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Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

^ I wonder if this is a particularly a Canadian issue or do, say, the Scandinavian countries go through the same thing.
Of course, we all need to drive according to the conditions that we are presented with, but I have noticed a marked decline in winter road maintenance of provincial highways, particularly rural and northern, since it was privatized.
 
salsa said:
Materials from the meeting are now posted.

Click to expand...
Jheezus. Why do they need 6 community meetings? multiple council meetings? So much red tape in this city. Why do we need planners if we give the public opportunity to veto their designs?
Sorry, I know that's the way bureaucracy works in our neck of the woods, but I'm constantly appalled. It's all a big waste of time and money.
 
raptor said:
So much red tape in this city. Why do we need planners if we give the public opportunity to veto their designs?
Click to expand...

I too am generally of the opinion that public consultation processes around this sort of thing drag on too long, but the right amount of it does have value; oftentimes (at least in the consultations I've attended) City Staff glean genuinely helpful feedback from the community that changes their plans for the better.

But public consultation doesn't really result in "vetoing" of Staff's designs -- it's what happens on the floor of Council that typically mucks things up, and the original sin of that feedback loop is often a loud and persistent group of residents lobbying their councillor.
 
Kyle Campbell said:
Don't trust the business case, Ottawa was supposed to have them too but they got value engineered out during the p3 bids to stay within the budget envelope.
Click to expand...
ADRM said:
I too am generally of the opinion that public consultation processes around this sort of thing drag on too long, but the right amount of it does have value; oftentimes (at least in the consultations I've attended) City Staff glean genuinely helpful feedback from the community that changes their plans for the better.

But public consultation doesn't really result in "vetoing" of Staff's designs -- it's what happens on the floor of Council that typically mucks things up, and the original sin of that feedback loop is often a loud and persistent group of residents lobbying their councillor.
Click to expand...

Then when a new batch of politicians come along, they through all those reports and consultations out, and start all over again with their own "better" idea.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
From the Star (behind paywall):

www.thestar.com

She was paralyzed in a Toronto bike lane by a careless driver. Her family wants to know why he didn’t face stricter penalties under new law

Government statistics show many drivers charged under the new offence of careless driving causing bodily harm or death have faced none of the stricter penalties afforded by the legislation.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

AoD
Click to expand...

Outside of winter, I'm on my bike almost every single day, averaging around 30km per day. I try my best to obey all traffic signals and avoid unsafe routes, but unfortunately my safely is also at the mercy of a bunch of agitated drivers who at any moment could end my life or turn it into a living hell, just like what happened to her. With the amount of cycling I do in this city, combined with the alarming frequency of collisions that I hear in the news, sometimes I wonder if it's only a matter of time before my luck will finally run out.
 
Funny because they are altering my street soon in the name of bike safety and I was just talking to somebody how the public consultation process is a formality and the data the planners use to justify the change is a joke.

The idea that somehow planners should be given an unencumbered free hand is not something we should be pushing for. These issues are not binary, there are competing interests that need to advocate for themselves.

In a simple example which includes the one I mentioned effecting myself there are various interests that would for instance advocate more for people who travel through a location and those who travel locally and those who reside in the area. There is no one solution that is optimal there is just an array of different interests. The planners make their plan which has merit in advocating their policy directive and it has some good points but how good depends on your interests.
 
AlvinofDiaspar said:
From the Star (behind paywall):

www.thestar.com

She was paralyzed in a Toronto bike lane by a careless driver. Her family wants to know why he didn’t face stricter penalties under new law

Government statistics show many drivers charged under the new offence of careless driving causing bodily harm or death have faced none of the stricter penalties afforded by the legislation.
www.thestar.com www.thestar.com

AoD
Click to expand...
Same article outside of paywall, https://outline.com/Gk6acP

This POS, Kashayar Teymouri should be sued and be responsible for this woman's care for the rest of his days. He was driving someone else's car, so I expect the car owner's insurance will pay out the usual $1-2 million for liability, but this is a $20 million event, IMO.
 
Why do we need to pay overtime to police to enforce traffic laws? Isn't that like paying teachers overtime to teach?

The big challenge we need to overcome is that we need more police, but we can't afford them. We should have less expensive traffic constables, they don't necessarily need guns, just a whistle and a badge. That's what Vancouver has. https://vancouver.ca/police/organiz...cy-operations-planning/traffic-authority.html
 
MisterF said:
The mere existence of something called a "Vision Zero Enforcement Team" just shows that the city is missing the point. Vision Zero is supposed to be about redesigning roads to make them safer, not relying on more enforcement.
Click to expand...

Actually the city got the point - that "Vision Zero" is a buzzword for them, to be slapped on anything that moves so that we can have *Job-Well-Done!!*, not an actual policy that had anything to do with its' namesake elsewhere. Like we have a "Vision Zero Mayoralty", "Vision Zero Public Works and Infrastructure Chair", etc. While we're at it, I guess we should also have "Vision Zero Fracture Clinic", "Vision Zero Funeral Home", etc.

AoD
 
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