[H4F33Z]

A thoughtful redesign that takes into account all types of road users and slows down drivers is crucial for a safer street and less of a highway.
Speed limits don't do anything when drivers can drive as fast as they like. When the road is "tightened" and street elements are added like curbs, planters, trees, and parked cars. It actually makes a difference. Look at Bloor, I wouldn't feel comfortable driving more than 40. But Parkside is a residential freeway next to a major park. Unacceptable.

When we rethink streets for everyone rather than just drivers. We have a lot more opportunity to make streets better, safer and more equal.

(created by me.)

 

[MisterF]

Family of 10-year-old fatally struck while cycling suing driver, City of Vaughan for $7.5M​

The lawsuit alleges the driver was not only distracted, but travelling over the speed limit. It accuses the City of Vaughan, which includes part of Thornhill, of negligence. The claims have not been proven in court.

The family is accusing the city of failing to ensure that the sidewalk and intersection were safe to use. The suit also alleges that the city failed to respond to public complaints from community members and drivers about the safety of the intersection.

"It's our position that this accident was completely avoidable," said Michael Smitiuch, a lawyer representing the Belykh family. "This is yet another senseless tragedy involving a young person on Greater Toronto Area roads.

The street in question looks like this near the community centre. It's a typical overly wide residential collector road, with each lane being a ludicrous 5-6 m in width. Some residential streets are even wider. This will be an interesting lawsuit to watch. Since there's so much evidence that the way a street is designed determines how safe it is, is a city that uses dangerous road design guilty of negligence?

 

[Northern Light]

Family of 10-year-old fatally struck while cycling suing driver, City of Vaughan for $7.5M​

The street in question looks like this near the community centre. It's a typical overly wide residential collector road, with each lane being a ludicrous 5-6 m in width. Some residential streets are even wider. This will be an interesting lawsuit to watch. Since there's so much evidence that the way a street is designed determines how safe it is, is a city that uses dangerous road design guilty of negligence?

I feel as though there are several legitimate questions that a court should examine and it will be interesting to see whether/how they do so.

1) Does the physical design of the road comport with the stated speed limit as presumed guidance for intended use?

1b) Understanding that the desire will be to engineer some margin error, such that driving 1km/ph over the limit doesn't greatly reduce drivability, how much of a margin of error, or over-engineering is reasonable?

2) Is the stated speed limit reasonable, given both stated intentional use, and likely intentional use. (for instance, the intersection shown is directly across from a school, but no crosswalk is shown, while pedestrians crossing here may not be
an explicit intended use, it is, surely a foreseeable one. If undesirable, does the City have an obligation to prevent such a crossing if it is not facilitating it? (guardrails, obstructive median etc?)

3) Are the turning radii and other road geometry elements of intersecting streets consistent with safe/reasonable use; is the speed limit/road geometry reasonable given the roads with which it is intersecting?

4) What level of clear guidance is required to pedestrians/cyclists and drivers to reasonably ensure safety? I note the absence of any 'stop line' on the intersecting side street, and no visible crosswalk indicating either where
pedestrians (or child cyclists) should cross; or where motorists approaching said intersection should anticipate said crossing.

In respect of the above, a photo essay:

Principle street:

You can see the school to the right, the photo is taken from a non-signalized intersection, looking east, is that tiny yellow sign sufficient to indicate a pedestrian crossing? Are the wide lanes, straight road, and official crossing-free envrionment consistent with a 40km/ph speed limit? Is that limit reasonable in front of the school?

Intersecting Street:

Is the absence of a stop line reasonable? Is the absence of a marked pedestrian ROW/Crossing reasonable? Observe that there are no sidewalks on either side of the road. Is that reasonable?
(regrettably, adding sidewalks behind the curb on either side of this street would result in the removal of dozens of mature trees. It appears to be plausible to add a sidewalk within the ROW on one side, or alternatively to consider a shared street design; though the latter in so auto-centric an area may be problematic.

Is it reasonable that there is no crossing in the form of a crosswalk, a bumpout, or differential pavement from this street to the school across the way?

Is that sightline at the corner reasonable (left side of image)?

Intersection from where the first pic was taken:

At least there's a stop sign and stop line??

Aside from the extraordinary width/girth of a stop-signed intersection.............

Note the absence of any zebra striped crosswalk. Is that reasonable?

Are the turnii radii reasonable?

Some things for a judge to consider.

****

My take: Most of what I have shown is not reasonable in my judgement.

While any ruling here must have a pragmatic element to it, I would like to see a judicial order to the effect that a municipality must exercise due care to ensure that any sanctioned use of a road is reasonably safe for that road user.
-That a stated speed must be supported by a road design reasonably consistent with said speed.
-That a speed limit must be set which reflects the safety of all road users in light of sanctioned uses.
-That a foreseeable use against which no action is taken is generally a sanctioned use.

 

[crs1026]

^ The defense will likely be by demonstrating compliance with some set of engineering standard(s). Perhaps there are variations from standard in this location, but it will be a lot harder to challenge the standards themselves. Lots of expert witnesses,etc. The standards may have been diligently prepared, albeit in a past era when the mentality was autocentric…. but I fear the courts will not mess with that.

I don’t dispute your analysis of design, but … the news article indicates that the victims were cycling. (and on a sidewalk). So deficiencies that relate to pedestrian use of the road are likely irrelevant in a legal sense. And whatever deficiencies exist as a cycling standard will have had to be relevant to whatever the facts and root causes of the specific incident were.

I do see sidewalks in the images, and corner curbs that are AODA—compliant. And I see a bus stop… maybe that affected road width?

The issue that can’t be overlooked is - it’s a road that is built primarily for autos with safety for non-auto users as an afterthought. That’s the predominant mindset throughout suburbia. And this location is at least half “up to date” albeit not “progressive”…. there are lots worse.

A systemmatic reversal of that approach to road design probably has to happen by legislative action, with some timelines set for compliance, similar to how other societal changes such as accessibility have been advanced. There has to be resolve.

So while your analysis is reasonable,,,. reason and legality are not always aligned, I’m afraid.

- Paul

 

[evandyk]

^ The defense will likely be by demonstrating compliance with some set of engineering standard(s). Perhaps there are variations from standard in this location, but it will be a lot harder to challenge the standards themselves. Lots of expert witnesses,etc. The standards may have been diligently prepared, albeit in a past era when the mentality was autocentric…. but I fear the courts will not mess with that.

Yeah, that's the problem. While the entire design of that street may seem pretty unreasonable if your perspective is "let's try to design streets in a way that prevents drivers from killing people if they make a slight mistake", that's not the current state of the art when it comes to designing streets. The engineering standards focus on getting a lot of cars through quickly. So unless you draw a judge brave enough to say that the city should have ignored the prevailing engineering standards, you're SOL in the courtroom.

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

But in practice the MUTCD’s influence is much larger. Devised by the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (NCUTCD), the book shapes public spaces across the U.S. in profound ways. While it’s an engineering manual, it bears the power of a federal regulation — it’s endorsed and administered by the Federal Highway Administration, and can shield engineers from liability when someone is hurt or killed.
...
And perhaps most importantly, the manual subordinates pedestrian and cycling safety (and driver safety to a degree as well) to an all-encompassing focus on vehicle throughput, even as U.S. traffic deaths — especially for pedestrians and cyclists — have been mounting.

 

[crs1026]

Yeah, that's the problem. While the entire design of that street may seem pretty unreasonable if your perspective is "let's try to design streets in a way that prevents drivers from killing people if they make a slight mistake", that's not the current state of the art when it comes to designing streets. The engineering standards focus on getting a lot of cars through quickly. So unless you draw a judge brave enough to say that the city should have ignored the prevailing engineering standards, you're SOL in the courtroom.

It goes even further when you stand back and look at the map. It starts with laying neighbourhoods out in a manner which increases non-auto transportation as the modal share (dare I say norm?)

In the area we're discussing, the question seems to be.... walk/bike to where? The entire civic infrastructure has been laid out in a way that pretty much guarantees that autos will have to be used for many trips. Step 2 of the solution is reconfiguring roads to be safer for non-auto use.... but step 1 is to put schools, stores, community centers, services in proximity and with reasonable distance for active users. For example, this neighbourhood needs at least one or two corner stores (possibly without parking) and maybe a pub or two in the middle. It's not hard to see how measures to curb auto throughput run contrary to resident interests when getting around by car is the most practical option.

An earlier poster questioned my claim that public schools create auto usage. My impression is that many parents drive their kids to schools these days....even if they are attending the local (and closest) public school. Just one example.

- Paul

 

[Northern Light]

It goes even further when you stand back and look at the map. It starts with laying neighbourhoods out in a manner which increases non-auto transportation as the modal share (dare I say norm?)

In the area we're discussing, the question seems to be.... walk/bike to where? The entire civic infrastructure has been laid out in a way that pretty much guarantees that autos will have to be used for many trips. Step 2 of the solution is reconfiguring roads to be safer for non-auto use.... but step 1 is to put schools, stores, community centers, services in proximity and with reasonable distance for active users. For example, this neighbourhood needs at least one or two corner stores (possibly without parking) and maybe a pub or two in the middle. It's not hard to see how measures to curb auto throughput run contrary to resident interests when getting around by car is the most practical option.

An earlier poster questioned my claim that public schools create auto usage. My impression is that many parents drive their kids to schools these days....even if they are attending the local (and closest) public school. Just one example.

- Paul

View attachment 360858

I certainly agree you need those 15-minute-type uses in the community (walkable grocery, restos etc.).
I would equally accept that there is a need for some large-scale interventions in how that community is laid out (lack of major, transit-friendly connecting roads etc.)

But I would suggest that we needn't wait to make basic safety improvements, even as we understand that these won't completely solve the issues at hand.
You get into a chicken-egg situation if you say, we can add sidewalks or diet roads only where there is grocery within a 15 minute walk.
No one could justify putting a grocery store nearby, when this is the state of pedestrian-friendliness on the nearest major road (Bathurst)

Note that there isn't even a sidewalk on the east side of the street, a major transit route for YRT.

****

A bit south of the above pic, we see that even where there is a sidewalk, there are no trees to buffer it from the road. This is almost certainly because York Region has acquired the ROW to make Bathurst six-lanes here.

The side street improvements need to happen.

Bathurst needs to be rezoned and redesigned to be the main N-S street for the area.

It will all take lots of time and money to fix.

But we must start somewhere.

 

[Towered]

Family of 10-year-old fatally struck while cycling suing driver, City of Vaughan for $7.5M​

The street in question looks like this near the community centre. It's a typical overly wide residential collector road, with each lane being a ludicrous 5-6 m in width. Some residential streets are even wider. This will be an interesting lawsuit to watch. Since there's so much evidence that the way a street is designed determines how safe it is, is a city that uses dangerous road design guilty of negligence?

I would say yes, particularly when repeated complaints to change the street to make it safer were ignored. I hope the family gets everything they're asking for. It could be a game changer to motivate cities to actually design safe streets proactively for fear of being swamped with similar law suits.

Sometimes I wish I were a city councilor. I'd be harassing the traffic/planning department constantly.

 

[Northern Light]

I would say yes, particularly when repeated complaints to change the street to make it safer were ignored. I hope the family gets everything they're asking for. It could be a game changer to motivate cities to actually design safe streets proactively for fear of being swamped with similar law suits.

Sometimes I wish I were a city councilor. I'd be harassing the traffic/planning department constantly.

Towered's rules for municipal staff

1) Every staff member must walk to work at least once each year, no matter how far you live from your job
2) Every staff member must bike to work at least once each year.
3) Every staff member must take transit to work at least once each year
4) Every staff member must make minimum wage for one-day each year (or the lowest pay in their dept) and be given a statement showing what their pay would be at that pay rate
5) Every staff member must attend at least one debauched rave/illegal dance party from 1am-4am at least once each year.

 

[TheTigerMaster]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1456576996704669704

 

[afransen]

I doubt the ruling would go that way, but I think holding cities liable for negligent urban design is the only way we'll make reasonable progress on Vision Zero objectives. I'm not sure that following engineering standards should completely shield one from accusations of negligence but I can see how courts may rule that way. Would that not merely be direct the liability to those responsible for the standards? People are dying every day due to the negligently poor design standards we have in North America.

 

[afransen]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1456576996704669704

Link to the design guide, for those interested:

https://documents.ottawa.ca/sites/documents/files/protectedintersection_dg_en.pdf

 

[Steve X]

Principle street:

View attachment 360805

You can see the school to the right, the photo is taken from a non-signalized intersection, looking east, is that tiny yellow sign sufficient to indicate a pedestrian crossing? Are the wide lanes, straight road, and official crossing-free envrionment consistent with a 40km/ph speed limit? Is that limit reasonable in front of the school?

Intersecting Street:

View attachment 360806

According to the HTA, one must stop before the sidewalk if no marking exists. Look and proceed when it's clear. Running through the intersection with rolling stops (which everyone loves) is already a violation and a ticket-able offence. No marking doesn't mean you're free to stop where you feel like it.

https://www.ontario.ca/document/official-mto-drivers-handbook/stopping

If there is no stop line, stop at the crosswalk, marked or not. If there is no crosswalk, stop at the edge of the sidewalk. If there is no sidewalk, stop at the edge of the intersection (Diagram 2-24). Wait until the way is clear before entering the intersection.

The obviously thing here is visibility. The tree on the left should be removed as well as the home at the corner shouldn't been allowed to plant things that obscure the line of view. That's why TO has taken down a lot of older bus shelters and replace them with smaller ones at a different location. So yes the city has negated their duty of care if enough complaints have already been filed.

Bikes are arguably the worst vehicles in the whole saturation. Pedestrians are slow and could be avoided at last minute. Cars are fast and use the middle of the road. Bikes are too fast for careless drivers but not fast enough to avoid a collision and they travel at the side of the road or on sidewalks making them more dangerous in suburb settings. Bikes should always look and slow down when proceeding through intersections like these. Especially if they can't see any oncoming traffic like this case. The tree is in the way. I'm not saying the kid was wrong but cyclist should pay attention for their own safety.

As for the 40km/h limit. That is in line with the majority if the province. Wide lanes and straight roads are very typical and really bad design. Even lowering the limit to 30, people will still go 50 or 60 sometimes. Speed bumps, more stop signs, designated crossings and narrower lanes are needed to get people to slow down. This all cost money that they don't feel justified to install at every school. That's the problem.

 

[W. K. Lis]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1456576996704669704

Watch the suburban, pro-automobile councillors to do their best worst to veto any or all Vision Zero initiatives.

 

[W. K. Lis]

According to the HTA, one must stop before the sidewalk if no marking exists. Look and proceed when it's clear. Running through the intersection with rolling stops (which everyone loves) is already a violation and a ticket-able offence. No marking doesn't mean you're free to stop where you feel like it.

https://www.ontario.ca/document/official-mto-drivers-handbook/stopping

The obviously thing here is visibility. The tree on the left should be removed as well as the home at the corner shouldn't been allowed to plant things that obscure the line of view. That's why TO has taken down a lot of older bus shelters and replace them with smaller ones at a different location. So yes the city has negated their duty of care if enough complaints have already been filed.

Bikes are arguably the worst vehicles in the whole saturation. Pedestrians are slow and could be avoided at last minute. Cars are fast and use the middle of the road. Bikes are too fast for careless drivers but not fast enough to avoid a collision and they travel at the side of the road or on sidewalks making them more dangerous in suburb settings. Bikes should always look and slow down when proceeding through intersections like these. Especially if they can't see any oncoming traffic like this case. The tree is in the way. I'm not saying the kid was wrong but cyclist should pay attention for their own safety.

As for the 40km/h limit. That is in line with the majority if the province. Wide lanes and straight roads are very typical and really bad design. Even lowering the limit to 30, people will still go 50 or 60 sometimes. Speed bumps, more stop signs, designated crossings and narrower lanes are needed to get people to slow down. This all cost money that they don't feel justified to install at every school. That's the problem.

Signs are generally useless. Speed limit signs are useless. In fact, with Vision Zero, they do away with signs and replaced them with raised crosswalks, raised intersections, narrowing traffic lanes (adding segregated cycling lanes), narrowing corners (using truck aprons for the long truck and trailers), chicanes and lane shifts, street parking, roundabouts instead of signalled intersections, etc.