Raise the Hammer

The visibility on the west side of King & Locke is poor for driver's, who can't turn on a red, only on a green. Safety should be key when talking about pedestrians, and crossing there just wouldn't be safe. I think the rules are (and should be) a little different about where pedestrians cross when there are multiple lane roads - King & Main act more like highways when they 4+ lanes wide.
I live in the Aberdeen & Kent area - 8 min to walk around seems on the high side, but I don't think putting in a pedestrian crosswalk would be that much trouble. I lived out west for awhile, and it always struck me that there, the respect for pedestrians is very high. If you want to cross a road in Calgary, you just stop, wait, and 90% of the time, traffic will stop for you. An amazing concept to Ontarians, eh?!
I think Hamilton is on the way to making the city a better place for non-vehicle travelers - bike routes have been added in a lot of places, which is a great start that a lot of cities have yet to take. If only the bicycles I see out riding actually used them...

Safety should be key when talking about pedestrians, and crossing there just wouldn't be safe.

Exactly! But the problem is in the way we address it. Rather than making it safer for pedestrians at these problem areas (namely, by slowing traffic down), we simply ban the pedestrians.

A grossly exaggerated example of this would be finding that lots of people who get shot tend to die - so we make it illegal to get shot instead of restricting the use of guns.

King & Main act more like highways when they 4+ lanes wide.

And THAT's the real problem.

I'm with you RTH on all the pedestrian initiatives that you put forward for Hamilton to consider, especially the walkability issues that come up recently and I appreciate the efforts. I have to say that adding a crosswalk on the west side of Dundurn to allow access to cross King, will save a couple of people, maybe a couple dozen, 5 mins each ways. Getting away from rush, rush, rush is part of the appeal of the non-car culture. so let's not add to the environmental woes by increasing the idle time of cars attempting to leave the city of Hamilton.

Slow down. It's 5 mins.

ps, that's a major strip mall, with many busy stores. Trucks load from the north of the mall, and seeing as they have been banned from Dundurn, turning left on King off Dundurn is the only option, and I wouldn't advise my family to traverse that.

The City of Hamilton needs to prove that it is serious about making downtown an attractive place in which to live over the long term.

When deciding on a place to live, most people will choose not to live beside a highway. Walkability is also important to most people.

The one-way streets in Hamilton are de facto highways and the pedestrian is often viewed as an obstacle thwarting maximum vehicle speed.

The hybrid system of one way and two way streets now utilized in downtown Hamilton is more confusing and more dangerous to locals and out-of-towners than having all two-way streets or all one way streets.

Very few new residential housing and hotel developments have been built in downtown Hamilton over the past fifty years relative to other Canadian cities of a similar size. In fact, the venerable landmark Royal Connaught Hotel struggled mightily for decades prior to its demise in 2004. The status quo is obviously not working for downtown Hamilton. Why not try two way streets to see whether they can help to increase residency in the downtown Hamilton area?

The economic impact to downtown Hamilton of one new downtown resident is many times greater than the economic impact of a person who works downtown or occasionally shops downtown and hundreds of times greater than a person who drives through downtown Hamilton to go somewhere else.

Encouraging more people to live downtown Hamilton should be a top priority. Making downtown Hamilton more pedestrian friendly is a large step toward making it more resident friendly.

Comment edited by RenaissanceWatcher on 2010-12-09 07:49:51

@Ryan, it's not just that corner that will be affected.

Sure, let's let Granny stroll across King on the west side of Dundurn. Only takes 30 secs. Come rush hour, this will line up cars on Dundurn, between King and Main, and potentially turn the North Crosswalk on Main St into a death trap, as a congested roadway is filled with steel and rubber, and motorists who can't turn off Main St potentially risk someone's life trying to squeeze left onto Dundurn. I see it now, and the traffic flows smoothly with the way things are.

I agree, @RW, we are helping with that attitude, and RTH goes a long way to promote that, but in this instance, King and Dundurn isn't downtown. It's just the wrong corner to put your stool.

Ryan: "Combine that with more pedestrian-friendly streets, better transit and a regulatory structure that encourages reinvestment and adaptive reuse, and you transform the local economy."

Judging from today's LRT news, I think the snag is that the deciders may well deem the latter two out of three a sufficiently substantial achievement. Will that fall short of the perfect transformation scenario? Perhaps. Will it prevent transformation entirely? Of course not. Measured against the ideal, it's a wet blanket. Measured against the status quo of the last half-century, it's a watershed event.

as someone who lives in the King/Locke, King/Dundurn neighbourhood allow me to share my two cents. There is quite a bit of pedestrian traffic in the area, despite great efforts by the city and flunky engineers over the years to turn this into a mega-freeway extension of the 403. A recent Durand neighbourhood meeting revealed the following stat from the local police officer who attended: King and Dundurn has the highest accident rate in the city. Guess which intersection is number 2? Main and Dundurn.

Anyone suggesting (with a straight face) that these two intersections work fine, is clueless. The only reason I can see for restricting pedestrian crossings is so that drivers can just scream around the corner onto King without having to look right. I've seen MANY pedestrians hit since living in this neighbourhood while legally crossing Locke or Dundurn on the north side. People headed south on Locke or Dundurn never look right while making their legal 'right turn on red'.

My solution is ultra cheap and ultra simple. Look no further than Montreal.

BAN all right turns on red. And allow pedestrians to cross all 4 directions. Let it sink in. I know it's a really radical idea.

Hamilton is so far behind and so backward in our thinking still it's baffling. The odd good change doesn't make up for the non-stop parade of bad decisions in the face of clear evidence.

As I stated in a different blog, I want a refund on all these 'economic summits' and conferences we constantly hold. Don't hold another single summit until we've pulled our heads out of the sand and followed through on the smart ideas presented during the previous conferences.

Ryan, your entry above discussing the 8 minute walk is very important.
City studies have found that the two-way conversion of James and John has added 2-3 minutes on a drivers trip on James from the north end to the escarpment.
Now, we're abandoning the King, Main, Cannon two-way plan presumable for the sole purpose of saving that 2.5 minutes for car drivers once again. The city has no problem asking pedestrians to walk 8 minutes out of their way, but won't follow through on THEIR OWN document called "Putting People First" because it may result in cars slowing down to the tune of 2 and a half minutes.

Anyone who thinks Hamilton 'gets it' is delusional. Disconnected bike lanes and the odd, over-engineered two-way conversion does not turn a backwards hick town into a bastion of progressive idea. Go live in Portland, Montreal, Vancouver or Amsterdam for a few years and see what it's like to live in a real progressive city. We're light years away, sadly.

Maybe the solution involves both petitioning those in decision-making offices as well as inhabiting the corridors of power. Advocacy and protests are effective but politicians and policymakers still have greater influence per capita.

I am starting to think that a huge problem is staff, moreso than council. In the end, staff has to do the work and staff comes up with the recommendations. It is way too easy to just keep doing the same thing you always have. It certainly leaves more time for surfing the internet at work if you don't have to do any extra research or other work toward changing the status quo.

Go live in Portland, Montreal, Vancouver or Amsterdam for a few years and see what it's like to live in a real progressive city.

Sadly (for we who live in and even love this battered old city), this is a little backwards: Hamilton is a very progressive city. From the 50s to through the 80s, all sorts of bold new transformations were implemented here far more thoroughly than in bass-akwards places like Montreal or Amerstam which clung to old architecture, old streets and old ways of thinking.

• One way streets for fast cross-town access!
• The visual clutter of little old shops with the signs and windows replaced by a clean down-town mall!
• Raised plazas for pedestrian enjoyment!
• Concrete and brick art gallery and convention centre without all those pesky, heat-and-A/C leaking windows!
• Crazy little streets at the centre of town replaced with a nice, big block of climate-controlled buildings!
• The hulking Victorian embarrassment that was the old city hall at James N and Market pulled down and replaced by a shiny new marble building for the ages!
• Spindly overwrought fountain and messy trees in the centre of town replaced by the honest lines and modern forms of an open expanse of concrete!

That's ambitious progressivism for you. What Hamilton needs is a little more regressivism ...

• streets designed for people, not cars
• a downtown geared for living and shopping, not driving
• development which respects and loves its environment instead of thumbing its nose at it

And, in fits and starts, we're getting there. I think.

Comment edited by moylek on 2010-12-09 09:46:50

This is where we're all heading ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6HAA_tVdwM

@Kate

They could put in a push-button that gives a no-left-turn window for the pedestrians to cross, or converts the left arrow into a flashing yellow, or put up a warning for drivers, or something rather than simply shirking the problem with a dead crossing. Again, I've said it before: if the city wants to run expressways through the heart of town, it has a responsibility not to cheap out on it. If the one-way network has created an unsafe crossing, then the solution is not simply to remove the crossing but to secure it. If Locke or King were 2-way, that left-turn wouldn't be blind. Notice how the LRT will fix the problem, since it sounds like they're going to run it on the South side... this means that Lock St. drivers will have to pull into the intersection (and thus not be blind) before they can turn left.

We can always see the logic here... the frustrating fact though is that this city is filled with incredibly creative solutions for vehicular traffic, but when it comes to pedestrian traffic their solution is simply "don't cross here".

I can totally understand why there's no crossing at the West side of King and Dundurn. It makes perfect sense - you have drivers filtering onto the bridge from 3 directions all the time, including the painfully overcrowded Dundurn. Fine. I disagree with some of the logic, but I can see where they're coming from. But the city shouldn't throw up their hands and say "screw you, pedestrians". The city should be coming up with a solution, like adding a push-button signalized crossing at Bredalbane (taking pedestrians directly to the pedestrian-friendly part of the Fortinos plaza, rather than across the parking lot) or at the 403 Eastbound ramp (so you could protect pedestrians necessarily crossing the ramp where drivers are going at highway speeds and you have to play a game of "guess which lane the oncoming driver is going to be in"). Hell, we're talking about creative solutions to traffic and uncreative solutions to pedestrians: here's a creative one: 3 crosswalks, 1 red light. Make use of this 1-way mayhem in a positive way. Put a crosswalk across the King St. bridge at the Eastbound ramp, a crosswalk across the ramp itself, and a push-button at each end of those. Any of those buttons gives you a red over the Breadalbane crossing. Boom. Ainsliewood and Bredalbane pedestrians get access to the Cricket park on the overflow tank, Fortinos plaza, etc. with one red light.

To me, the problem with the crossings is self-perpetuating. The city doesn't bother with crossings because it's not worth the time to slow a hundred or a thousand drivers for one hypothetical occasional pedestrian... but at the same time, that means that pedestrians will avoid the crossing (or even the area) and so there will never be more than one occasional pedestrian rather than it being a normal pedestrian pathway.

If the city wants to create these high-speed corridors for drivers... well, that's their decision, and we obviously seem outvoted on stopping them. However, that means the city can't just tell pedestrians "go somewhere else".

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2010-12-09 09:53:53

Yup. How can you have a "best place to raise a child" that's pedestrian-hostile when kids can't drive? Single income households seem to generally also be single-car. My wife is on mat-leave so right now she's driving a Phil & Ted double-stroller... and she walks the Dundurn bridge often.

@Mr. Meister

I'm not even arguing that the city should slow down traffic (I think it should, but I don't expect it to happen). All I'm asking for is that the city show the same creativity and financial commitment to pedestrians as it does to drivers, rather than just telling them "don't cross here".

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2010-12-09 10:04:49

A vision statement is a statement of values. Hamilton's vision statement is a lie, for the City does not truly value any of the four key themes - least of all the theme of engaging citizens.

We have a large number of drivers because this city spreads out over 1,100 Km2.

So let me get this straight, we have to have five lane expressways that ban pedestrians in the lower city because of empty space in Ancaster and Glanbrook? Do you even care that most of the people in the city are concentrated in a small part of the total area?

Nobrainer, Mr Meister's pathological opposition to transformational change is impervious to logic. Don't waste your time.

Why is it more important to save a driver 30 seconds than it is to save a pedestrian 5 minutes?

Because this is part of the car-centric culture we've predicated our society on. And it's a very, very difficult paradigm to change, in the main.

I'm a pedestrian. I've long remarked that as an adult, I've spent far more time on my feet than behind the wheel of a car getting to where I've needed to get. Additionally, I've accumulated tons of miles using public transit, far more than in an automobile. However...

Recently, I was discussing the 'arrogance of drivers' with my dad, whose independence as a senior is undeniably anchored to his car. Full credit to him that he can look at the issue of 'car vs pedestrian' in a reasonable fashion; maybe because he does spend time travelling by foot as an admittedly vulnerable member of society, he's become a little more 'aware' of the inequities.

Following on our discussion, I had to do some driving. In his car. Specifically, from one end of the city to the other. And I was a little...well, 'struck' by how quicksilver-like the change in mindset was, from arch pedestrian to driver: it's as if something descends, a kind of sanctification, one that has a (figurative) little voice whispering 'All that matters is you getting from Point A to Point B in as expedient a fashion possible'. This means that any impediment at all...lights changing, another vehicle making an inconvenient-for-me turn, or a pedestrian...seem like an insult.

I was driving, I was carrying on at the speed limit, and I was very aware of this voice. And as I examined the suggested truth...one that I'd bet a ton of money is the default for just about any driver on any road at any given time...as I say, I was struck. (In retrospect, maybe the best analogy is 'The Mask', the Jim Carrey film.)

It was sobering, being reminded of just how great a gulf there is between 'the driver' and 'the pedestrian'...and I'm wholeheartedly a card-carrying member of the latter group, not the former. So what's it like for those who are the reverse? How much more entrenched is this 'arrogance' with them? (Please; this is a rhetorical question. All one has to do to witness proof is to take a look at the comments made by the general car-driving population when the subject of 'How We Get Around' is broached.)

I salute Ryan's continued efforts to present opportunities to discuss this basic quality of Life issue. It's only through increased dialogue, heightened engagement that we're going to find a gradual shifting to something far more humane than what we currently see in our city.

@mystoneycreek

Sixty year old children's cartoon, still relevant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZgiVicpZ...

ha! I was just about to post that same video :-)

That was hilarious! I love the stuffed garage and the cross-hair hood ornament!

Why not push for a pedestrian underpass at/near Breadalbane St.? Seems it would make far more sense than a crosswalk, inasmuch as no one would be able to complain about slowing down traffic.

Comment edited by thrillhouse on 2010-12-09 11:23:28

why not put a vehicle underpass at Breadalbane?
This is a downtown neighbourhood with thousands of people living, cycling and walking these routes. I don't understand why people flying out to the suburbs deserve more say in how my neighbourhood functions than I do? I don't have a say in their neighbourhoods, and really could care less what they do out there with roundabouts or two-way etc.....

This is where we're all heading ;)

OT, but this animated short put me in mind of the playstation ad that's been showing on tv lately. The one where "you are the controller", showing scene after scene of people jogging on the spot in their living rooms. It just makes me want to scream "go outside!" It seems having control over a game console has become a substitute for having control over our public spaces. We're so screwed.

@thrillhouse

1) Pedestrian underpasses are not wheelchair or stroller accessible. "Best place to raise a child", remember?

2) In any place but the densest of urban environments, those things inevitably become a tunnel of graffiti, bodily fluids, and sexual assault. The only bright side is that FAQ, Menses, and Keenur may all be raped and peed upon.

@highwater

Is it weird that I want the reverse? I'm waiting for the industry to make Augmented Reality headsets so that I can use to play live-action Quake in Churchill Park.

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2010-12-09 11:47:02

The only bright side is that FAQ, Menses, and Keenur may all be raped and peed upon.

I may just have to steal this for my signature.

Is it weird that I want the reverse?

Yes! :-) Pxtl, we'll have to have a chat about Churchill one of these days.

The question of why drivers are privileged over pedestrians has a lot to do with broader questions of class, gender, age and other unofficial heirarchies. Most of us fit adult males have no trouble sprinting across Main, Cannon or Aberdeen. Just as we don't have much trouble walking the extra distance in under 8 minutes, or getting in a car if we need to. Disabled people, children, the elderly mothers (and increasingly fathers) with strollers - all groups that don't get a lot of consideration in a thousand different areas of life beyond traffic. The biggest reason it's being brought up now is the support of better-off types like us who have the education and privilige to bring it up. As much as I love choosing to not own a car - I have to admit that for many people, it's far from a "choice" either way.

And while it would be easy to write off these kind of issues as a symptom of poverty and other issues like it - we can't forget the role they play in perpetuating poverty. Cars cost a lot of money (directly and indirectly), and making it difficult or impossible to live and work without a car makes it a hell of a lot harder to be poor, disabled, elderly, young, or a parent.

@jason

Points well taken. I was using remote possibility of success as a criterion, but will refrain in the future.

@Pxtl

Points also well taken. Accessibility = mandatory; assault tunnels = forbidden; peeing on graffito kids = optional. I can live with this.

Wondering what the change in real estate value would be along busy roads if traffic would slow down by 10 km/h. Tens of millions I would guess.

Following on our discussion, I had to do some driving. In his car. Specifically, from one end of the city to the other. And I was a little...well, 'struck' by how quicksilver-like the change in mindset was, from arch pedestrian to driver: it's as if something descends, a kind of sanctification, one that has a (figurative) little voice whispering 'All that matters is you getting from Point A to Point B in as expedient a fashion possible'. This means that any impediment at all...lights changing, another vehicle making an inconvenient-for-me turn, or a pedestrian...seem like an insult.

Mystoneycreek...great post. Your experience is very much the same as mine.

My theory is that it is the physical separation of the driver from those around him or her, that breeds this feeling that others are "insults" or rather, impediments to my progress. Drivers certainly don't seek to be unfriendly or anti-social every time they step behind the wheel of a car. However when so insulated from those around them, it's like being in one's living room, where there is no expectation of social niceties, no need to be polite to others who are outsiders, infringing on my personal space. This is especially true when one is alone (as the majority of drivers tend to be in their cars).

Is there a way to start a petition to have the crosswalk installed there?

Ted,

Look what happened to Limeridge road when the Linc went in. That road was always crazy busy, now it's a sleepy little side road.

Not everyone walks at an average of 4.8 km/h. And many of those who do can safely sprint across a street.

It is an issue of cars versus pedestrians. Cars kill pedestrians. The more automobile traffic flows through a route, the less hospitable it is for pedestrians. And the more pedestrians flow through, the more traffic slows down. More space/funding for highways means less for crosswalks. Unless we understand how these factors interact, we will never understand the issues at play.

"Safety" measures which impose massive inconveniences upon pedestrians in order to maintain the brisk flow of traffic are oppositional tactics. They DO make an oppositional issue out of this. We're simply pointing it out.

I'm also a Locke/King resident (two RTH Jasons within a few blocks of each other - who knew?), and we are actually thinking of moving back to Kirkendall next year so our eldest son will be able to walk to school in either grade two or three. Normally, I would have no problem with him walking that distance to school in a couple of years, I really have very little concern about the modern bogyemen of 'child predators' lurking in every bush. My kids are streetproofed and sensible, so a 1.2 km walk should be no big deal. Hamilton drivers though? They scare the bejeezus out of me.

The fact is that in order to get there he'd have to cross King and Main - and cross at least one of them at Dundurn, and that makes a 1.2 km stroll more like running a gauntlet. We are now at the point where if we want to promote a healthy walkable lifestyle for our kids, we need to move roughly 6 blocks in order to ensure their safety.

Incidentally, has anybody seen the sign up outside of Mixed Media? And does anyone know where I could get a couple of copies to put up along King at Victoria Park?

I can't help but notice that in Ainsliewood, we do see money spent on creative solutions to protect pedestrians. Camelot Towers has a push-button crossing over Main Street - not a full 4-way traffic light but a single "stop for the pedestrians" push-button lighted crossing. There's a push-button crossing in the middle of Longwood S that isn't even on an intersection - it simply connects the MIP parking lot to the MIP buildings (apparently the city is willing to spend money on a push-button stop-light when it benefits motorists). There's a "yield to pedestrians" sign on the 403 onramp that divides Columbia International College's residences from its classrooms.

Why don't we see this kinds of things on Aberdeen? A similar "yield to pedestrians" sign would be nice on the Westbound turning slit at Aberdeen and Queen. A similar crossing would be a massive (though incomplete) improvement at Aberdeen and Kent. It would be annoying in that pedestrians would only be able to cross on one side (east or west) of the intersection, but it would be better than what they have now and would only slow traffic when somebody is using the crossing.

@Ryan - I still think Aberdeen would be much more hospitable if the City would convert Queen to 2-way and complete the Frid St. extension to connect to Longwood. Then all the westbound traffic coming down Beckett Drive would be spread through several routes instead of crammed onto Aberdeen.

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2010-12-10 08:57:31

I love that sign. Where do I get a copy?

There's a bit of a hiccup when it comes to the logic of drivers. On one hand, pedestrians and cyclists are told to clear out of the way because even if we're "legally right", we may still die. On the other hand, if we begin to question why so many people are dying, we get accused of "picking on drivers".

Virtually my whole time going to Ryerson Middle School (@ the HAAA grounds by Queen & Charlton). Almost daily, we were honked at and shouted at for crossing legally in the cross-walks at because drivers wanted to turn onto Queen or Charlton. And that's at a signalled intersection in the area. During that time I also knew a kid who lost his Mom crossing Herkimer @ Kent (why there's now a stop sign there).

That sign would be even funnier if it wasn't essentially official policy in Hamilton.

Interesting thing about the change in mindset once you get behind the wheel - look at how drivers treat other drivers at advanced greens. Last week I saw 6(six) vehicles jump the advanced left green arrow on dundurn south to main.

Granted, this is a ridiculously short advanced, but 3 sets of left turning vehicles going through it? Shameless. Not to mention this also takes away the right of way from pedestrians. Suggestion: add a few seconds to this advanced, then install a 'green light' camera.

Sorry fir the off topic post, but there was a good article on walkability fail back in March: http://www.raisethehammer.org/blog/1668/...

Lots of comments dissed the 3 phase lights. The reason they do this is to increase the safety of pedestrians, which apparently it does. Because it decreases the average 'green time' it slows down lane capacity from about 50 to 33% of maximum (1800 veh/hr), so there is nothing in it for the car.

The Dundurn / Aberdeen intersection certainly has lots of pedestrian traffic, mostly kids, so in absence of a better proposal I think it should remain as it is.

But never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence. There is another 3 phase intersection at Garth and Limeridge that has minimal pedestrian traffic. East/west volume on Limeridge is really low since the Linc. North south traffic builds up large queues because of it, so you can't really argue that the city is pro-car here. Why is it still 3 phase, or why was it ever thus?

The whole design of Fortino's Plaza parking lot, the crosswalks at King and Dundurn and the treatment of pedestrians making their way to Westdale along King West are all unfortunate features of our daily landscape. As many comments have made clear, there are multiple bad design decisions here:

1. If you want to walk west to Westdale along King you have to sprint across a highway entrance ramp at the Cathedral.
2. If you want to leave Fortino's and go north you're out of luck - unless you sprint across the full width of King (many do).
3. If you want to go to Fortino's west of Dundurn you have to negotiate a very pedestrian-unfriendly intersection (which is annoying every time I walk it).

All three of these features speak volumes about how Hamilton treats pedestrians. All three must be corrected for Hamilton to have any credibility as a good place to raise a child. Not just in these prominent locations but everywhere else similar features exist - as a matter of design policy.

These design policies might include: a. don't force pedestrians to sprint across lanes of accelerating cars b. have pedestrian crosswalks on all sides of every intersection c. enable motorists to leave in all directions from major shopping centres d. don't encourage motorists to do crazy stuff like sprinting across all lanes of a major street

Comment edited by michaelcumming on 2010-12-10 10:35:12

@Undustrial - I'm working on getting a copy right now. Send me an email (it's on my profile) and when I get it, I'll forward it along.

Kent is the only north-south street between Queen and Dundurn that runs continuously from the escarpment straight down to Charlton.

What Ryan describes here is the pedestrian equivalent of an arterial road. The problem is whenever a primary pedestrian route meets a primary vehicle route, the latter seems to take priority.

Does the situation at Aberdeen and Kent not fly in the face of the City's efforts to limit the distance somebody has to travel to reach an HSR stop? One wonders if they just draw dots on a map when they make these decisions without thinking of the nature of the streets themselves.

I'm also a Locke/King resident (two RTH Jasons within a few blocks of each other - who knew?)

Howdy neighbour!!
Yea, that walk across King and Main is brutal. Last year I almost looked at a house on Strathcona between King and Main, but decided not to because:

• I have no interest in living between two freeways with my family
• I had no faith that the city would move forward with 2 way conversion and LRT. Looks like less than a year later I'm being proven right.

The 8 minute time for walking 400m was a very rough estimate I did in my head while chatting to Ryan on the phone. I agree that an able-bodied adult walking briskly at 4.8km/h would cover the distance in about 5 minutes, but the elderly, disabled or the young would indeed take about 8 minutes or more (I know this from experience!). Unfortunately, most would simply avoid walking. Which is the whole problem: those who are confident and able bodied will simply dart across the unsignalized intersection (as the traffic engineers well know), while the young and elderly will simply not walk there. This is clearly not a fair or effective way to promote pedestrian safety.

In any case, even the 5 minute figure would clearly be an unacceptable delay for motorists. Imagine a motorist having to wait 5 minutes for a green light to cross an intersection, or having to make a 4km detour (assuming an average speed 10 times faster than walking). We would never put up with it! Why is my time so much less valuable when I step out of my car and onto the sidewalk?

I grew up in Vancouver, and I can confirm there are far more crosswalks (and respect for pedestrians) there. There are also, not surprisingly, far more pedestrians out walking. Even in a city as congested and full of aggressive drivers as Paris, motorists will screech to a halt when you step onto a sidewalk because the know the rules of the road and the penalties for hitting a pedestrian (even though they are highly annoyed at having to stop).

Another way of looking at fairness and safety is to consider our response to accidents. Even though Dundurn at Main and King are the number 1 and number 2 accident spots in the City, no one is suggesting that cars be banned from turning. However, pedestrians have been banned from crossing at several points there already, and was recently suggested as a solution by the traffic department for the remaining east side crossing of Main at Dundurn as well!

As I mentioned to Ryan, considering every road users time of equal value could help us rationally balance their competing interests. Remember that a crosswalk doesn't impede motorists unless someone wants to cross, so the argument about "insufficient numbers of pedestrians" is really moot. Of course, that only works if crosswalks are relatively cheap to install (paint and signs), which is why we have the problem we do in Hamilton.

For anyone interested in the sign that is posted in front of Mixed Media: I live downtown and made the sign and other similarly themed signs. You can download the source files at:

http://www.wrecovery.com/hamiltonsigns/

I also want to point out that my intent of posting that the real average time is closer to 5 minutes than it is to 8 minutes was to point out that there is a factual inaccuracy in the first sentence of the article. Without the words "normal" and "average", it could be passed off as being misleading, but with those words persent, it's just straight up wrong. Wrong by more than 50%. It's not too late to change it Ryan.

I wasn't suggesting that the 8 minute (read 5 minute) detour is a good thing or a bad thing. I'm quite aware that a lot of people would be walking much slower than this. In fact, my job involves helping elderly people to walk. My point was just to point out the factual inaccuracy. It's things like this which happen on a consistent basis that make me question the objectiveness of RTH.

he didn't mean "me" as in just him. he meant "me" as in "a resident"

Try reading it like this instead:

"Why does a person's time become so much less valuable when they step out of their car and onto the sidewalk"

The problem at Kent is that there is a sign specifically instructing pedestrians to walk out of their way to cross the street somewhere else. There are **not** thousands of intersections like that throughout the city (thank god)

Ryan, in the interests of accuracy could you please change 8 minutes to 5 minutes, since this is a better estimate for an able-bodied adult.

Spacemonkey, the big picture is that our road design puts top priority on motorists and makes life uncomfortable, dangerous and inconvenient for pedestrians and cyclists (and I do own a car so I see this from the driver's point of view as well). This is a deliberate choice, and it is a choice that, in my opinion, has negatively impacted the overall quality of life in the city compared with other cities I've lived. It is also a choice that is unfair both to those who can't drive themselves (at least 30% of the population, even in the richest neighbourhoods, according the Gil Penalaso in his presentation to the Durand pedestrian workshop), and those, like myself, who prefer to walk when possible.

It's not as if residents want crosswalks at every intersection. They want crosswalks at intersections that are dangerous and provide convenient pedestrian routes. The city installs only two or three signalized crossings a year for a city of half a million. In any case, one could just as well say "we can't plow every road in winter, we can only afford to plow the arterial streets" or, "we can't afford to pave the side streets", or "traffic lights are expensive, we'll just use stop signs". It is a question of priorities: our priorities clearly differ.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2010-12-10 16:15:58

shabooga,

Your awesomeness is astounding!

How can the best place to raise a family be devoid of crosswalks at major intersections? Why would anyone in their right mind choose to raise a family here unless they wanted their kids growing up fat and with a complete disconnect of their environment?

The last post I made wasn't meant as a slight to those attempting to raise families here. Things are getting better all the time, and I sincerely hope more and more crosswalks are installed to fix the broken road system from the 1950's when cars traveled at different speeds and were designed very differently.

http://www.jungledrops.com/drops/Gundy%2...

It's not about you. The city doesn't have anything against you and doesn't value your time any less than anyone else's. I think people need to stop looking at things from a Me Me Me view, and think of the big picture.

When entire neighbourhoods speak up to ask for lower speed limits or crosswalks at key points (such as Aberdeen & Kent), that isn't just about "me". When activists and journalists point out very well known authors (Jacobs, etc) and citing academic papers and international examples, that's not just about "me" either. When I speak out against a danger which represents the single largest risk of death to my demographic group, that is about far more than just "me".

I cross whatever street I want whenever I want. They could fence it if they wish - I would simply jump the fence. I'm a fit, young, arrogant man, I can. When I speak up on behalf of seniors, children and the disabled - it isn't about me. It's about everybody. If that doesn't suit YOU, don't blame it on me.

Why doesn't someone or better yet a couple of people (solidarity) dress up like a crossing guard and offer to shuttle people across the intersection at King and Dundurn and other problem ones? Just go out at crossing guard times. Sometimes you have to get in people's faces.