Roads/Bridges projects/issues - Page 89

rocketphish · #**1761** Posted **Oct 23, 2019, 5:02 PM**

Google Maps now shows speed traps, potentially raising the ire of law enforcement
There are also several apps aimed specifically at documenting police presence, including sobriety checkpoints

Washington Post
Updated: October 23, 2019

IPhone users who want to avoid the police can now hit up Google Maps before they hit the gas.

Google is rolling out the ability to report speed traps, crashes and slowdowns in real time to its Maps iOS app, making the new feature available to about 1 billion existing users worldwide. It was already available on Android phones, as well as on Google’s other map app, Waze, which has a fraction of the users.

But U.S. law enforcement has been critical of using this type of technology to report checkpoints to identify those under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and other types of police presence, something they say heightens safety risks on the road.

“Revealing the location of checkpoints puts those drivers, their passengers, and the general public at risk,” wrote the New York Police Department in a letter to Google in February, demanding that Waze stop alerting users to those locations.

It’s the latest wrinkle in the sometimes rocky relationship between law enforcement and tech companies in recent years. Most giant tech firms tout a mixture of free speech, privacy and ease of use as pillars of their services and devices, values that don’t always align with helping the police crack a case.

Amazon initially fought law enforcement on subpoenaing recordings from one of its Echo speakers that may have been witness to a murder but eventually turned them over. The FBI cracked a San Bernardino terrorist’s phone with help from professional hackers after Apple declined to help. And the United States, Britain and Australia have all called on Facebook to halt its plans to encrypt its messaging apps, unless it provides a way for investigators to see communications.

(Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Google said in an emailed response to questions about Google Maps that safety is “a top priority” and that reporting features can be beneficial to public safety. “We believe that informing drivers about upcoming speed traps allows them to be more careful and make safer decisions when they’re on the road,” said Google spokeswoman Genevieve Park.

NYPD spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Frances O’Donnell said in a statement Monday that “the Department has engaged in productive discussions with Google to make information available to drivers that will make roads safer and encourage responsible driving, while not impeding the enforcement of New York State Vehicle and Traffic laws.”

There have previously been lower-tech options for reporting DUI or DWI checkpoints and speed traps. German radio stations alert drivers to the locations of speed traps on the Autobahn. Drivers sometimes flash their headlights to oncoming traffic to warn others of police in the area. On social media, users sometimes note recent checkpoint locations on Nextdoor, Twitter and other platforms.

An Ohio man was arrested in 2014 for holding up a sign that said, “Check point ahead! Turn now!,” according to a CBS News report. He was eventually cleared of the charges against him.

There are also several apps aimed specifically at documenting police presence, including sobriety checkpoints.

Google Maps is also adding other categories of incidents that can be reported by iPhone and Android users: objects in the road, lane closures, construction and disabled vehicles. While the app has an option to report “speed traps,” it does not have one for sobriety checkpoints or a means to comment within the reporting feature. Waze allows users to report “police” and “camera,” and to create comments that explain whether the incident is a checkpoint or another type of law enforcement activity.

But map apps have transformed communities in more than one way, as they frequently route cars around traffic and onto unexpected roads – sometimes making traffic worse in other areas.

In one example, a quiet Maryland street suddenly became inundated with several hundred cars an hour after Waze routed vehicles there. The situation led an exasperated homeowner to submit false reports of a blockage on the street in an attempt to trick the algorithm. He was unsuccessful.

According to mobile data and analytics firm App Annie, Google Maps had more than 177 million monthly active smartphone users, and Apple Maps had nearly 74 million monthly active smartphone users in the United States last month.

But Apple Maps could have a chance to catch up as it moves to make improvements. Apple plans this year and next to roll out updates including more detailed graphics and better pedestrian information. Apple said in a statement that the updates came after the company drove “4 million miles to rebuild the basemap from the ground up.”

Apple Maps suffered an embarrassing debut in 2012 that involved bloopers including missing transit information and a misplaced Washington Monument.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/world/goo...wcm/5d7aaeb6-1975-4fe8-bb82-7cdd533778d7

waterloowarrior · #**1762** Posted **Oct 24, 2019, 3:58 AM**

Chamberlain Avenue, Catherine Street and Isabella Street Functional Design Study
https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/public-en...-isabella-street-functional-design-study

rocketphish · #**1763** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 12:32 PM**

LRT lurches, Queensway limps, in a city racing with impatience

Kelly Egan, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: November 5, 2019

West Carleton-March Coun. Eli El-Chantiry is talking hands-free from his car, where he swears he spends half his life.

“This last week, honest to God, there are just more and more cars on the road,” he said one day last week, an unexpected observation since I called about an entirely different topic.

But he felt the need to unburden. “It doesn’t matter what time I leave (Carp) in the morning, 6 o’clock even, and it still takes an hour or more to get into the city.”

The day before, a reporter walked by my desk with another traffic lament. She left her Kanata home at 8 a.m. for a 9 a.m. court case. She got to Elgin Street at 9:40 and missed everything.

Kanata-to-Ottawa in 100 minutes? How did things get this bad?

We see this every morning outside our offices on Baxter Road, which overlook the Queensway: gridlock, gridlock, gridlock, nothing but brake lights and inching rubber. Dear daily driver, how have you not lost your mind?

So, why does this matter more today? Because the city’s two main means of moving people, our transit system, our principal freeway, are not working properly — at the same time — and it is hardly an exaggeration to say thousands are suffering the consequences, coming and going.

No one really knows how many commuters have ditched their Presto card for private wheels but you begin to hear stories. El-Chantiry says one of his office staff, a transit user for 12 years, was so frustrated with delays she began driving to work.

In other words, it’s the unpredictably that slays. Travel planning is now a minefield of guesswork. On Saturday, near 5 p.m., it was bumper-to-bumper eastbound near Maitland as we drove back from the cottage on a wet, lousy day. Huh?

The construction between Maitland and Island Park, a three-kilometre stretch, is obviously a pinch point. The $95-million project is widening the freeway from three lanes to four and, because the roadway has to keep operating, it takes a good chunk of time to finish.

Announced in December 2016, it won’t be completed until the fall of 2020.

Still left to do, according to the Ministry of Transportation: finishing work on the Merivale Road bridge rehabilitation; rebuilding the concrete median wall with electrical and storm sewer work; final paving.

There is the nagging prediction that adding two more lanes will do nothing to ease congestion but, at the minimum, motorists can stop zigging and zagging through temporary lane-changes afraid of cleaving their neighbour’s door off. It will, of course, just fill with more cars.

The Ministry publishes average daily traffic counts at all 417 intersections. Though the numbers are from 2016, they’re quite revealing. Bayshore to St. Laurent is the fat part of the system, with the greatest volumes. No surprise there, really.

Parkdale had the highest count, at 184,100 vehicles, vastly higher than Eagleson, at 118,900. Metcalfe was second, at 178,000.

Finding a non-Queensway alternative isn’t always easy. Parts of west-east Richmond Road (near Cleary) are down to one-lane at the moment and the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway is quite properly chewed up.

You will have noticed, in other words, that LRT Phase 2 is off the drawing board and coming at us with bulldozers, left, right and centre.

OPP Insp. Paul Bedard, who is in charge of marine and traffic units in the eastern region, agrees the construction has slowed traffic passing through the Carling area. Not only have there been occasional speed reductions but there are frequent visual distractions that cause motorists to be more cautious.

“A construction crew automatically slows people down,” said Bedard, who has been stuck in many a Queensway traffic jam since 2007.

“One car slows down, it slows down 1,000 cars behind it.”

It only makes sense that volumes are on the increase because Ottawa’s suburban flanks have grown so much.

“Let’s face it, Ottawa just hit the million mark.” (Indeed. In 1998, the average daily traffic count on the 417 at Metcalfe was 92,300; in 2016, it was 178,600.)

Something else, too. An already clogged system, with busy, unattractive alternatives, suffers a fragility. Throw in a couple of collisions, some rain, poor road conditions, Christmas shopping, and we have the makings of a traffic nightmare.

Collisions? Believe it. So far in 2019, there have been 1,097 in the 417 area patrolled by Ottawa OPP — so maybe three a day.

The new trains barely work and the old cars barely move. Quite a jam we’ve got ourselves in.

To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email [email protected].
Twitter.com/kellyegancolumn

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-new...y-limps-in-a-city-racing-with-impatience

kwoldtimer · #**1764** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 1:11 PM**

Ottawa "racing with impatience"? Who wrote that headline? Ottawa would strike a committee to study its impatience ...

daud · #**1765** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 2:13 PM**

those queensway volume increases are incredible.

"Indeed. In 1998, the average daily traffic count on the 417 at Metcalfe was 92,300; in 2016, it was 178,600"

lrt's friend · #**1766** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 3:16 PM**

An unsustainable future. Meanwhile, LRT to Kanata is at least a decade away. And highway widenings provide no relief as all the studies point out.

Richard Eade · #**1767** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 3:49 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by daud

those queensway volume increases are incredible.

"Indeed. In 1998, the average daily traffic count on the 417 at Metcalfe was 92,300; in 2016, it was 178,600"

The article has a mistake in it. The 92,300 value for Metcalfe St. is for the year 1988 - not 1998. So, the growth is over a 28 year period, not 18 years.

From the PDF:

Definitions:

AADT = Annual Average Daily Traffic
SADT = Summer Average Daily Traffic
SAWDT = Summer Average Weekday Daily Traffic
WADY = Winter Average Daily Traffic
AR = Accident Rate = # of accidents / Million Vehicle km

METCALFE ST IC‐119A‐OTTAWA
Year AADT SADT SAWDT WADT AR
1988 92,300 96,900 104,300 86,800 1.9
1989 90,600 95,100 102,400 86,100 3.0
1990 95,700 102,300 111,000 90,900 2.4
1991 97,000 102,800 111,600 94,100 1.1
1992 119,500 126,600 137,400 114,700 2.5
1993 120,000 124,800 135,600 111,600 2.5
1994 111,400 118,100 129,200 101,400 2.5
1995 114,100 118,700 130,100 106,100 1.9
1996 116,900 124,400 136,800 111,100 1.3
1997 118,700 124,600 138,900 111,600 3.3
1998 120,300 128,000 140,800 114,300 1.7
1999 121,000 128,700 141,600 115,000 1.5
2000 121,700 129,500 143,400 114,400 1.6
2001 124,600 133,300 147,000 117,100 0.8
2002 127,100 135,400 149,500 119,000 1.6
2003 128,400 136,100 151,500 120,700 1.9
2004 130,200 137,600 152,500 123,000 1.1
2005 146,400 154,900 171,200 137,300 1.7
2006 149,500 158,100 174,700 140,700 1.0
2007 152,600 161,900 176,600 143,200 1.6
2008 155,700 164,500 154,400 145,700 1.0
2009 158,800 167,700 185,000 149,400 1.4
2010 161,900 171,200 188,400 152,200 1.0
2011 162,300 162,300 167,200 154,200 N/A
2012 165,600 165,600 177,200 157,300 N/A
2013 168,800 168,800 170,500 160,400 N/A
2014 172,100 172,100 165,200 163,500 N/A
2015 175,400 175,400 168,400 166,600 N/A
2016 178,600 178,600 171,500 169,700 N/A

danishh · #**1768** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 4:14 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

The article has a mistake in it. The 92,300 value for Metcalfe St. is for the year 1988 - not 1998. So, the growth is over a 28 year period, not 18 years.

From the PDF:

Definitions:

AADT = Annual Average Daily Traffic
SADT = Summer Average Daily Traffic
SAWDT = Summer Average Weekday Daily Traffic
WADY = Winter Average Daily Traffic
AR = Accident Rate = # of accidents / Million Vehicle km

METCALFE ST IC‐119A‐OTTAWA
Year AADT SADT SAWDT WADT AR
1988 92,300 96,900 104,300 86,800 1.9
1989 90,600 95,100 102,400 86,100 3.0
1990 95,700 102,300 111,000 90,900 2.4
1991 97,000 102,800 111,600 94,100 1.1
1992 119,500 126,600 137,400 114,700 2.5
1993 120,000 124,800 135,600 111,600 2.5
1994 111,400 118,100 129,200 101,400 2.5
1995 114,100 118,700 130,100 106,100 1.9
1996 116,900 124,400 136,800 111,100 1.3
1997 118,700 124,600 138,900 111,600 3.3
1998 120,300 128,000 140,800 114,300 1.7
1999 121,000 128,700 141,600 115,000 1.5
2000 121,700 129,500 143,400 114,400 1.6
2001 124,600 133,300 147,000 117,100 0.8
2002 127,100 135,400 149,500 119,000 1.6
2003 128,400 136,100 151,500 120,700 1.9
2004 130,200 137,600 152,500 123,000 1.1
2005 146,400 154,900 171,200 137,300 1.7
2006 149,500 158,100 174,700 140,700 1.0
2007 152,600 161,900 176,600 143,200 1.6
2008 155,700 164,500 154,400 145,700 1.0
2009 158,800 167,700 185,000 149,400 1.4
2010 161,900 171,200 188,400 152,200 1.0
2011 162,300 162,300 167,200 154,200 N/A
2012 165,600 165,600 177,200 157,300 N/A
2013 168,800 168,800 170,500 160,400 N/A
2014 172,100 172,100 165,200 163,500 N/A
2015 175,400 175,400 168,400 166,600 N/A
2016 178,600 178,600 171,500 169,700 N/A

lol, you can actually see the chretien years effects on federal employment

OTSkyline · #**1769** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 6:34 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by rocketphish

[B][SIZE="4"]
But he felt the need to unburden. “It doesn’t matter what time I leave (Carp) in the morning, 6 o’clock even, and it still takes an hour or more to get into the city.”

LOL quotes like this make me laugh.. Ottawa is becoming a big city now. Long gone are the days where you could drive from the far flung communities like Carp to downtown in 30-40min. People need to readjust their expectations. If it took people an hour to drive a few km on the Queensway, then yes, I agree there is a problem. But I'm not sorry that you can't drive to the middle of nowhere to your SFH in under an hour anymore

Maybe slowly people will also realize that maybe they don't need a 2,500sq ft 4 bdr detached house if it means living that much farther and spending that much more time commuting. Urban or city living will become more and more attractive I think.

lrt's friend · #**1770** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 6:42 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

LOL quotes like this make me laugh.. Ottawa is becoming a big city now. Long gone are the days where you could drive from the far flung communities like Carp to downtown in 30-40min. People need to readjust their expectations. If it took people an hour to drive a few km on the Queensway, then yes, I agree there is a problem. But I'm not sorry that you can't drive to the middle of nowhere to your SFH in under an hour anymore

Maybe slowly people will also realize that maybe they don't need a 2,500sq ft 4 bdr detached house if it means living that much farther and spending that much more time commuting. Urban or city living will become more and more attractive I think.

Increasing city congestion and loss of mobility is still an issue even if we don't live in the boonies. We all want to travel outside the city at some point for a whole variety of reasons. Ease of getting out of the city has been a selling point of Ottawa and is a quality of life issue.

Acajack · #**1771** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 7:43 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by OTSkyline

LOL quotes like this make me laugh.. Ottawa is becoming a big city now. Long gone are the days where you could drive from the far flung communities like Carp to downtown in 30-40min. People need to readjust their expectations. If it took people an hour to drive a few km on the Queensway, then yes, I agree there is a problem. But I'm not sorry that you can't drive to the middle of nowhere to your SFH in under an hour anymore

Maybe slowly people will also realize that maybe they don't need a 2,500sq ft 4 bdr detached house if it means living that much farther and spending that much more time commuting. Urban or city living will become more and more attractive I think.

Yes and no.

Travel times (both peak and off-peak) do not necessarily increase exponentially in keeping with city and metro size. It's not just about being a big city "now".

If you look at the Paris region which has 13 million people the average to-and-from commute time isn't four or five hours per day. It's 1 hour and 25 minutes.

Carp to downtown Ottawa is about 30 km. Even in a city of many millions of people, it's not unreasonable to expect an average driving speed of 50 kmh when coming into town, except in the most intense part of rush hour. So that's 40-45 minutes. (Of course, some days things go wrong - accidents, storms, etc. - and the time can increase greatly.)

But a general average of an hour or more to drive from Carp to downtown? That doesn't make any sense and it would not make sense in much larger cities either.

zzptichka · #**1772** Posted **Nov 5, 2019, 8:26 PM**

Time to start thinking about congestion pricing already.

Norman Bates · #**1773** Posted **Nov 6, 2019, 2:23 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by kwoldtimer

ottawa "racing with impatience"? Who wrote that headline? Ottawa would strike a committee to study its impatience ...

lol!

waterloowarrior · #**1774** Posted **Nov 6, 2019, 2:37 AM**

The 417 widening from Maitland to the 416 was supposed to be bundled with Stage 2 LRT but MTO pulled out

roger1818 · #**1775** Posted **Nov 6, 2019, 3:35 AM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by waterloowarrior

The 417 widening from Maitland to the 416 was supposed to be bundled with Stage 2 LRT but MTO pulled out

I thought it was to be after Stage 2, since they wanted to use the bus lanes at Queensway station. I hadn’t heard that they canceled stage 2 of the 417 widening though. I assume that was after Ford came in power since it was a Liberal project?

waterloowarrior · #**1776** Posted **Nov 6, 2019, 11:34 AM**

Sounds like we would have got the rest done in one shot and sooner

Highway 417 Unbundling - Stage 2 LRT report Feb 2019

In March 2017, the City, with concurrence from the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO), recommended bundling the Highway 417 Expansion Project with the Stage 2 LRT
project on the premise that constructing both projects with a single proponent on a common schedule would transfer the risks of costly delays, transit and traffic impacts, and
design and construction interfaces, to the proponent. It would also create the opportunity to coordinate the shutdown of the existing Transitway from Bayshore Station to south of Lincoln Fields Station, such that the Highway 417 expansion could assist in facilitating detours.

On March 8, 2017, Council approved the bundling of the Highway 417 Expansion Project with the Stage 2 LRT project as part of the Stage 2 Light Rail Transit Implementation
Project Definition and Procurement Plan Report (ACS2017-TSD-OTP-0001). As with all other bundled projects, full funding was required, and the Highway 417 was to be bundled on the premise that the Province would provide a funding envelope of approximately $200 million for the delivery of the highway expansion project.

In 2018, the newly elected Provincial Government completed a capital review of major projects across Ontario, including the Highway 417 Expansion Project. As a result, the Province chose not to bundle the 417 Expansion Project (Maitland Avenue to Highway 416) with the Stage 2 LRT project.
Moving forward, the City will continue to work with the Province.

Should they wish, the City will share the work completed to date to implement active mobility improvements on the MTO bridges at Maitland Avenue, Woodroffe Avenue, Pinecrest Road, Richmond Road and Moodie Drive. These active mobility measures on MTO bridges continue to be a key request of the adjacent communities, and the City hopes they will be considered when the MTO implements their future highway widening project. The City will also continue to work with the Province on coordinating any future works on Highway 417 after LRT construction is complete.

OTownandDown · #**1777** Posted **Nov 6, 2019, 3:48 PM**

In my experience driving the 417 daily (opposing traffic to rush hour), there's a couple of pinch points which increase the density past jam, which causes a wave of jam density through the entire downtown system.

Not counting the chicane at the Carling construction zone, commuting from Kanata to downtown, there's a pinchpoint at the short on-ramps, mainly Parkdale and Nicholas. Traffic has to slow to allow for dense merging, which causes the wave.

In the past, this used to also be caused by Bronson off-ramp backing up onto the highway, but I haven't seen this phenomenon since the Bronson construction started.

After the Carling/Maitland construction is complete, the big ramp to fix would be Parkdale, but I don't really see a good solution to removing the 20m retaining wall blocking the ramp, short of expropriating the land and shifting the entire highway to the North.

Twice in the last 10 days it's taken an hour to travel from Ikea to Vanier Parkway. Three times, it's taken less than 5 minutes. So my problem isn't necessarily the traffic, it's the unpredictability of the traffic. Do I leave an hour for the commute, or 15 minutes?

lrt's friend · #**1778** Posted **Nov 6, 2019, 4:17 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by OTownandDown

In my experience driving the 417 daily (opposing traffic to rush hour), there's a couple of pinch points which increase the density past jam, which causes a wave of jam density through the entire downtown system.

Not counting the chicane at the Carling construction zone, commuting from Kanata to downtown, there's a pinchpoint at the short on-ramps, mainly Parkdale and Nicholas. Traffic has to slow to allow for dense merging, which causes the wave.

In the past, this used to also be caused by Bronson off-ramp backing up onto the highway, but I haven't seen this phenomenon since the Bronson construction started.

After the Carling/Maitland construction is complete, the big ramp to fix would be Parkdale, but I don't really see a good solution to removing the 20m retaining wall blocking the ramp, short of expropriating the land and shifting the entire highway to the North.

Twice in the last 10 days it's taken an hour to travel from Ikea to Vanier Parkway. Three times, it's taken less than 5 minutes. So my problem isn't necessarily the traffic, it's the unpredictability of the traffic. Do I leave an hour for the commute, or 15 minutes?

I suspect public transit is not remotely convenient on that kind of commute, which is a sad statement.

danishh · #**1779** Posted **Nov 6, 2019, 7:23 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by lrt's friend

I suspect public transit is not remotely convenient on that kind of commute, which is a sad statement.

after stage 2, iris - tremblay/hurdman will be quick.

i think the best way to think about transportation in ottawa right now is that it is in transition and will not be sensible until phase 2, and maybe phase 3 for Barrhaven, is complete.

Uhuniau · #**1780** Posted **Nov 6, 2019, 7:46 PM**

Quote:

Originally Posted by danishh

after stage 2, iris - tremblay/hurdman will be quick.

i think the best way to think about transportation in ottawa right now is that it is in transition and will not be sensible until phase 2, and maybe phase 3 for Barrhaven, is complete.

That depends on the origin, destination, and purpose of the trip. None of these phases solve the truly urban transportation problems, for which the city has tried nothing and is all out of ideas.