgivable and opinions ill-informed.

Mine are unassailable :)

In all seriousness - where did you get that from?

The long one-sentence-paragraph posts. You do have good things to say, though. (I wasn't comparing you to Worms, but to the poor copy writer assigned his columns to review.)
 
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The amount of stops on our surface network is a major problem that I don't see a solution to.

Apparently people can't walk an additional 200m - lest we ignore the rest of the world that does it in a more balanced fashion. There's a reason why our streetcars are just dreadfully slow... They stop far too often.

To add to the above, there's a bus stop at Marine Parade/Lakeshore and another at Palace Pier/Lakeshore. They're about 70m apart.
 
TTC bus 80 westbound has a stop on the west side of Parkside Drive, at Geoffrey Street (or rather, across from the beginning of Geoffrey Street).
https://goo.gl/maps/3mfvePfzRh12
If exiting the bus at this stop, a pedestrian has two options:
  1. cross four lanes of Parkside Drive (speed limit = 50 km/h),
  2. walk for several blocks on a narrow path between the road and a stone wall, either back to Howard Park Avenue, or to High Park Boulevard. Both of these intersections have ANOTHER BUS STOP on the same route
 
But @Northern Light, all of this would require thinking about our roads as complete streets and balancing the needs of motorists, transit riders, cyclists and pedestrians!

This is Toronto. Roads are for cars. Problems would be solved if pedestrians watched where they're going and wore bright colours.

Until the 1920's, roads were for people. Then the car expropriated the roads for themselves. By the 1950's and 1960's, streets were being designed only for the car, people were ignored (the lack of sidewalks was one outcome during that time). Time for roads to be returned back to the people,.
 
anyone know if the traffic signal at Richmond-Simcoe will be installed in the end? not sure where the is ended up
 
anyone know if the traffic signal at Richmond-Simcoe will be installed in the end? not sure where the is ended up

It was approved back in May 2017. Not sure of the status for installation.

ETA: From the Transportation report last year:

"Transportation Services estimates that the timeline for the installation of these traffic control signals is approximately 12 months."

(Toronto: Where pedestrian infrastructure can be closed to the public in less than 48 hours, but it takes more than a year to add new pedestrian infrastructure.)
 
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