Roads/Bridges projects/issues

[rocketphish]

Section of Walkley Road gets a 'road diet' to test ways to calm traffic
Pilot project sees 4-lane stretch narrowed to 2 lanes for vehicles, 2 lanes for cyclists

Giacomo Panico · CBC News
Posted: Jun 09, 2022 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 4 hours ago



People living near and passing through a western section of Walkley Road will notice a tighter fit for the next three weeks as the city looks to find the best way to slow traffic near the Airport Parkway.

The four-lane section of Walkley Road between the parkway and McCarthy Road has been temporarily narrowed to two lanes as part of a pilot project to test and gather data for eventual traffic calming measures.

André Carrière has lived on this stretch of Walkley for 11 years and said speeding is a constant problem, with many drivers routinely reaching speeds of 70 km/h or more, while the speed limit is 50 km/h.

"The first day they did this you could see a big difference in traffic," said Carrière. "It's slowed down. This is much better."

The road narrowing project, or "road diet" as it's sometimes called in traffic planning vernacular, is a direct result of the City of Ottawa's controversial decision in 2016 to widen the Airport Parkway from two to four lanes, while also adding a southbound off-ramp to Walkley.

The city agreed that in conjunction with the parkway widening it would add traffic calming measures on this residential section of Walkley to address the anticipated additional vehicle traffic, says Terry Wood, chair of the Riverside Park Community Association's transportation, traffic and transit sub-committee.

"Traffic safety has been an issue here for a generation going back at least 25 years," said Wood. "Given the layout and the design of the street it's a pedal-to-the-metal situation."

Wood said the community association has long fought to change the existing four lane configuration, partly because there are three elementary schools within 100 metres of the section in question.

"We need to do more to make west Walkley Road safer for all users, cyclists and pedestrians," he said. "It's well-established that when you narrow the lanes you slow down the traffic. Just the visual impact of seeing a narrower road tends to slow people."

Before investing millions to calm traffic permanently, the city is using strategically placed traffic pylons to convert a lane in each direction into a dedicated bike lane, says area councillor Riley Brockington.

A contractor will work with city staff to observe and then analyze the impact, he said.

"The data that we get from this pilot project will help shape the final design of this street," said Brockington. "Why not test in advance and learn from the data to make the best design possible?"

While the city designates Walkley as an arterial road, Brockington said the stretch in question never reaches capacity and the status quo is not acceptable.



He said the original designers of Walkley believed a bridge would one day be built at Riverside Drive to cross the Rideau River — a project he said will never happen, so it's time to reclaim the road.

"You don't need four lanes here." he said. "We're looking at a road that was built decades ago for the needs decades ago. There's a greater emphasis [now] on other road users."

Carrière said he's keen to use the new temporary bike lanes rather than use the sidewalk, putting pedestrians at risk.

"I'm a cyclist and I won't go on the road because cars go by a foot away from your handlebar and they're not slowing down," he said.

As a self-described "walkaholic," nearby resident Marilyn Patrick says she is "really happy" because the bike lanes should take cyclists off the sidewalks.

Wood says drivers should "drive slowly and respect the limit or choose another route."

"It's our community and we want to make it better," he said.

Construction of both the Airport Parkway expansion and the permanent Walkley traffic calming measures are expected to begin in 2024.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/walkley-road-traffic-lanes-1.6481166

[roger1818]

A road diet for Walkley west of the Airport Parkway makes a lot of sense. Road diets can be very effective IF there is an alternate route that you want to direct traffic to. According to Google, the fastest way to get from Riverside and Hunt Club to Bank and Walkley is via Walkley (even if your destination is just south of Walkley), but Hunt Club and Bank (or Airport Parkway) are better equipped to handle large volumes of traffic and are only a couple minutes slower. Slowing down travel on Walkley by a few minutes will redirect a lot of traffic away from it.

[RuralCitizen]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

Milton Road in Navan? Yes, this past weekend, but the short stretch I was on was in decent shape. Is it bad at the south end?

So bumpy that if you were to deliver a wedding cake, there wouldn't be any icing left on the cake.

[J.OT13]

Too bad the road diet doesn't include the stretch between the Transitway and O-Train.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Too bad the road diet doesn't include the stretch between the Transitway and O-Train.

I'm confused. That is only about 65m and includes the offramp from the Airport Parkway. Now I would like to see it extended further west to include the wide, fast bit between McCarthy and the VIA Rail underpass. Once cars get up to speed, it takes them a bit to slow back down.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by J.OT13

Too bad the road diet doesn't include the stretch between the Transitway and O-Train.

This is just a temporary pilot/demonstration; there is a plan that will extend the road diet further west, and add cycling facilities between the roundabout and Bank Street.

https://riversidepark.ca/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/2021.09.08-Ottawa-WestWalkleyReport.pdf

[rocketphish]

Wheeeee!!! Highway 7's 'bump' baffles engineers
"Even at 80, it's enough for a truck bed full of equipment to get dislodged."

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Jun 13, 2022 • 4 hours ago • 3 minute read



Put the lid on your coffee, grip the wheel at 10 and 2, and warn the kids.

“Hang on! We’re getting some air!”

That’s the twice-daily ritual for commuters on Highway 7 as they approach the infamous car-launching, steel-on-pavement-scraping Cavanagh Bump, Highway 7 Launching Pad, or simply The Bump.

Located between the Dwyer Hill and Hazeldean road exits, The Bump affects both directions of the twinned highway as it crosses a drainage culvert at a low swampy area just west of the Cavanagh Construction quarry. A perennial problem, The Bump has grown worse this spring, forcing highway maintenance crews to install temporary orange speed reduction dropping the limit from 100 km/h to 80 km/h lest an unsuspecting driver is launched into the stratosphere.

“Can we take a second to talk about the GIANT bump (launch pad) on Highway 7 westbound just east of Carleton Place?” tweeted Kyle Smith, a resident of Picton, Ont., who visits Ottawa regularly on business. “Speed limit drops to 80 km/h, but with almost no notice. I caught it in time, but a Honda Civic and two Ford SUVs weren’t so lucky and caught some serious air.”

On a Carleton Place Facebook page, The Bump draws plenty comments, from would-be Dukes of Hazzard drivers looking to get some hang time to parents giving their kids cheap thrills.

“Bwah ha ha ha,” one mom wrote. “I love it. Nothing better than getting my kids who are too busy on their devices to notice and then — Blamo! Bump! Screams all around!”

“It’s honestly the only way I can get my kids excited to go to Costco,” wrote another. “We mention The Bump and they load up without arguing.”

Another likened it to “a little Russian roulette on your morning drive.”

“When I have my kids with me I yell for them to put their hands up like we’re on a rollercoaster,” one parent wrote on Reddit. “They’re in their 20s!”

“The spooky part is you kind of get a little complacent when you see a speed bump sign,” Smith said in an interview. “They put them up for anything, so you see one and don’t think much of it.

“But the signage there is in no way adequate for the bump that ensues. Even at 80, it’s enough for a truck bed full of equipment to get dislodged. We’ve had stuff go flying … and that was at 80!”

Carleton Place resident Chantal Potvin agrees the signage is “woefully inadequate.”

“You’re aware you have to slow down for some reason, but there’s no way to prepare for that bump,” Potvin said. “The signage is a joke. This is not a bump. It’s a dangerous part of the road. My husband’s car is low, and, if he doesn’t slow down, he will scratch his car.”

Potvin said she once hit her head on the roof when she forgot about The Bump and before the speed-reduction signs were in place.

“There needs to be a big light up sign that says major bump ahead and slow down for safety,” she said.

When traffic is heavy, drivers see the glare of brake lights flashing as vehicles ahead frantically slow before hitting The Bump.

The Ministry of Transportation said The Bump is the result of a heaving highway.
“MTO began monitoring a minor bump in the pavement at this location in late fall of 2021. The minor bump become a more serious issue recently,” the ministry said in an email.
“Ministry geotechnical staff are currently undertaking field investigations in the area around and under this heaved pavement to determine the cause of the heaving and will recommend solutions for the rehabilitation or repair of this section of pavement.

“To ensure the safety of travelling public, the ministry has installed bump-ahead and advisory speed reduction warning signage.

“As well, the ministry is preparing an interim repair strategy to reduce the size of the heaved pavement until a more permanent solution can be determined. This work will be undertaken later this spring or early summer.”

Until then, drivers will have to be cautious — or not.

“LOVE IT!!!” one contributor wrote on the Carleton Place Facebook page. “For just a single second in my day, I feel like I’m in an action movie when I take that hump at full speed! Life’s little pleasures, ya know!”

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/wheeeee-highway-7s-bump-baffles-engineers

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by rocketphish

“There needs to be a big light up sign that says major bump ahead and slow down for safety,” she said.

This! No one expects a speed bump sign on a divided highway. The first time I drove over it, I didn't notice the sign and I got some airtime. It is odd that the bump is on both the eastbound and westbound highways.

[Dengler Avenue]

Is it new? I’ve been on the divided portion of 7 a couple of times, and I never encountered something that bad.
Darn the local geology.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Is it new? I’ve been on the divided portion of 7 a couple of times, and I never encountered something that bad.
Darn the local geology.

Yes. As the article says, highway. “MTO began monitoring a minor bump in the pavement at this location in late fall of 2021. The minor bump become a more serious issue recently,”

[harls]

There's a heave on A-50 just west of Thurso. I believe there is a spring that underneath the highway and it needs constant repair.

No Duke boys jumps though.

[rocketphish]

Work begins on temporary fix for Highway 7's 'Cavanagh Bump'

Blair Crawford, Ottawa Citizen
Jun 20, 2022 • 14 hours ago • 3 minute read



Highway crews have begun emergency repairs of Highway 7’s “Cavanagh Bump”, reducing the twinned highway to one lane in each direction, cutting the speed limit to 80 km/h and erecting large illuminated signs that say “SLOW DOWN BUMP AHEAD.”

The work started Sunday, less than a week after this newspaper drew attention to the long-standing hazard on the highway between the Hazeldean and Dwyer Hill road exits, just west of the Cavanagh Construction quarry. The story has been viewed more than 46,000 times online and a video of what it’s like to hit the bump at 100 km/h has been watched more than 31,000 times.

“This repair work is an interim solution, while a permanent fix is developed as part of a future larger project,” Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Mike Fenn said in an email Monday. “We are working with the contractor to ensure the work is completed before the long weekend.

“Repairs include removing existing asphalt, excavating and then placing Rigid Styrofoam beneath the surface, followed by granular material and new pavement. The Styrofoam insulates and prevents frost from penetrating into layers of frost susceptible soils.”

The “Cavanagh Bump” formed atop a culvert that’s used to drain about a kilometre-long stretch of low swampy land between Ottawa and Carleton Place. The bump has heaved and been fixed several times since the highway was widened to four lanes in 2008. This spring, the bump heaved worse than ever, launching inattentive drivers — or Dukes of Hazzard wannabes — into a little air time. The black skid marks and scraped pavement on the bump attest to its dangers.

Standard yellow and black “Bump” signs and an orange 80 km/h speed advisory that had been in place were dismissed as inadequate warning by some drivers who travelled the highway.

“I have encountered accidents at this bump, one involving four vehicles, another involving a boat trailer losing tires and needing roadside assistance,” driver Terry Hutchins wrote in a letter to this newspaper.

“When I have slowed down to 80 km/h, some vehicles pass me at 120. The discrepancy in speed leads to a dangerous situation. This bump is a serious road hazard that needs immediate repair. It is not a playground.”

The new illuminated warning signs can’t be missed. And the 80 km/h speed reduction is now the law and not just advice. On Monday, a giant backhoe from Cavanagh Construction began excavating around the bump.

Heaving culverts is a frequently encountered problem on Canadian highways, says Ahmed Shalaby, a professor at the University of Manitoba who has studied the issue extensively. A Carleton University graduate, Shalaby says he hasn’t seen the “Cavanagh Bump” himself, but it appears to be worse than most he’s seen and presents a significant hazard.

Climate change has made flooding more common and engineers are installing larger culverts to handle increased water flow to avoid highway washouts, Shalaby said in an email. That means in winter, more frigid air flows through the culvert, freezing the soil beneath it deeper and colder than the soil under the adjacent roadway just a few metres away. Since water expands when it freezes, it forces the culvert upward, creating a hump in the road.

The problem is even worse if the culvert is placed too shallow beneath the pavement, he said. But engineers have to meet other requirements when designing a culvert, such as the need to preserve proper drainage or to conserve wildlife and fish habitat. Box culverts are more susceptible to heave than round ones because of the sudden change in ground temperature at their sides, he said.

Some solutions, Shalaby said, are to install foam insulation under the culvert to reduce frost action, replace one large culvert with several smaller ones, or add fill to the highway approach on both sides to make the bump more gradual.

For now, at least, Highway 7 drivers will have to put up with a construction slow down for the next couple of weeks in return for a smoother and safer journey.

https://ottawacitizen.com/news/work-begins-on-temporary-fix-for-highway-7s-cavanagh-bump

[rocketphish]

Contractor shortage slowing sidewalk repairs, city says
Crews forced to rely on 'last resort' method of patching with asphalt

Alistair Steele · CBC News
Posted: Jun 29, 2022 1:12 PM ET | Last Updated: 7 hours ago



The City of Ottawa is having trouble finding contractors to carry out long-lasting sidewalk repairs, leaving city crews to patch gaps and cracks with asphalt.

"We have had challenges in the last few years with regards to obtaining contracted services to do some of these concrete repairs," Quentin Levesque, the city's director of roads and parking services, told councillors on Ottawa's transportation committee Wednesday.

"What we've been experiencing is a very hot construction market and labour market, which has posed challenges with regards to attracting these contractors and vendors to undertake this work, just given that the scale and the scope of the work is very small in comparison to a lot of the larger construction projects that we have underway within the city."

Levesque was speaking in response to an inquiry submitted by Coun. Mathieu Fleury in April.

In it, Fleury complained that "this repair approach of sidewalk asphalt patches continues to raise issues of lack of city pride and also degradation of infrastructure sidewalks across our city."

Fleury asked what needs to be done to ensure damaged sidewalk panels are replaced with concrete instead of patched with asphalt, and what steps council would need to take to enact a ban on asphalt fixes, the cheapest and easiest repair method available.

Levesque counselled against such a drastic step, noting the city is required by the province to fix Class A hazards such as cracks of two centimetres or more within 14 days, while the city's own standard for repair is seven days.

Banning the use of asphalt for temporary repairs would slow that response, Levesque warned.

However, he agreed that his department has to get a better handle on the work that's needed to permanently repair the city's vast network of sidewalks.

"Certainly we need to make some improvements in that area to get a better sense on, OK, how many of those asphalt repairs are currently out there that need to be replaced with concrete?" he told the committee.

Of the various sidewalk repair methods available, patching with asphalt is by far the cheapest and easiest, but it's also "a last resort and temporary measure to address the hazard until a full concrete panel replacement can be completed," according to the written response to Fleury's inquiry.

In the spring of 2021 alone, Levesque's department performed 905 such patch jobs. Fleury noted that by relying on that method, the department actually underspent on sidewalk repairs to the tune of about $1 million.

"It sounds bizarre, but in this case, to not spend the full amount budgeted shows even a bigger problem than what we're seeing on the ground right now. It's showing that there's a decay in our infrastructure that we're not upkeeping," he said.

The city's public works department has an annual budget of $3.5 million for "various concrete repairs."

In order to make sidewalk repairs more attractive to contractors, Levesque told the committee his department is now "packaging" jobs together with larger infrastructure projects. He said the city is close to tendering those contracts.

Levesque's department is also embarking on a survey of all 2,135 kilometres of sidewalk in Ottawa to compile a complete list of necessary repairs. They're expected to finish later this year, and will report to council in 2023.

"So that we can identify not only what that number [of repairs] is, but identify the appropriate budget that would be required as well as the timeline in order to proceed to do the replacement in concrete," Levesque said.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/contractor-shortage-slowing-sidewalk-repairs-1.6505428

[J.OT13]

Vertical piano keys?

[roger1818]

I get that we don't want temporary asphalt to become permanent, but Fleury's idea of delaying the repair of dangerous problems so until we can have a permanent fix is nonsensical. Maybe rather than trying to contract out the sidewalk repair, the city should hire staff that are able to fix concrete sidewalks so that we can do it internally.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I get that we don't want temporary asphalt to become permanent, but Fleury's idea of delaying the repair of dangerous problems so until we can have a permanent fix is nonsensical. Maybe rather than trying to contract out the sidewalk repair, the city should hire staff that are able to fix concrete sidewalks so that we can do it internally.

Agreed. Reminds of Quadri not asking the Province to add sidewalks at the Huntmar overpasses when they rehabbed it because it would be rebuilt one day.

I wish the City would do more work on its own as well instead of relying on the private sector.

[Marshsparrow]

Noticed at Carling and Herzberg that the city of Ottawa signage is different - blue and white, font appears to be highway gothic and no city of Ottawa decal.

[MountainView]

Originally Posted by Marshsparrow

Noticed at Carling and Herzberg that the city of Ottawa signage is different - blue and white, font appears to be highway gothic and no city of Ottawa decal.

I noticed this somewhere around Barrhaven as well... and it was missing the "O" Ottawa logo as well.

[Truenorth00]

In a lot of suburban areas, I wish we'd combine sidewalks and bike lanes in to multi use paths. Less to maintain. Safer for cyclists. And let's be honest. Our suburban sidewalks are mostly empty anyway. Nobody walks in car dependent suburbia.

[J.OT13]

Originally Posted by roger1818

I get that we don't want temporary asphalt to become permanent, but Fleury's idea of delaying the repair of dangerous problems so until we can have a permanent fix is nonsensical. Maybe rather than trying to contract out the sidewalk repair, the city should hire staff that are able to fix concrete sidewalks so that we can do it internally.

To add to that, it reminds me of Fleury's position on temporary housing in Vanier. Since it was more expensive than market price, he thought it should be shelved, even though it was still far cheaper than individual motel rooms, while keeping families together in a place with an actual kitchen.

Once in a while, he takes some rather strange positions.