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Road Safety & Vision Zero Plan

'Walking on a tightrope next to a highway': Coalition, councillor call for wider sidewalks on Avenue Road

From link.

Avenue Road is known for high-end shopping, posh hotels, and multiple private schools.

It's also known, some residents say, for having dangerously-narrow sidewalks alongside heavy traffic.

"It's unsafe right now," said Albert Koehl, a member of the Avenue Road Safety Coalition. "This street is no longer consistent with a modern downtown area."

Koehl, a 25-year resident of midtown Toronto, is among those calling on the city to consider widening the sidewalks alongside the busy six-lane arterial road.

"People just want to live their lives on this street as we do in quiet residential areas, but it's still treated as a thoroughfare, as a highway, and that's inconsistent with what I think our Vision Zero road safety plan wants to do," he added.

The coalition, which includes residents' associations, school groups and other organizations, has reached out to local councillor Josh Matlow to take their mission to city hall, and Matlow said he's started a process to have city staff review Avenue Road and consult with stakeholders.
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"The sidewalks are so narrow that it feels like walking on a tightrope next to a highway," he told CBC Toronto. "If we have multi-lanes for drivers, at least we can consider a few feet more for people walking to school every day."
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'Controversial' to talk about pedestrian safety, councillor says

He's now bracing for potential pushback, given how polarizing redesigning roads can be.

"It always concerns me how controversial it is to talk about pedestrian safety," Matlow said.

One effort to radically redesign a stretch of Yonge Street in Willowdale led to sparring among councillors, with a plan backed by city staff to bring in wider sidewalks and bike lanes — while narrowing the road from six lanes to four — met with opposition.

In March 2018, the plan was deferred for more study, putting it on the back-burner.
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This week, council debated the latest incarnation of Toronto's Vision Zero plan to end road deaths — and the topic of sidewalks came up, with a motion from Coun. Stephen Holyday successfully quashing the possibility of staff-imposed sidewalks for streets that don't have them at all.

Holyday, instead, secured veto-power for councillors, saying people are happy with the way many roads were built in decades past.

Koehl believes the mindset of keeping old streets as-is is problematic.

"This is all part of World War II thinking where all transportation problems are solved with wider roads and more cars," he said. "That might've worked then — though, it probably didn't — and it certainly doesn't work today with the number of people walking, cycling, taking transit."
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Minimum sidewalk width is typically 2.1 metres

So how wide should sidewalks actually be in Toronto?

According to city staff, minimum pedestrian clearway width is 2.1 metres on most roads, with an exception of 1.8 metres on local roads with low traffic and low pedestrian volumes.
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In some areas, those minimum standards can't be met because of "existing site restrictions," explained city spokesperson Hakeem Muhammad. On the flip side, going above the minimum can be appropriate, he said, such as in areas with high foot traffic, tourist attractions or transit hubs.

Along Avenue Road, the width of the sidewalk widens and narrows over the course of the street, with some spots tightened by lampposts and buildings jutting out.

"By anyone's definition of what safety is, this is too narrow," Koehl said.
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avenue-road.jpg

Along Avenue Road, the width of the sidewalk widens and narrows over the course of the street, with some spots tightened by lampposts and buildings jutting out. (Richard Agecoutay/CBC News)


Avenue Road widening south of St. Clair, 1959
2014319-ave-widening-north-poplar-plains-59.jpg

From link.
 
Towered said:
They should add separated cycle tracks and a BRT ROW while they're at it.
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A BRT may be premature.

But bike lanes/cycle tracks have already been requested by the local councillor, Matlow.

Wider sidewalks have been needed there since forever, pretty much.

I agree it would nice to do both at once. Right now, I'm all about getting the bike lanes painted as sidewalks are unlikely to be reconstructed with associated infra this year.

Widening the sidewalk means moving the drains and the street lights, and any wires, its no small matter.

But I fully support it!
 
kali said:
Avenue Road a highway - hyperbole much? :rolleyes:
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Avenue Road, Queen's Park Crescent, and University Avenue should be narrowed from it's current "want-to-be an expressway" down to two traffic lanes, and include wider sidewalks and raised bicycle lanes.
 
I think that kind of over the top rhetoric is counterproductive for getting pedestrian and cycling improvements because it alienates people and poisons the well for such improvements. You gotta win people over, not hyperventilate at them. I think this is a major reason why there's so much pushback in some areas against urbanist ideas.
 
kali said:
I think that kind of over the top rhetoric is counterproductive for getting pedestrian and cycling improvements because it alienates people and poisons the well for such improvements. You gotta win people over, not hyperventilate at them. I think this is a major reason why there's so much pushback in some areas against urbanist ideas.
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How do you win over drivers when telling them they'll have to accept less lanes of traffic? I'm (not) sorry - this city has catered to the needs of individual car owners for 60 years at the expense of everyone else and that needs to be radically altered to build a better city.
 
kali said:
I think that kind of over the top rhetoric is counterproductive for getting pedestrian and cycling improvements because it alienates people and poisons the well for such improvements. You gotta win people over, not hyperventilate at them. I think this is a major reason why there's so much pushback in some areas against urbanist ideas.
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As if the sheer number of pedestrian and cyclists deaths in this town and the kid gloves on traffic enforcement haven't poisoned the well already?

AoD
 
kali said:
I think that kind of over the top rhetoric is counterproductive for getting pedestrian and cycling improvements because it alienates people and poisons the well for such improvements. You gotta win people over, not hyperventilate at them. I think this is a major reason why there's so much pushback in some areas against urbanist ideas.
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If you think it's over the top, you clearly haven't walked or driven it recently; drivers routinely do easily 90+ going southbound, and you get honked at and/or tailgated for doing anything close to the speed limit. It's a minimum of six lanes wide from St. Clair to Queen's Park and eight lanes wide from Queen's Park to Richmond. It's wider than the Gardiner is through the core.

And even if it were hyperbole, that isn't the reason that there's often pushback to "urbanist ideas": the reason is that most drivers generally loathe change and view even a minor perceived inconvenience as a personal affront to their existence. If you're the kind of person who is alienated by changes that make it less likely that other people die, you don't deserve to have your opinion seriously considered.
 
Towered said:
How do you win over drivers when telling them they'll have to accept less lanes of traffic? I'm (not) sorry - this city has catered to the needs of individual car owners for 60 years at the expense of everyone else and that needs to be radically altered to build a better city.
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Well, let's not throw the rhetorical baby out with the bathwater. For the first 40+ of those past 60 years, there was very widespread popular agreement that relying on the auto was fine. In fact, it was demanded. There was no "at the expense of everybody else" - the auto dependent population was almost all of us. That's how the GTA was built. Including, in fact, the inner suburbs....auto dependent streets started to come into vogue back around 1920.

That is no longer possible. The auto won't get us any further, and it's already getting in the way. So times have to change, and change they will, but let's not demean the last 100 years as part of that. I agree with @kali, sometimes it seems that reinventing our streets isn't exciting for some unless they get to judge and punish and shame auto owners and declare "injustices" in the process.

The Business section of most bookstores are chock full of how-to books on "change management". Virtually none of those books would advise that the best way to get change is to go low on the status quo. For most of us, taking posession of our first auto was a proud moment, and an empowering one. I don't drive downtown very often any more, but I'm not about to apologise for having done so all my life. I suspect I'm pretty typical.

As for driver behaviour, and pedestrian behaviour - I'm afraid it's still a dead heat. Putting ones' self first, and ignoring common good, has become very normal in our society. So lots of that on the roads, but for every selfish drive I observe, there is a selfish pedestrian. It all needs to change. But again, you catch more flies with something other than moral outrage.

- Paul
 
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crs1026 said:
As for driver behaviour, and pedestrian behaviour - I'm afraid it's still a dead heat. Putting ones' self first, and ignoring common good, has become very normal in our society. So lots of that on the roads, but for every selfish drive I observe, there is a selfish pedestrian. It all needs to change. But again, you catch more flies with something other than moral outrage.
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I never understand why otherwise reasonable people choose to make this point. When drivers misbehave, their behaviour carries the potential to kill or maim people -- and this isn't a theoretical; it happens literally every day in Toronto -- while a pedestrian can't kill a car, because a car is an inanimate object. It is an inherently unequal conflict, so why on earth would we try to force equality onto that relationship? It makes no sense.

That notwithstanding, I don't actually much care for the responsibility-assigning aspect of the debate: it's entirely irrelevant for the actual question at hand, which is the allocation of road space (or, in other instances, the installation of bike lanes or traffic calming or tighter turning radii, or whatever). You don't need to enter into a discussion of personal responsibility on the part of any road user to engage with the subject of making changes to physical infrastructure that make it less likely that people die.
 
kali said:
I think that kind of over the top rhetoric is counterproductive for getting pedestrian and cycling improvements because it alienates people and poisons the well for such improvements. You gotta win people over, not hyperventilate at them. I think this is a major reason why there's so much pushback in some areas against urbanist ideas.
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crs1026 said:
....I agree with @kali, sometimes it seems that reinventing our streets isn't exciting for some unless they get to judge and punish and shame auto owners and declare "injustices" in the process.
- Paul
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Is there an earlier post I'm missing?

I don't see anything demeaning or shaming or outrageous.

I see an accurate description of Avenue Road as it is today and an insistence that it be changed.
 
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