Week in review: June 12, 2018
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Consultations, feedback, and events
- CYCLING:
- TREES: Kitchener’s Sustainable Urban Forest Strategy, due June 29
- VOTE: Check to see if you are registered to vote in the upcoming municipal elections
Election aftermath
The Progressive Conservatives have won a majority government in the Ontario Legislature. What does that mean for provincial transportation policy? Our best guess can be found in our review of party platforms and promises.
Walking
Kitchener staff have shared their plans to test winter sidewalk clearing options: proactive enforcement, plowing after every snowfall, and a hybrid of property owners and city-run clearing where plows are only deployed after major snow events. The study would also try out sensors that can detect the presence of sidewalk snow and ice.
- Kitchener welcomes new ‘rainbow crossing’ in downtown (Kitchener Post)
- Cambridge advisory committees clash over Blair Road turf war (The Record)
- When it comes to winning praise, Galt’s new bridge is a walkover (The Record)
- How traffic signals favour cars and discourage walking (The Conversation)
Cycling
Waterloo Regional Police have released a pair of videos containing tips for people cycling and driving to “share the road” safely. The cycling video has drawn criticism for admonishing “keeping to the right” at all times - in contradiction with guidance from the City of Kitchener regarding sharrows and the Ministry of Transportation’s own cycling safety guide, which discourage staying to the right if the lane is too narrow to share. According to provincial guidelines for transportation engineers and planners, “sharrows are intended to guide cyclists as to where they should ride within a travel lane shared by both motorists and cyclists.” We’re don’t tend to be fans of sharrows - too often they’re a cop-out for real infrastructure - but it’s disappointing to see our police contributing to the public’s confusion surrounding them.
- Velo Canada Bikes - Summary (London Bicycle Café)
- Copenhagenize your city: the case for urban cycling in 12 graphs (The Guardian)
- How bike lanes benefit businesses (Strong Towns)
- Engineering solutions for safer cycling: bike signal timing and crash prediction (Transportation Research and Education Center)
- Den Bosch keeps its arterials tidy with low-stress access roads (People for Bikes)
- Bike and transit are better than driving … when they team up (People for Bikes)
Transit
- Resumes pour in for LRT driver positions (The Record)
- Ride-shares, subsidized taxis eyed to improve transit in Waterloo region (CBC)
- Buses to connect 9 Perth County communities (CTV)
- Is anyone owed a transit line? (Human Transit)
- Dedicated bus lanes, without the extra lane (CityLab)
- Transit ridership depends on bus service, study finds (CityLab)
- Flagging down driverless buses (The American Prospect)
- Future-proofing public transit (Remix)
Vision Zero
- Toronto planning to allow photo radar outside all elementary schools (The Star)
- How fire departments stopped worrying and embraced safer street design (Streetsblog)
- False positives: self-driving cars and the agony of knowing what matters (Wired)
The shape of our cities
- New rules in Waterloo could threaten highrises, developers fear (The Record)
- Developer vows to fix 10-storey ‘mistake’ in student area (Waterloo Chronicle)
- Metal and glass addition planned for heritage building in downtown Kitchener (The Record)
- Can the Growth Plan’s Major Transit Station Area (MTSA) policy be the beachhead into the Yellowbelt? (Neptis Foundation)
- Challenging myths about millennials and housing (The Conversation)
- Why transit-rich neighbourhoods are more affordable (The Atlantic)
- “Unbundling” parking costs is a top way to promote transportation options (Mobility Lab)