crime and sidewalks and foliage

D: I was biking home the other night.
University is pretty good. I took the trail by the tracks by UW.
Went towards Westmount.
On either side, there are woods.
They are flush with the sidewalks on both sides.
This is right by UW.

http://www.nrps.com/community/cpted.asp

Natural Surveillance
The placement of physical features, activities, and people in a way that maximizes visibility is one concept directed toward keeping intruders easily observable, and therefore less likely to commit criminal acts. Features that maximize the visibility of people, parking areas, and building entrances are:

• unobstructed doors and windows,

• pedestrian-friendly sidewalks and streets,

• front porches,

• effective nighttime lighting

For instance, streets designed with gateway treatments, roundabouts, speed bumps, and other "traffic calming" devices establish territories and discourage speeding and cut-through traffic. By keeping public areas observable, you are telling potential offenders that they should think twice before committing a crime. Criminals prefer low-risk situations, and public visibility increases the chances a thief will be caught.

These measures are simple, inexpensive to implement, and will have a more positive effect on residents than gates and bars.

D: my suggestion? Trim the underbrush. 5 or 10' only.
I think the sidewalks along Albert has the same problem.

D.

how bad bike lane design/construction sabotage car bus and pedestrians.

D: Father David Bauer Drive was repaved this summer.
Nominally it has a bike lane. Nominally...

The top pic is as a good stretch. While the sewer grate is best recessed out of the bike lane entirely at least it is flush with the road surface.
The bottom pic is all too common. This is the result when the sewer grate does not line up with the pavement level. Asphalt, I should say.
The soothing stretch becomes a very unpleasant ride.
On a no-suspension bike with high-pressure tire, I imagine very much so.

A car driver would complain if a section of road felt like it would knock your fillings out.

The lip on the extra asphalt is also in line with my tire path.
Meaning I get nervous that my tire might skip sideways on it.

After rain, huge puddles form around these elevated sewer grates in the bike lane.
Now not only will my feet get soaked, even with fenders.
But now I cannot see what I am riding on, making me doubly nervous.

A cyclist is left with 2 options:
1) ride on the sidewalk
2) periodically swerve into the car lane, unexpectedly at least from a driver's point of view.
This undoubtedly results in grumbling about 'why should we bother building bikes lanes if the cyclist won't use them anyway'.

A coworker that drives offered a similar opinion about the Westmount/Northfield bike lane. Since I ride it, I can testify the construction if typically of high quality.
However, patches of broken glass from broken bottles are a regular appearance.
To be fair, the city has been good about cleaning it up every coupla weeks or so.
But after a couple weeks, there is so much debris in the lane that picking out broken glass on sight becomes difficult.
I switch to a different route to work in that final week before the street sweeper helps.

I reiterate, simply 'build it and they will come' is not true.
1) build it WELL and
2) maintain it well,
3) even if the quality is at the expense of quantity,
and only THEN is cycling not an exercise in masochism.

Leaving sewers in a bike lane implies that this bike lane won't last anyway, that it is a mere afterthought, that it simply exists as a temporary feature while in transition to additional car lanes.
With that attitude, of course sensible people will not cycle more.

how bad bike lane design/construction sabotage car bus and pedestrians.

make uptown waterloo one-lane each way only

D: I'm reading that book "Traffic".
Next stop: "The High Cost of Free Parking".
There is 3x more parking than cars.
More cars than people.
And it is 'free' on prime real estate.

http://www.raisethehammer.org/index.asp?id=072
A good review.

www.city.waterloo.on.ca/.../57ad7180-c5e7-49f5-b282-c6475cdb7ee7/PWS_ROADS_documents/2008ParkingBrochure.pdf

Here's an aerial view of all parking in the uptown area.

D: I propose we lose the King Street roadside parking. We replace them with a view dropoff/pickup points. We expand the sidewalks and lay in bike lanes by sidewalks.
We add trees to that new huge sterile development across the street.
We add more bike stands.

"But it will slow traffic!", you say. No, it won't.
We presently NEED 2 lanes each way cuz we HAVE on-street parking.
The number of parking spaces cannot be more than a dozen per block - which considerably exceeds bike parking.
Every time somebody wants to parallel park, something most folks are terrible at, traffic backs up for a block. Ergo the right-hand lane is really just the parking lane.
Remove the parking and remove the lane.
See the feedback in a past post on what the public wants from uptown.
I just described it.

review: a book called "Traffic"

D: I sort of need to read this book.
The book is very readable, other than the author's pressing need to use "timorous", a word I have never heard before. I guess he was insecure.

It begins with a review of traffic patterns historically. The author mentions Pompeii, Rome, feudal London and so on.
He shows the impact of new modes of transportation, including chariots, bicycles and cars.
The book is *really* about the automobile.
The sections on driver habits and such are terrifying.

I find myself wanting to lobby to place a cam in every car, so drivers can get feedback about just how bad their driving is!
The level of narcissistic personality and matching aggressive driving (and a grimmer view of other drivers) can be demonstrated over recent decades.
We are getting WORSE.

The cell phone and I-pod deserve mention.
It is dialing and looking for a song that critically draw eyes and attention away from the road. But talking on the phone can reduce attention even though eyes are nominally on the road. The eyes, however, only look straight ahead.
Long conversations increase risk somewhat - the duration makes it serious though.
Essentially, talking on a cellphone introduces a bad habit into an already complex task.

Instead of banning it, why don't we just subsume cell-phone related accidents into existing demerit systems? Get in accident when on phone- get 'dangerous driving' demerit.

The risk pyramid was illuminating. It is based on workplace accident studies.
For each 300 unsafe acts, there are 30 near misses and finally ONE HIT.
1x30x10...
Think of it was the tip of the iceberg. We consistently ignore the vast number of factors that need to go wrong before one accident happens.
Then we call it an 'accident'.
A comet falling on you is an accident.
Somebody with sloppy driving habits is an accident waiting to happen.
Talking on a phone while fiddling with one's I-pod and then mowing down a pedestrian at crosswalk is not an accident.
It is somebody with no sense of their prowess, or else a disrespect for others' safety.

Perhaps police reports should not stop at reporting seat-belts and the presence of alcohol.
Ipods, cellphones, looking at baby in the back seat, et al - why don't we illustrate how accidents happen?
Even just 'an Ipod was present and on at the time'.
Or: a cellphone conversation was cut off on impact.

From a cyclist's point of view, the concept of 'safety in numbers' is valid.
An occasional biker is not watched for. A steady stream slows drivers who are then paying attention.

For this reason, I think we should not focus on LOTS of bike lanes, but rather upon the high quality of key ones.

review: a book called "Traffic"

GRT makes bus pass hard to get.

http://www.grt.ca/web/transit.nsf/DocID/7C4554FA47B2B074852571730059AEC8?OpenDocument

D: update: a new Shoppers may also sell them.

D: My pal Ron went to the downtown bus terminal to by a bus pass yesterday (Sunday).
There was ONE teller.
The waiting line went around the CORNER.

That is one helluva way to run a business...