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Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

Meanwhile, in Montréal...

Montreal’s Popular Pedestrian Open Streets​

From link.

No wonder they call it the Great White North.

Last month, I journeyed to Montréal, a city I have visited many times in the last three decades, to see how much progress it has made in reining in the car culture, creating more livable communities, encouraging cycling, making roadways safer and, most important, bringing back freedom to inhabitants long oppressed by car drivers.

The changes are amazing — and they are the subject of two new Streetfilms, my 1,000th and 1,001st of my career. The first one is about open streets. The other is about cycling. Both will make New Yorkers drool … or book tickets.

Of course, Montréal has fewer open streets than New York City does, but the open streets in the Paris of North America are much better. Montréal’s 13 open streets are much longer and operate almost entirely car-free — car-free, meaning no parking, either! — 24 hours a day, all summer long.

“It’s about making the city accessible for everyone,” Montréal’s mayor Valérie Plante told me. “There has to be more room for cyclists and pedestrians, and arts and parklets.”

On Montréal’s open streets, you don’t just see people walking or biking as you see in New York, but also art installations, benches, bioswales, swings (with cupholders!), play areas for kids and bollards to keep out the cars.

Bollards to keep out the cars.

“It just brings so much joy and fun and, of course, safe spaces for our kids,” Plante added.

And local business owners confirm that pedestrianized zones bring in more money for struggling merchants.

A 1.5-mile stretch of Mont Royal Avenue is fully pedestrianized, including some side streets. That’s about the same length as New York’s best open street — 34th Avenue in Jackson Heights — but in New York, the open street is still filled with parked cars and only open between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., limiting what residents can do, how many can do it and how long they can do it for. There’s a movement to make the open street permanent and 24 hours — a position supported by incoming mayor Eric Adams — but opponents in the neighborhood want the open street reduced or even eliminated.

Montréal proves that the real solution should be to double-down on open streets. Barricades keep the cars out — and don’t require a massive volunteer effort. And instead of dismissing older adults’ worries about getting around, the city provides transportation (via pedicabs) for them.

One final note for all us nerds: Make sure you check out the appearance of former Streetsblog contributor Steven Miller in the Montreal open streets vid
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From the CNIB...

At this link.

Raised Pedestrian Crossings​


Raised pedestrian crossings – also known as 0-grade crosswalks – provide a designated route across vehicular roadways where the pedestrian walking surface is raised above the surface of the roadway. The surface of the pedestrian walkway is at the same level, or close to the same level, as the sidewalks that provide access to the pedestrian crossing. As such, pedestrians can cross the roadway without encountering curb ramps. As vehicles have to “bump over” a raised pedestrian crossing, such crossings can act as traffic calming devices.

fig4-2-3-1.jpg

Raised pedestrian crossing at a mid-block crossing
A raised pedestrian crossing can be used at mid-block crossings and intersections. If used at intersections, the vehicular roadway is typically raised throughout the entire intersection.
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fig4-2-3-2.jpg

Raised pedestrian crossings at an intersection.
As with any pedestrian crossing, the safe walking route across the vehicular roadway must be clearly delineated on the road surface using pavement markings, such as high-contrast dashed lines or striping. It’s also critical to use an attention TWSI across the entire width of the pedestrian entry points onto the crossing. This will ensure that people impacted by blindness can identify the transition from the sidewalk to the pedestrian crossing. Where these traffic structures are deployed, marked bollards can serve to orient pedestrians with blindness as to the safest line of travel across an intersection. Further information can be found in the section on tactile walking surface indicators.

Ensure to provide line markings on the road surface to identify where vehicles should stop when the pedestrian crossing is being used.
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fig4-2-3-3.jpg

A good example of a raised intersection with accessible pedestrian signals and attention TWSIs. The top of the bollard is cut to indicate the direction of crossing.
 
Soooo, our own @AlexBozikovic has a thread going over on Twitter, which I will link below, in which he expresses some exasperation with the City's Road Design guidelines (on that he is not wrong); in this case
in relation to a project to install one long block of new sidewalk, in front of a school, on Dwight Avenue in Etobicoke.

Twitter thread here:
https://twitter.com/x/status/1442140214336557061

From said thread:

1632753944772.png


This is the stretch of road in question:

1632753994166.png


The proposal is to remove this row of trees in order to add a sidewalk (a new of trees will be planted)

****

Alex posted this slide from the City Presentation, which I will also link below:

1632754134490.png


The full presentation can be found here:


**********

So, my thoughts:

1) The road design guideline, with a 5.6M drive lane here is nuts, I'm all for revising that guideline.

2) What Alex does not mention in his thread (that I noticed) was that the road is not being resurfaced or reconstructed, the sidewalk is a stand-alone project. As such, in the City's terms, the design guideline isn't all that relevant, in that they have no desire to open up the road to build the sidewalk. Its not a small matter, as the existing curbs and gutters (sewer grates) would need to be relocated as well, the necessitates open up the road and the road base, its a much more expensive project. I'm not arguing against that, per se.........but its important to consider that even if the road design were narrowed, the project would be vastly more expensive and not within the approved budget.

3) Now, that said, there are other things at play here............but let's consider the idea mentioned that the City is sparing the School Parking lot, by not placing the sidewalk to the inside of the trees. In fairness to Alex, this is the way the City addresses the idea of the sidewalk in that location in its presentation. But, that really isn't true.

This is an aerial view of the school/sidewalk site, I have highlighted the parking lot:

1632754652921.png


As you can see, its a very small portion of the area in question. If, for argument's sake, you didn't want to impinge on the parking lot (not that I have an issue w/this), its important to note that you would only remove two trees if you ran the sidewalk where the City proposed (instead of the whole row), while adjacent to the parking lot, before shifting it to the inside of the tree row (west) along the edge of the school field.

The City is frankly being misleading in suggesting that the parking lot is a material issue. Were they arguing about impinging on the playable area of the field that may/may not be fair.......but the parking lot is not that big a deal. It is important to note, however, that for the new sidewalk to be far enough to the west not to seriously damage the existing trees, it would have to be well into TDSB property. Its not clear to me from the City presentation if the TDSB was asked about this possibility or open to it.

***

Now lets make it more complicated still; several of the established trees are European Ash; are susceptible to the Emerald Ash Borer. Those trees are unlikely to survive beyond the next 10 years, irrespective of the sidewalk.

The largest number of the remaining trees are Norway Maple, a non-native, invasive tree. Though, to complicate things further, I wouldn't really champion removing the Norways here, if they are in good health; because the nearest sensitive environmental area is more than 1.4km away (Col. Sam Smith Park) the prevailing winds (for blowing seed) run the opposite direction.

***

But before anyone thinks I'm letting the City off the hook.................(which I'm not)...........this is just glaringly bad..........

The City has proposed 17 replacement trees; after going on about how the Norways and (European Ash) aren't native...........

Only 5/17 replacement trees are proposed to be native............. SMH (from the presentation linked above)

1632755393506.png


PS, Horse Chestnut is invasive........

*****

In the end, I share Alex's frustration at the guidelines, wouldn't mind sparing some of the trees in question, and would support narrowing the road; though I understand why the City doesn't want to put that on the table just at the moment.
But the fact that the City is less than clear on its reasoning.....(and we could talk about the fence related excuse separately, but I didn't want to drag out the post).....
On top of which they propose mostly non-native trees as replacements...............

Eeesh this City can be frustrating at times.
 

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Given that the title of school property is vested with the Board and not the city, I would think that eating into the parking lot would be costly, when you consider surveys, legal work, etc. even if the land was transferred for a token fee.

I can't find any Ontario reference that classifies Horse Chestnut as invasive in Ontario.
 
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