Peter's Pet Peeves On Traffic Safety, Traffic Flow and Long Term Traffic Planning
Is it just me, or do other people notice the following;
People driving like maniacs in their own neighborhood. with the risk of killing their own kids, pets or otherwise hurt or injure people.
Lack of street lighting in neighborhoods
Lack of speed bumps and or speed limits in neighborhoods
Lack of 4 way stops at all intersections in neighborhoods.
Lack of resident associations taking action to better promote and lobby for traffic safety.
It appears, at least in and around Victoria BC, that there is a focus on street beautification, whatever that means. In reality this comes down to a bunch off added medians, with or without some grass, greenery and or trees. Although I have no trouble with its intent, I hardly think it to be a priority in context of what is truly a very sad case of planning and implementing a traffic control and flow system.
As a Realtor I travel the highways (of which we have none) and by-ways, in and around Victoria on a daily base, and am frustrated and shocked every day about t the lack of vision, planning and implementation of anything that looks like a coordinated effort to improve anything, other than appearing to be busy.
With more and more people commuting from and to work and home on a daily base, we all see and experience the poor and hopeless attempts of traffic flow control in and around town.
Let me give you one example, and by no means this to pick on any one town in the area, just one of the many many examples of insanity leading common sense.
If you have ever traveled either along Craigflower Rd and or Admirals Rd and where the two intersect you will know exactly what I am talking about. I would like somebody to explain to me and the rest of all those that have ever been in that area between 3 pm and 6 pm on a week day, what they where thinking when they decided that this was a solution of any kind, to anyone either living local or traveling through the area.
I use this example, because this intersection was recently "improved" as they say, it is improved to the point that is now almost impossible to move by this critical traffic point without running into some form of accident or heart attack, by car, I can not imagine, that a cyclist, or worse a pedestrian fares any better in this crazy spot.
So what is my point, well, instead of trowing money at something, and cause an even bigger problem, make sure that we create actual solutions with a view of long term planning and traffic expectations. One simple event at the Navy Base changed how many of the Navy members live their life's. It is called a cost of living adjustment, which allowed many of the navy members to either buy a home or at least afford to live in a home away from the base and or PM Q's. what does this have to do with traffic flow you ask? Well at Admirals and Craigflower it means an increase of daily traffic by at least 20 to 40 % almost overnight, as more and more Navy member are moving or by now have moved away from the base and into the Western Communities and or the Sooke area.
We as real estate practitioners knew this well in advance of it happening, and when the cost of living was implemented, none for the so called road improvements where not even a concept, so why where these realities not incorporated in the designs and plans to make the improvements.
Again I am not trying to pick on View Royal or any community, although I have to make one other observation in regards of the various municipalities in the lower Island. The reason for many of our traffic problems are clearly stemming from the fact that each community seem to be doing things based on their own sometimes short sighted objectives and perspectives.
To point out one more of my peeves on the road, and again I am sure that many of us now accept this as a given. But why was the highway improvement project stopped at Helmcken and not completed into the city and or at least to include the McKenzie Admirals intersection, which in fact even at the time was the one intersection that really needed a cloverleaf, uneven overpass, to eliminate a major part of the congestion each and every day, and with that improve, flow, safety, reduce pollution, etc. We all know that at some time this problem will have to be addressed and again it will cost much much more then to fix it then if it was dealt with at that time.
If you have aver traveled in Europe, you will know and have had benefited from my next peeve; Green Zones, no they are not planting a bunch of trees in the middle of the road, although I have Little trouble with those. Green Zones are a very distinct method to improve traffic flow, by timing and setting traffic lights in such a way that when you travel at the speed limit you will flow thru the intersections without stopping or delay (within reason). It baffles the mind that every day between 2.30 pm and about 5.30 pm traffic in Victoria's few main roads comes to an almost stand still because the lights make it impossible to deal with the shear volume, so what happens all the time is a few cars more from one set of lights to the next set of lights, and this harmonica continues until the number of lights reduces so that the roads have an opportunity to absorb the volume. This has nothing to do with safety, accident prevention or common sense. With little expense and effort, the various communities can dramatically improve this silliness, by spending some time in setting the traffic lights to properly allow for green zones, as well as time the green periods to allow the largest traffic flows to adjust to the demands at any given time during the day.
when do you think we will actually make our laughable attempt to highways in to actual highways.
Examples,
stop uncontrolled left turns across a 4 lane rd, like the dead traps on the Pat Bay "highway",
allowing driveways to access highways.
allowing bicycles on highways
installing more and more concrete medians on the roads, and being surprised that cars are loosing control every time there is any rain, due to aqua-planing.
We are spending a fortune on creating and building bicycle lanes all over town, and by doing so, improving things for the cyclists, but where are are we installing these lanes, correct allong the car lanes, and we call this safe, or a safety improvement. sorry I do not get it, how is it safer to have some white line seperating a cyclist from a car, zooming by at 3 times the speed of the bicycle.
I am all for bicycle lanes, many of you know that I was born and raised in Holland, the country where there are more bicycles then there are people, where ever you travel in holland there are special lanes and roads for pedestrians and bikes (including mopeds). We in fact have one of these already which we cal the Galloping goose trail, now I am not suggesting that we change everything and rip out all the roads and built a network of bike lanes, but with the goose in mind, where pedestrians, skaters, cyclists and others are sharing the road, with out major issue and only low speed traffic, we should be able to review our current sidewalk use and designations along the main arteries and detemine that is would be much safer and much cheaper to allow the shared use of these sidewalks for both pedestrians and bicylces, and other slow moving traffic. I know thai would not work in down town and high use pedestrian areas, but would very much work in areas where there are sidewalks on both sides of the street and limited users.
In other areas where space is limited, create detour options for bicycles, to use parralel roads, and lanes to avoid have both cars and bicycles traveling on the same road level.
Today we hear almost daily that a cyclist or pedestrian is hit or hurt, in traffic, unless we deal with this realistically, not by banning cars and their movement, which will never happen, but by providing for truly safe and affordable solutions where needed, we can easily achieve a much improved traffic flow and in the process, lower polution, lower the number of accidents, and reduce stress.
With the ever geying of our population, we are going to see a need to improve overall visability and shift