Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

[W. K. Lis]

I'm not how I'm expected to take this guy. Is this his first trip to Europe? I imagine when he hit London or any other centuries old city in Europe he must have had heart palpitations.

It a satire series of videos. "Satire" can be "applied to a manner of expression in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is seemingly expressed".

 

[crs1026]

I disagree. If we agree that drivers definitely need to do more to keep pedestrians safe, there's no reason why we can't hold pedestrians to the same standard and have them do their part to keep themselves safe and avoid an accident that could cost them their lives.

If that’s what you were saying, we may have miscommunicated. My view has always been that pedestrians and drivers (and cyclists) need to be held to the same high standard over their share of the rules of the road. There is no situation where one of the three is relieved of the need to remain alert.and accountable for their actions. Any one of the three can cause an accident in a given situation if they push the envelope. Having the green arrow or the Walk signal in your favour does not make anyone omnipotent.

My point, which also applies equally to all three modes, is that people navigate in a “Where’s Waldo” cognitive environment.where they are making split second decisions from an array of stimuli that they may only see for a moment and may have only milliseconds to respond to. I object to the people who simplistically push back with “well, if you didn’t see me, you must be blind or stupid”. There are decades of phychological research into how long you must see something, and how much lighting is needed, before you notice that it’s there - and how one stimulus may be missed completely when other stimuli compete. Again, any one of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians have the potential to screw that up, and need to behave accordingly.

So yes, absolutely, reflectors matter. I was objecting to the people who now refer to reflectors with derision. The word is now thrown out on Twitter as often as “OK Boomer”, and with similar meaning. It’s well proven that the eye is drawn to the brightest object in view. Dark clothing even in daylight is something the eye and brain ignores.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

Part One - Further to my commentary about “didn’t ya see the sign?”, here’s part one of two about speed limit signs and the lack of care put into road markings. (Don’t get me started on how much better roads are painted in other jurisdictions.... but back to my point....)
This speed limit sign is on wb Queensway approaching Park Lawn. It is bolted to a pole that is directly behind a second pole - virtually impossible for an approaching driver to notice. Even if the driver spots a corner of the sign from the distance, from a passing car it will be in clear view only for a second as it is passed.
The blocking pole is not temporary. In fact it has a plate marking it as a HEPC pole - the Hydro Electric Power Commission became Ontario Hydro in 1965, so the pole has been there since before then!
I have lived in the neighbourhood since before that pole went up, so I don’t need a sign to know the speed limit. But, Queensway is a major arterial, and is wide enough that an unfamiliar driver might well assume it is a 60 zone. And, with no speed enforcement these days, driving 70 might not seem unreasonable.
Arterials seem to be where more pedestrian strikes are happening.
We need a general reset on traffic signage and wayfinding in this city otherwise motorists will just assume it’s open season.

- Paul

 

[crs1026]

Part 2 of my rant on signage.
Case study: Park Lawn Road is a secondary route which is seeing volume closer to an arterial, thanks to intense development in the Humber Bay area. It’s also close to off ramps from the Gardiner and many drivers coming off the Gardiner find it frustrating to go from full tilt highway flow to a 40km/h 2-lane suburban driveway.
There are two churches, a school, a public library, and a community centre/pool that sees many children crossing to/from a low rise apartment zone, So it’s a street that clearly warrants a 40 speed limit.
There are five 40 speed limit signs northwards from Queensway to Berry Road. Four are well concealed by vegetation. One is behind a tree that has been pruned, but the trunk of the tree itself blocks the view of the sign.
As a resident, I know the speed limit and it’s my hood so I’m pretty careful. But a motorist from afar might easily miss the signs and conclude it’s a 50 zone. So 60 is tempting.
The City really needs to reset its standards - sign by sign - so the message is “Look, we mean business”.

- Paul

 

[PinkLucy]

Some excellent points in this article https://robinmazumder.com/2020/02/15/carculture/

 

[Max Sterling]

If that’s what you were saying, we may have miscommunicated. My view has always been that pedestrians and drivers (and cyclists) need to be held to the same high standard over their share of the rules of the road. There is no situation where one of the three is relieved of the need to remain alert.and accountable for their actions. Any one of the three can cause an accident in a given situation if they push the envelope. Having the green arrow or the Walk signal in your favour does not make anyone omnipotent.

I agree with you, however if you read many past pages in this thread many people don't and they believe pedestrians/cyclists should be held less accountable than drivers in most if not all accidents even if pedestrians and cyclists do stupid things that contribute to their own injury or death.

Somehow to them even suggesting pedestrians to take basic super easy measures to protect themselves from harm is seen as 'victim blaming' rather than simply using common sense and logic and understanding that if you're sharing streets with vehicles driven by many bad drivers, why wouldn't you take as many precautions as you can to keep yourself safe?

I object to the people who simplistically push back with “well, if you didn’t see me, you must be blind or stupid”. There are decades of phychological research into how long you must see something, and how much lighting is needed, before you notice that it’s there - and how one stimulus may be missed completely when other stimuli compete. Again, any one of drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians have the potential to screw that up, and need to behave accordingly.

The thing is as a pedestrian as long as you're not blind or have some mental or other impairments, a normal person should easily be able to see vehicles moving towards them, how many there are and then judge if they have the time and distance to safely cross as long as they're paying attention to their surroundings. At an intersection its the same thing. When the lights are in your favor, look around before you step off the curb, continue to look around while your crossing especially for turning cars and the chances of you being hit by a vehicle will be extremely low.

As I've said before pedestrians have the most control in these situations because they decide when and where they cross a road and they have the best view of the area around them. Short of a car coming up onto the curb and striking them, people can stand on the sidewalk forever and never get hit. So I don't understand why pedestrians don't use these advantages all the time when crossing streets to keep themselves safe.

 

[tiffer24]

A 51-year-old man has died in hospital one day after he was struck by a vehicle in Brampton.

The collision took place in the area of Brisdale and Bovaird drives just before 9 p.m. on Saturday.

At the time, Peel paramedics said they transported an adult male victim to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries.

https://www.cp24.com/news/man-51-di...being-struck-by-vehicle-in-brampton-1.4814179

 

[W. K. Lis]

More pedestrians, me including, are looking for coats or jackets (winter, spring, and fall) that have reflective material on them.

From link.

From link.

Watch out for politicians who would try for make it a law that pedestrians must wear reflective clothing instead of fixing the roadways to make them safer.

 

[crs1026]

Somehow to them even suggesting pedestrians to take basic super easy measures to protect themselves from harm is seen as 'victim blaming' rather than simply using common sense and logic and understanding that if you're sharing streets with vehicles driven by many bad drivers, why wouldn't you take as many precautions as you can to keep yourself safe?

Absolutely true, and it taints this whole discussion. I support better safety for pedestrians and cyclists, but if you suggest it's a two-way proposition, you get attacked because you don't side with "them" to their desired extreme.

Drivers too, of course. A good compromise pleases no one, I guess.

The thing is as a pedestrian as long as you're not blind or have some mental or other impairments, a normal person should easily be able to see vehicles moving towards them, how many there are and then judge if they have the time and distance to safely cross as long as they're paying attention to their surroundings. At an intersection its the same thing. When the lights are in your favor, look around before you step off the curb, continue to look around while your crossing especially for turning cars and the chances of you being hit by a vehicle will be extremely low.

In the main this is true, but it is a bit iffy if you are trying to cross a 4-lane arterial where there is no crosswalk or signalling. It sounds like this is where some fatalities are happening. The pedestrian has to guess when there will be a gap in each direction, and it's easy to miscalculate when you are processing several approaching cars at once. It only takes one miscalculation to be at risk. Cars do pop out from behind larger vehicles and when they do they are likely to be accelerating. Or, cars haven't spotted the pedestrian and are changing lanes towards them. One sees pedestrians start across, then realise things aren't as they first thought. They may freeze, or they may dart where they were moving at a different pace before. The drivers in turn may change speeds or lanes. It's an inherently error-prone situation, for everybody. There's just no excuse for not having more signalled pedestrian crossings so this is minimised - but there may always be some such potential risk.

There is a certain amount of well-intentioned "after you, Alphonse" at signalled intersections also. That's why eye contact is so important.

Motorists have the same dilemmas, actually. It's often hard to enter a busy fast-moving street from a sidestreet, for the same reason. Try making a left turn at a light when there is a large vehicle trying to turn left in the opposing direction. Your view of the oncoming traffic may be zero because the vehicle blocks your sight line. The prudent thing to do is just wait, even if the way looks clear, but inevitably somebody behind you starts honking. If you do turn, you can count on a vehicle appearing in the opposite direction that you had no way of seeing.

- Paul

 

[W. K. Lis]

If there could be a safety island or median strip that pedestrian can reach when crossing w-i-d-e roadways, that would be an improvement.

At traffic light intersections, even with the safety island available, it is a rarity that the powers-that-be include a pedestrian button in the middle intersection.

From link.

They assume the pedestrian will reach the other side. But without a button on the island...

 

[tiffer24]

TPS Operations 8:46 pm
COLLISION: Lake Shore Blvd W & Twenty Ninth St - reports of 4 vehicles involved, reports of injuries - also a female pedestrian struck, injuries appear serious - officers o/s investigating - @TorontoMedics o/s tending to injured parties - expect delays-ROAD CLOSURES

 

[W. K. Lis]

Meanwhile, in New York City...

The ‘Busway’ Proves Another Benefit of Car-Free Streets: Safety

From link.

The car-free 14th Street Busway is a real lifesaver. No, literally.

The benefits of the city’s transit-priority pilot program between Third and Ninth avenues in Manhattan are well documented: buses are moving much faster and ridership is up as a result of the improved service.

But the project is having a much greater, and much-less-heralded, safety impact.

In the four months since the busway began in October, total crashes are down 53 percent and injuries are down 63 percent compared to the same four-month period a year earlier. Crashes that resulted in injuries are down 68 percent.

Here are the raw numbers:

• Total crashes
  • Oct. 2018-Jan. 2019: 90
  • Oct. 2019-Jan. 2020: 42 (a decrease of 53 percent)
• Total crashes with injuries
  • Oct. 2018-Jan. 2019: 27
  • Oct. 2019-Jan. 2020: 10 (a decrease of 63 percent)
• Total injuries
  • Oct. 2018-Jan. 2019: 35 (seven cyclists, eight pedestrians, 20 motorists)
  • Oct. 2019-Jan. 2020: 11 (three cyclists, seven pedestrians, one motorist, a total decrease of 68 percent)

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist — or a mayor! — to see what’s going on: Removing cars has enhanced safety for all road users. Street safety advocates have been calling for more car-free zones for years (and Mayor de Blasio has largely ignored them), so no one was surprised by Streetsblog’s back-of-the-envelope calculations.

“Let’s hope [the reduced crashes on 14th Street] is a herald of a similar benefit we will see from congestion pricing and pedestrian zones and busways in the city’s future,” said Jon Orcutt, a former Department of Transportation official who now is advocacy director for Bike New York. “That said, moving the safety needle citywide means more aggressive traffic calming for the really car-oriented streets like Atlantic Avenue, Northern Boulevard, Third Avenue (in both Brooklyn and the Bronx) and on and on. It’s a long list.”

Few, if any, of the most congested and dangerous stretches of roadway are being considered for busway treatment. The mayor said last year that he hoped to create new car-free busways in 2020, though he declined to specify where. Here are just two examples of dangerous roadways that could be remedied:

• Northern Boulevard between Queensboro Plaza and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
  • Total crashes Oct. 2018-Jan. 2019: 163, injuring 39 people
  • Total crashes Oct. 2019-Jan. 2020: 144, injuring 36 people
• Fordham Road between Jerome Avenue and Southern Boulevard
  • Total crashes Oct. 2018-Jan. 2019: 133, injuring 42 people
  • Total crashes Oct. 2019-Jan. 2020: 102, injuring 32 people

Also worth noting: The seven-block stretch of the Fulton Mall in Downtown Brooklyn — a car-free transitway for decades — had just 43 total crashes in all of 2019, injuring 13 people. In the four months between October, 2019 and January, 2020, there were just 16 crashes, injuring four people.

“There’s no question that more cars equals more crashes, so it’s no surprise that streets where people and transit are prioritized over traffic aren’t just more efficient and more pleasant; they’re also much safer,” said Transportation Alternatives spokesman Joe Cutrufo.

The clear safety benefit of car-free roadways prompted Streetsblog to ask City Hall a few questions (albeit on Presidents Day):

• What does City Hall think about these numbers?
• Will City Hall give a timeline for an expansion of the busway model to other transit strips?
• Since the evidence is clear — car-free streets are much safer — will the mayor commit to making more roadways off limits to cars? If so, when? If no, why not?

 

[mickael]

I'm not how I'm expected to take this guy. Is this his first trip to Europe? I imagine when he hit London or any other centuries old city in Europe he must have had heart palpitations.

I wonder how you'd handle London with that wonderful grasp of sarcasm you have.

 

[lenaitch]

I wonder how you'd handle London with that wonderful grasp of sarcasm you have.

I handled it once, using their Tube system and wonderful taxis, but thanks for asking.

Apologies, I suppose, for not being totally conversant with all aspects of social media culture. I'm a boomer - saved you from saying it.

 

[tiffer24]

A pedestrian believed to be in his 80s has been rushed to hospital after being struck by a vehicle in the Black Creek area.

It happened at Jane Street and Shoreham Drive Tuesday evening.

Multiple callers reported that the man had sustained a head injury, police said.

The man was rushed to hospital via emergency run in serious condition, Toronto Paramedic Services said.

The vehicle remained at the scene.

https://www.cp24.com/news/senior-rushed-to-hospital-after-being-struck-by-vehicle-1.4817717