Monthly Archives: May 2012

One way street cycling

There are conflicting views about one way streets and cyclists.

Some cyclists feel one way streets are designated that way for the convenience of motorists, and being human-powered “active transportation” mode, the rules simply don’t apply to them and cyclists should be allowed to go the “wrong way” down the one way street. Another version of entitlement.

Others feel cyclists are sort-of motor vehicles, and for that reason or because of safety concerns, should obey the one way designations.

Anyone who drives will have noticed the signs, usually on freeway or limited access roads, that scream out “wrong way – recuillez”, that just might catch the occasional wrong way driver.  While in Cambridge MA last week I spotted a “wrong way” sign (without the recuillez bit) aimed at cyclists.

Stopped as I was at a red light, I grabbed the camera, turned it on, zoomed in, and tried to squint at the mini-pic on the back to grab a shot of it on a side street debouching onto my multi-lane road, all the while the other members of our (rented) vehicle screaming “it’s a green light” and cars moving around etc. All of which is to say, the pic is a bit fuzzy:

Now I must confess to being one of those optional cyclists that rides the road if I feel it is safe, the shoulder if it isn’t, and I’m trying to stop being a gutter-bunny, and I am willing to go out of my way to find off-street paths, I generally obey one-way signs except on very quiet streets except when I don’t because going the wrong way gets me off the busy street (ie Bronson) quickly so I just might use the sidewalk instead so I am not riding into cars, and I got there by riding the cross walk too.

Typical crazy cyclist to a motorist; being prudent and safe in my mind.

 

 

Integrated intuitive wayfinding system for pedestrians

These few pictures are from a tourist-oriented city. No, not Ottawa.

This is a cross walk, of course. You recognized it right a way. Red, for visibility. With a decorative wiggling line through the middle that invites walkers. Very unrigid.

And this is a similar shot, except now we can see both this intersection and the adjacent cross walk. The line leads the pedestrian on to the park and to harbour front area. Note the lack of signs on posts explaining to pedestrians that this is the way to walk.

And the line continues through the park, leading us to the harbour and ferry dock. Imagine, walkway, cross walk, integrated in design, look, and feel. The adjacent sculptures (buoys on sticks) adds to the atmosphere. Largish beds of taller grasses introduce a natural-yet-somebody-cares feel.

I didn’t notice any motorists flummoxed by the ‘different’ design. Everyone seemed to understand what was going on. Instead of looking around lost, or needing frequent wayfinding signs, the sidewalk provided an integrated self-guided pedestrian tour and wayfinding system.

What are the chances we could ever see this in Ottawa?

For a start, consider such an intuitive wayfinding system exiting from the downtown east OLRT station and leading to Parliament Hill or Confederation Square. Instead of signs on posts, the occasional icon on the path is all that is needed.

I wonder if Downtown Moves will be offering simple solutions like this?

Just how fast do they go?

Residents frequently complain about speeding traffic. 

Signs are only marginally effective, if the engineers design the roads to invite higher speeds. And make no doubt road design is not some innocent bystander in this. For years we have been making our roads wider, flatter, smoother, better lit, and pretending innocence when traffic goes faster.

It is faster by design.

The first step in fixing the problem is to measure the problem. You can’t fix what you didn’t measure.

Some Councillors are buying Speed Boards for their Wards. These boards tell motorists what speed they are doing. There is  evidence that motorists slow down when their excess speed is pointed out, which reinforces the notion that motorists are unaware of speeding because the road design invites that speed. And lucky for us, motorists tend to keep to the correct speed for some time after the speed board sign moves on to somewhere else.

But eventually it creeps back up, invited by the City’s road design.

A speed board does more than just tell the motorist her speed. It also builds a data base. A very useful data base.

Here are the actual results of the speed board pictured above on Booth Street, northbound, in front of St Anthony Church. If there is anywhere one might expect motorists to be a little bit cautious of speed, it’s right in front of a church and school. And I can’t help but wonder if the proximity to a signalized intersection slows traffic since 50% of the time motorists see a red light ahead. The pavement is pretty rough too. So let’s look at the data.

Oh, by the way, the City’s review of the data is merely: Based on this information it seems that the speeds are consistent throughout all times of day with an average speed of 42km/h. Doesn’t the image of Shirley Temple come to mind?

Some people might be content with average knowledge. What might a more observant citizen discover?

Here is the daytime chart. Taken between 10 am and 12 noon. Speed limit 40 kmh. Note that 56% of vehicles are going above the speed limit. And look down in the bottom right corner: the fastest vehicles were going at 99 kmh — right at an intersection and in front of a school !  Imagine what that car would do to a lunch bucket, let alone its carrier!

And, notice that 97 vehicles were going over 60 kmh in just the midday two hour period (counted over 3 days)! This is 50% faster than the speed limit. That’s one very fast speeder every three or four minutes at midday. But on average, you know…

I am told that some of the excess speed is due to the “velocity factor” of motorists used to Queensway speeds who arrive on a residential street and then tend to resume their prior speed “because it seems natural”. Nothing to worry about here folks, move on.

 So what happens at night on Booth Street? We are ignoring any cars that might stop on the street, perhaps to ask directions from people on the sidewalk, although their cruising speed will be captured in the data. Here is the Wednesday night data, for Wednesday May 2nd:

Only 62% of the vehicles are breaking the speed limit. But at least 16% actually would be somewhat compliant with a 30kmh limit. Our night time speed demon, trying to get to Hull before the bars close, was doing 84 kmh, twice the posted speed limit.

What was it the city said was consistent about the traffic?

I’d say it was pretty consistently dangerous. Like every day. Every night.

And here is the overnight data for Thursday evening:

I think it is important that when speed boards become more available in our residential neighborhoods that we get as much data as possible so as to permit an analysis that just might vary slightly from the City’s analysis.

Remember, that readers in the Civic Hospital area should contact their association to get involved in the campaign for 40 kmh limits in that neighborhood. And Dalhousie residents (Little Italy and Chinatown) that want to get involved should contact the Dalhousie Community Association’s transportation committee and watch for the pedestrian safety meeting coming in a few weeks.

Signs of the times

Councillor Hobbs hadn’t much support for her proposal to lower the residential speed limit to 40 kmh. In fact, her only supporter was Councillor Holmes. Where were these other councillors who moan about excessive speedy traffic? At the Mayor’s summit, my seatmate was Councillor Deans who gave a great spiel about the futility of wider roads, too-fast-traffic, etc. But not apparently for a 40 kmh limit. Councillor Cherneschenko?

The Civic Hospital neighborhood is organizing to get streets in their neighborhood signed for 40 kmh. Personally, I think they should shoot for 30 kmh. Then add some features to the road that make it advisable and prudent for motorists to actually obey the speed limit. Ottawa’s traffic engineers design residential streets like freeways, with “forgiveness” for excess speed built right in.

Oh, that’s forgiveness for the motorists. Not the hapless pedestrian run over because the sidewalk doubles as a “run off zone” for motorists.

Amongst the items on our discussion was producing official-looking but private speed limit signs that we could mount on lawns and move from street to street. Another idea was to guerilla-stencil the street with our own speed limit.

Communities are organizing to fight for safer limits. Here are some signs of the times.

And for residents of Dalhousie, the DCA Transportation Committee is organizing a pedestrian meeting in early June. The Guest Speaker has the evidence that local ward residents are more at risk from motorists than residents in other wards. More news soon.

And hopefully, more signs of the times.

Turtle racing on Petrie Island

I don’t recall ever being to Petrie Island before. So it was a bit of an adventure. To get there, it’s a dirt road marked with warning signs of “turtle crossing”. Alas, the speed limit (merely a suggestion, if one goes by the speed of other vehicles ) is 50 kmh so one would never see the turtle let alone the kids that might be walking to the beach on this sidewalk-free bit of exurbia.

Part of the beach is named for the Orlean’s family that sailed around the world on Northern Magic, Herbert and Diane Stuemer (and their 3 kids).

At the far end of the beach (ie, upriver and inland part) there is a turtle walk. And many turtles did we see: snappers, blandings, and one other. The very edge of the riverbank is fenced off with a tight-weave mesh, whether to keep the turtles in or the humans out was not clear.