Roads/Bridges projects/issues

[rocketphish]

Councillor looks to L.A. to map Ottawa road conditions
Interactive online map allows anyone to check road conditions in Los Angeles, Coun. Tim Tierney says

Laura Osman · CBC News
Posted: Apr 17, 2018 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 2 hours ago

Coun. Tim Tierney wants to take a cue from the City of Angels to help give Ottawa residents a clearer picture of the state of the city's roads.

It only takes a click of a mouse to look at the state of the road surface along Hollywood Boulevard, or find out when Melrose Avenue was last paved.

Los Angeles shows the condition of all of its roads on a real-time interactive map that anyone can access online.



It's difficult to get a similar picture of what's happening in Ottawa, Tierney said.

He's asked city staff to study the possibility of creating a similar map using Ottawa's pavement condition data.

That study is underway.

"I want to be able to have a full, high-level view of exactly what's happening in my neighbourhoods," said Tierney, the councillor for Beacon Hill-Cyrville.

Ottawa reports every five years on the overall state of city infrastructure.

Last year, Ottawa's roads were considered in fair to poor condition, but the study doesn't show where the biggest problems are.

Even as a councillor, Tierney finds it takes time to find out the condition of a given road.

"I literally have to email city staff members and they have to pull it out of a spreadsheet," he said. "But we pay for those roads, and we should have access."

The idea was controversial when it was first pitched in Los Angeles, but officials there say the system has worked well.

"A lot of my colleagues in other cities were telling me 'You're crazy, the more information you give them the more they're going to stab you in the back,'" said Nazario Sauceda, the director of public works for Los Angeles.

"It hasn't worked like that. It's the opposite."

See the Los Angeles map here.

The roads on the map are colour coded: green for those in good condition and red for those in rough shape.

The map makes it easy to see and understand the issues on the roads, and the added transparency has helped the city to work with its neighbourhoods to come up with strategies for tackling the road maintenance issues, he said.

The L.A map was put together with the help of Google and didn't cost much. It helped shape how much money the city spends keeping the streets in shape.

That's why Tierney wants an Ottawa version in place before the city budget is set for 2019.

Ottawa city staff are studying the possibility of creating an Ottawa-based map using existing road condition data. They will report their findings to city council.

Sauceda has even offered to help Ottawa with its version if this city decides to move ahead.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-tim-tierney-roads-los-angles-1.4622572

[Multi-modal]

Looks like the City is building another "protected intersection" - this one at Donald and St. Laurent. (see key map at the link below)

https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public-en...rent-boulevard-intersection-improvements

With a safe (hopefully) intersection to cross St. Laurent, it makes it even more of a shame that the City didn't put some money towards bicycle lanes on Donald rather than McArthur.

[Multi-modal]

The City is proposing another protected intersection cycling project, this time at Meadowlands and Fisher. The Fisher cycle tracks will connect north to the protected intersection under construction at Deer Park / Dynes. I only found the project on a Councillor website (see link). I can't find it on the City's public consultation website.

http://keithegli.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/May-2018-Wallford-Farlane-etc-PIS-EN.pdf

I went to the public information session yesterday and took one picture. Sorry about the low quality, but you can get the general idea. East-west road is meadowlands and north-south road is fisher.



Sidenote: I never know whether to put these in the cycling thread or general road projects thread. I lean towards general road projects.

[zzptichka]

Thanks.
So I take it Fisher itself won't be redesigned and won't be getting even paint bike lanes any time soon... This road is seriously overbuilt and needs some road diet.

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

Thanks.
So I take it Fisher itself won't be redesigned and won't be getting even paint bike lanes any time soon... This road is seriously overbuilt and needs some road diet.

Which part of Fisher? Fisher between Deer Park / Dynes and Meadowlands is getting cycle tracks.

Also at Fisher & Meadowlands they are removing the long southbound right-turn lane, the northbound acceleration lane for the westbound right-turn, and the northbound right-turn lane. So north of Meadowlands Fisher will be reduced from 7 lanes to 5 lanes, and south of Meadowlands Fisher will be reduced from 6 lanes to 5 lanes.

I agree that - at least from Meadowlands to Prince of Wales - Fisher could probably use a more comprehensive diet.

[zzptichka]

Found this picture on twitter:

[rocketphish]

What happened at Ottawa city council: 'Gateway' speed limit signs get green light

Matthew Pearson, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: August 29, 2018

Council approves neighbourhood ‘gateway’ speed limit signs

Blanket speed limits of 30 or 40 km/h may be coming soon to some neighbourhoods now that council has signed off on a new policy for speed limit signs at community entry points.

Council on Wednesday approved a plan to have “gateway” speed limit signs now that the province allows municipalities to create speed limits lower than 50 km/h and post the speed limits at entry and exit points of neighbourhoods.

Because it would cost about $1.6 million for new neighbourhood gateway signs across the city, only one area per ward would get gateway signs by the end of 2019. The city has identified $50,000 from the 2018 budget and the upcoming 2019 budget to make the signs. Councillors will help staff identify the areas.

Barrhaven Coun. Jan Harder asked staff to take an “outside the box” approach to communities like hers where, except for arterial roads such as Greenbank Drive and Woodroffe Avenue, a larger area could be considered for lower speed limits, instead of asking councillors to choose just one area.


<snip>

[email protected]
twitter.com/mpearson78

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...ateway-speed-limit-signs-get-green-light

[roger1818]

^^^Global News's article on the same topic has pictures of what the new gateway speedlimt signs look like. Not quite what I was expecting.



see https://globalnews.ca/news/4417054/council-oks-rollout-residential-gateway-speed-limit-signs/

[waterloowarrior]

Earl Armstrong Extension EA (Albion to Hawthorne)
Open House Jan 16 2019
https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public-en...-road-extension-environmental-assessment

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

Earl Armstrong Extension EA (Albion to Hawthorne)
Open House Jan 16 2019
https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public-en...-road-extension-environmental-assessment

The open house display boards are up on the website (see above post).

The preliminary preferred corridor is on board 23, I'll just post it below so people don't have to download all the boards (large files).

[daud]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

The open house display boards are up on the website (see above post).

The preliminary preferred corridor is on board 23, I'll just post it below so people don't have to download all the boards (large files).

If that road existed today, I would use it daily to get from my home in RSS to work near Lancaster and Walkley. As it stands I may be able to using for a year or two before I retire

I still think a proper limited access ring road connecting 416 and 417 using the leitrim corridor is the way to go for this city for about a half dozen purposes (not just a bypass) but I have resigned myself to knowing it will never happen.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Multi-modal

The open house display boards are up on the website (see above post).

The preliminary preferred corridor is on board 23, I'll just post it below so people don't have to download all the boards (large files).

What's the deal with point #2 on slide 23? "Best provides resiliency in the arterial road network (resulting in a lower contribution to climate change)."

WTF does that mean? I get the point about resiliency by providing an additional alternate route, but how do they figure that results in a lower contribution to climate change?

[Multi-modal]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

What's the deal with point #2 on slide 23? "Best provides resiliency in the arterial road network (resulting in a lower contribution to climate change)."

WTF does that mean? I get the point about resiliency by providing an additional alternate route, but how do they figure that results in a lower contribution to climate change?

I'll take a stab at that... I think they are referring to when they were considering upgrading Rideau Road as a macro-option, which would result in higher travel distance (and increase emission) in comparison to a new Earl Armstrong alignment.

[J.OT13]

Rebuttal to Harder's complaints about Barrhaven traffic. Very much a generalization, but not entirely false.

Pellerin: Choose Ottawa's suburbs, deal with the traffic woes

BRIGITTE PELLERIN Updated: February 1, 2019
Post Media

Barrhaven municipal councillor Jan Harder is good at speaking her mind, you’ve got to give her that. But I have one word for her gripes about commuter woes for people in her ward: Hush.

I mean, enough.

I spend a lot of time in Barrhaven. It’s charming. There’s room to breathe, brand-new shops, huge movie theatres, wonderful fitness facilities with gleaming showers and steam rooms, parks, beautiful modern schools, not much homelessness, plenty of nature. Lovely houses, too. Orderly rows, one after the other, everything so tidy and neat. It’s no wonder the place has grown like crazy over the years.

You know what Barrhaven isn’t, though? Close to downtown. That’s why there’s room to breathe, room for that huge Walmart, room for everything. Because it’s far.

So are Orléans, Kanata, Manotick and well, every other distant suburb you can name. It’s part of the attraction for some people to live away from the city, and that’s great. But you know what living away from the city means? Yes! You’re away from the city. Perfect if you don’t need to go downtown every day. But if you do, gngngn.

Say you’re a family with an income that doesn’t let you own a spacious four-bedroom-three-bathroom house with granite counters and a big yard in Westboro. Your housing budget is nowhere near $1 million. But you could manage $600,000 and look, there are houses you’d love to have for that kind of price in Barrhaven. Woohoo, right?

You buy one, along with all kinds of furniture and gadgets you can’t live without (three giant TVs, Bose wireless speakers, rainwater shower heads, new carpets, those lovely wooden blinds, the works). Oh, and the two shiny SUVs at $40,000 apiece sitting in the driveway in front of the garage doors since the garage is full of mountain bikes, golf clubs and hockey gear, plus jogging strollers. You also get a landscape artist to make your lot as beautiful as the house. Now you feel like landed gentry. You have a beautiful lifestyle.

But you’re still 25 slow kilometres away from downtown. That’s why your million-dollar house only cost you $600,000. You pay the difference with your time, which you apparently don’t value as highly since you deliberately chose to move that far out of the city knowing full well your commute would be longer than if you still camped near Bank and Alta Vista.

See, people with similar housing budgets who live close to downtown have a lot less house. Many rent because they can’t afford to own at all. But to them it’s worth it because they don’t want to live far from town and be prisoners of their car habits. They want to live near convenient transit and bike paths that get them where they need to be quickly. They don’t mind not having a backyard or a garage for two cars because they don’t need two cars. They barely need one. They walk everywhere.

I live in Nepean myself, which is sort of suburban-ish. And I work from home, so who cares. I see cars lined up on Greenbank or Hunt Club roads while out for my morning jog and can’t help thinking that being stuck in that kind of non-moving traffic twice a day, every day, must make you a little bit dead inside. That’s why, if I worked outside the home, I would choose to live close to my work, even if that meant a much smaller (also older, and thoroughly lacking in granite) living space. I would pick location over lifestyle because, to me, a life spent in traffic is not worth living.

Cancelled buses are no fun, I give you that. But when, after picking lifestyle over location, you gripe that the location you picked for yourself, with your own free will, is hard on your commute and that’s why we should all help ease your pain, the heart really fails to bleed.

So, you know, hush.

Brigitte Pellerin is an Ottawa writer who likes to get where she’s going, in good time.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/column...tawas-suburbs-deal-with-the-traffic-woes

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Rebuttal to Harder's complaints about Barrhaven traffic. Very much a generalization, but not entirely false.

Pellerin: Choose Ottawa's suburbs, deal with the traffic woes

BRIGITTE PELLERIN Updated: February 1, 2019
Post Media

There is a bit of an "I am above it all, sucks to be you" tone to her article. But that's par for the course with this writer, for those who know her.

I did chuckle a bit when she said that Barrhaven was charming.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by Acajack

There is a bit of an "I am above it all, sucks to be you" tone to her article. But that's par for the course with this writer, for those who know her.

I did chuckle a bit when she said that Barrhaven was charming.

For sure. Very condescending.

I kind of agree on some level, but it's not that simple for everyone. A family of 4 who can only afford a townhouse in Orléans wouldn't be able to purchase anything bigger than a one bedroom condo in the city.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Rebuttal to Harder's complaints about Barrhaven traffic. Very much a generalization, but not entirely false.

Pellerin: Choose Ottawa's suburbs, deal with the traffic woes

BRIGITTE PELLERIN Updated: February 1, 2019
Post Media

Barrhaven municipal councillor Jan Harder is good at speaking her mind, you’ve got to give her that. But I have one word for her gripes about commuter woes for people in her ward: Hush.

I mean, enough.

I spend a lot of time in Barrhaven. It’s charming. There’s room to breathe, brand-new shops, huge movie theatres, wonderful fitness facilities with gleaming showers and steam rooms, parks, beautiful modern schools, not much homelessness, plenty of nature. Lovely houses, too. Orderly rows, one after the other, everything so tidy and neat. It’s no wonder the place has grown like crazy over the years.

You know what Barrhaven isn’t, though? Close to downtown. That’s why there’s room to breathe, room for that huge Walmart, room for everything. Because it’s far.

So are Orléans, Kanata, Manotick and well, every other distant suburb you can name. It’s part of the attraction for some people to live away from the city, and that’s great. But you know what living away from the city means? Yes! You’re away from the city. Perfect if you don’t need to go downtown every day. But if you do, gngngn.

Say you’re a family with an income that doesn’t let you own a spacious four-bedroom-three-bathroom house with granite counters and a big yard in Westboro. Your housing budget is nowhere near $1 million. But you could manage $600,000 and look, there are houses you’d love to have for that kind of price in Barrhaven. Woohoo, right?

You buy one, along with all kinds of furniture and gadgets you can’t live without (three giant TVs, Bose wireless speakers, rainwater shower heads, new carpets, those lovely wooden blinds, the works). Oh, and the two shiny SUVs at $40,000 apiece sitting in the driveway in front of the garage doors since the garage is full of mountain bikes, golf clubs and hockey gear, plus jogging strollers. You also get a landscape artist to make your lot as beautiful as the house. Now you feel like landed gentry. You have a beautiful lifestyle.

But you’re still 25 slow kilometres away from downtown. That’s why your million-dollar house only cost you $600,000. You pay the difference with your time, which you apparently don’t value as highly since you deliberately chose to move that far out of the city knowing full well your commute would be longer than if you still camped near Bank and Alta Vista.

See, people with similar housing budgets who live close to downtown have a lot less house. Many rent because they can’t afford to own at all. But to them it’s worth it because they don’t want to live far from town and be prisoners of their car habits. They want to live near convenient transit and bike paths that get them where they need to be quickly. They don’t mind not having a backyard or a garage for two cars because they don’t need two cars. They barely need one. They walk everywhere.

I live in Nepean myself, which is sort of suburban-ish. And I work from home, so who cares. I see cars lined up on Greenbank or Hunt Club roads while out for my morning jog and can’t help thinking that being stuck in that kind of non-moving traffic twice a day, every day, must make you a little bit dead inside. That’s why, if I worked outside the home, I would choose to live close to my work, even if that meant a much smaller (also older, and thoroughly lacking in granite) living space. I would pick location over lifestyle because, to me, a life spent in traffic is not worth living.

Cancelled buses are no fun, I give you that. But when, after picking lifestyle over location, you gripe that the location you picked for yourself, with your own free will, is hard on your commute and that’s why we should all help ease your pain, the heart really fails to bleed.

So, you know, hush.

Brigitte Pellerin is an Ottawa writer who likes to get where she’s going, in good time.

https://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/column...tawas-suburbs-deal-with-the-traffic-woes

Agreed. You largely get what you pay for. Having said that, the author has painted those in the burbs with a pretty wide brush though. Not everyone works downtown, owns 2 SUVs, and has a garage full of toys (there are those who do though).

[McC]

"gngngn" is my new favourite word.

[CityTech]

If both spouses are working downtown and want to live in the suburbs, Orleans is vastly more logical than Barrhaven. Orleans is closer to downtown, has better transit to downtown, and houses are a lot cheaper.

[lrt's friend]

If everybody chose to live in the Glebe, that $1M house would rise to $5M or $10M and most people would end up living in substandard condos at $2M or apartments at $2500 per month for one bedroom. The economics really do limit choices people have so our city has to build according to the economic reality, that soon 100,000 people will live there. The day we try to accommodate 100,000 people in the Glebe will be the day we destroy the neighbourhood.