Week in review: December 17, 2016

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Consultations and feedback deadlines

• REGIONAL BUDGET: Engage Waterloo Region budget survey, due Dec 21
• MOVING FORWARD:
  • What are your priorities for transportation in Waterloo Region?
  • How would you like the Region to respond in these different transportation planning scenarios?
• KITCHENER:
  • Shape DTK 2020 short and long surveys
  • Budget survey
• CAMBRIDGE:
  • Transportation Master Plan
  • On-street parking
• MAPS: Regional cycling map, first edition in need of feedback

Winter walkability

• Confusion between the Region and Kitchener over plowing responsibilities led to a day or two where the Kitchener half of the Spur Line Trail wasn’t being cleared of snow. The city has since committed to plowing the rest of this winter and will be negotiating a more permanent agree with the Region. Waterloo, on the other hand, understood the original trail agreement with the Region to mean that they needed to plow the trail going forward and has been clearing the snow regularly.

https://twitter.com/cd_klein/status/808659670063874048

• Robin Mazumder is interviewed by Eric Drozd on 570 News concerning last week’s blog post on designing for pedestrians with empathy. Listen to the audio.

Transit

• The province announces $10 million in gas tax funding for transit in Waterloo Region for 2017. That’s about $300,000 less than the Region’s share in 2016.
• The Community Edition covers the Alliance Against Poverty’s efforts to bring free transit passes to residents on Ontario Works and the Ontario Disabilities Support Program.
• Sean Marshall bemoans Metrolinx’s suburban station paradigm, with emphasis on abundant free parking and passenger drop-off areas over pedestrian access, noting that even plans for infill stations inside Toronto follow this pattern. We note the planned Breslau station has its own challenges:

https://twitter.com/TriTAG/status/809109604965687296

• Henry Grabar at Slate highlights the worrying trend among some North American cities to cut transit with the belief that services like Uber will replace it. But when the venture capital stops flowing, ride-sharing can never be cost-competitive with transit. Meanwhile, Joe Cortright of City Observatory notes that as ride-sharing fleets expand, they will have to contend with the ‘camel’ of travel demand during the morning and evening rush hours, limited in both fleet and roadway capacity.
• Seattle is providing loans to help build affordable housing near bus and rail lines.

Vision Zero

• The Toronto Star has been running a “Deadly Streets” series this week, looking at why 2016 has been so deadly for pedestrians.