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Week in review: December 18, 2017

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Consultations, feedback, and events

In transit

Some Deer Ridge area residents, likely anticipating disruptions on King Street and Shantz Hill from construction, have joined with other voices to oppose the staff-preferred route for ION. The pushback has prompted some troubling questions from Regional council as to why including a stop in the Preston core is so important. (Hint: thousands of folks would use that stop daily who wouldn’t be taking ION otherwise.) It’s a good reminder that it’s not too late to share your feedback on the route alternatives.

  • High Speed Rail project for Waterloo Region and beyond moves forward (570 News)
  • Transit and paramedics big ticket items in regional budget (CBC)
  • What the 2018 election could mean for your commute (TVO)
  • The biggest transit need in southern Ontario is local, not regional (Torontoist)
  • Boston tests faster bus service simply by laying out orange cones (Streetsblog)
  • Why do Americans (and Elon Musk) hate public transit so much, and love chasing “Cyberspace Techno-dreams”? (Treehugger)
  • An affordable fare is part of what drives transit adoption by future generations (MobilityLab)
  • Make city travel much more ‘sociable’ (The Star)
  • Applying behavioural insights to transportation demand management (Alta Planning + Design)

By bike

Two public consultations for the Region’s separated bike lane pilot took place last week. If you didn’t get a chance to come out and participate, you can share your thoughts and ideas online.

  • Cambridge council calls for changes to Franklin Road bridge plan (The Record)
  • City of Waterloo councillor Diane Freeman takes the chill out of winter cycling (CBC)
  • Could Guelph become a leading cycling city? (Guelph Mercury)
  • To fight ‘bikelash,’ get your boss to back protected bike lanes (CityLab)
  • Under-reporting bicycle accidents collisions to police in the COST TU1101 international survey: Cross-country comparisons and associated factors (Accident Analysis & Prevention)

On foot

  • Making KW’s streets safe for pedestrians (Community Edition)
  • New downtown traffic light coming for New Hamburg pedestrians (The Record)
  • Message to the city: Be nice, clear our ice (The Star)
  • Stratford’s 1-sidewalk policy has residents fuming (CBC)
  • Advocates disappointed as Queen’s Park votes down vulnerable road users act (Metro)
  • A 3-D zebra stripe crosswalk appears in Iceland (Colossal)

Underfoot

The Ontario government has now passed legislation to replace the Ontario Municipal Board with the Local Planning Appeal Tribunal.

  • New office building the latest sign of downtown Kitchener’s rebirth (Globe and Mail)
  • $26.6M adult centre planned for Waterloo Memorial Recreation Complex (CBC)
  • The velocity of density: can we build more sustainable cities fast enough? (Sustainability)
  • Hartford removes parking minimums citywide (Streetsblog)
  • San Francisco is taking demand-based parking prices citywide (Next City)

On the road ahead

  • Ten steps toward autonomous urbanism (CNU)

Photo credit: Mikael Colville-Andersen on Flickr, licensed under CC BY 2.0

This post is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by the author.