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If they make up an excuse not to remove the slip lanes, they had better have raised crossings in the slip lane.
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From link.
I personally think slip lanes can be acceptable, with raised crossings to ensure the speed of turning vehicles is low.
 
Given the acute angle of that intersection, a slip lane of some sort is almost inevitable, and probably desirable. Perhaps some enhancements can be retrofitted at some point. But again, considering that resources are finite, perhaps it’s better to move on and tackle other intersections that are crying for better design, and come back to this one later.

- Paul.
 
Given the acute angle of that intersection, a slip lane of some sort is almost inevitable, and probably desirable. Perhaps some enhancements can be retrofitted at some point. But again, considering that resources are finite, perhaps it’s better to move on and tackle other intersections that are crying for better design, and come back to this one later.

- Paul.
Disagree. Slip lanes aren't inevitable at all on that type of intersection, cars are easily capable of navigating that turn and there are plenty of intersections with an angle like that with no slip lanes. In some cases a slip lane is built to create a right angle with the cross street but that's not the case here. Building the intersection like that was a choice, nothing more.

Personally I find slip lanes annoying when I drive because in a lot of cases their design visually tells you to speed up to merge into traffic while leaving no room to actually merge. Virtually all of them force you into an angle where you have to look over your shoulder, taking your attention away from people crossing the street. That makes the intersection very intimidating to navigate on foot.
 
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Given the acute angle of that intersection, a slip lane of some sort is almost inevitable, and probably desirable. Perhaps some enhancements can be retrofitted at some point. But again, considering that resources are finite, perhaps it’s better to move on and tackle other intersections that are crying for better design, and come back to this one later.

- Paul.
A raised crossing ought to be pretty cheap.
 
Nice concise video explaining some features of Dutch arterials that contribute to safety. A lot of very thoughtful design features.

 
UT's own @ProjectEnd engaging in a bit of pedestrian activism on Twitter:

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He's already gotten 311 to respond and to forward the above for investigation by Transportation Services.

Big thumbs up from me!

Now.....I may just have to stick my nose into it a bit, cause his Tweet got me looking at this section of street.

Just to the south of the missing section of sidewalk.....is this:

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All sorts of reserved parking on the boulevard...........the City-owned boulevard............

Cars access these spaces by climbing the curb, and going over that narrow sidewalk, which explains all that pavement.

It also explains this:

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One dead street tree and all of the other tree pits empty (their previous occupants having died); nothing like oodles of road salt and lots of compaction and pavement to kill off all the streetscaping.

Perhaps we can ask the nice people at Ubisoft to find somewhere else to park (and revoke their permits for same on the boulevard regardless), then de-pave the boulevard and add a dozen new trees.
 
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I used to go to that block regularly because I worked in the west end and would stop at Halo, Wallace Espresso, Cafe Neon, Bairradino, etc., and that west side of that street always struck me as totally weird. Such wasted space.
 
From link.

Contact East Collision Reporting Centre​



8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Seven days a week
39 Howden Road
Scarborough M1R 3C7


416-808-4960

Contact North Collision Reporting Centre​



8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.
Seven days a week
113 Toryork Drive
North York M9L 1X9


416-808-3960

Cyclist & Pedestrian Only Collision Reporting

A pedestrian or cyclist can attend any of the two above Collision Reporting Centres. This centre is to report a collision with injuries that do not require immediate medical attention. If you are seriously hurt, call 9-1-1.

Cyclists/Pedestrians can also report at a new collision reporting centre at the Traffic Services unit station at 9 Hanna Avenue in Liberty Village.It is also operated by Accident Support Services International and available from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday to Friday (excluding holidays).

Cyclists/Pedestrians will be able to begin reports online at accsupport/PedCylistApp/home.

All reports started online must be finalized at any of the Collision Reporting Centres during hours of operation. The report is not considered complete until the reportee has presented valid ID to the customer service representative.
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So, reading the Vision Zero/Bike Plan related Briefing notes to Tomorrow's budget ctte meeting..........

Have to say, while we would all like things to move faster, I do really like hard data points, and there really are some signs of tangible progress:

Compared to peak years over the last decade, pedestrian/cyclist and motorist fatalities are down in a statistically significant way:

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In 2020 we see a very notable drop-off from prior years, and subsequently we improved just a bit more in 2022.

Its Vision Zero, not Vision Two Sixty Seven; Still, as compared to 2018 at 446 serious injuries or fatalities, there's no mistaking a substantial improvement. That's about a 40% decline.

We need to see more marked improvement, with another drop of similar size in the next 2-3 years (or by all means better); but I do like that we're starting to show some traction.

The main briefing note is here: https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2023/bu/bgrd/backgroundfile-233951.pdf The above image was a stand-alone attachment.
 
Be interesting to see how that looks per-capita. With the city adding more and more people, and the gross number of people on the decline, I imagine it would be even more apparent it's working.
 
In 2020 we see a very notable drop-off from prior years, and subsequently we improved just a bit more in 2022.

Its Vision Zero, not Vision Two Sixty Seven; Still, as compared to 2018 at 446 serious injuries or fatalities, there's no mistaking a substantial improvement. That's about a 40% decline.
I could not see any documents indicating where the source of these reductions were (that is, which intersections, etc.) or why they happened. Would be very illuminating.
 
I could not see any documents indicating where the source of these reductions were (that is, which intersections, etc.) or why they happened. Would be very illuminating.

Good Question, lets see if there's anything we can see.

TPS ' KSI portal doesn't show data post-2020 for some reason.

But as that was the year of the big decline (also first year of Covid) ..............maybe there's something there:

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Below is the 2018 data (previous near-term peak)

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So the first thing that jumps out is the decline is absolute collisions. from 422 to 265.

Hmmmm

*****

Toronto has a separate Vision Zero portal.

To make this readable, I'm showing the map with Collision Fatalities only (not injuries)

2018:

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2022:

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I still find it a bit cluttered, lets remove deaths for motorists and motorcycles and look solely at cyclists and pedestrians:

2018:

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2022:

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What jumps out at me now is the reduction in Scarborough.

Ok......back to the day job for a few minutes, LOL

Here's the portal link for others to play with:

 
Be interesting to see how that looks per-capita. With the city adding more and more people, and the gross number of people on the decline, I imagine it would be even more apparent it's working.
It would also be interesting to compare this to changes in modeshare. I imagine that there are a lot more cyclists on the road compared to 2011, and this makes the fact that the KSI number is considerably lower more encouraging.
 
apologies if this has been discussed before, but I'm wondering how unique Toronto is with it's general lack of medians separating traffic on busy arterials. There are some well-known exceptions, like University, and Yonge between Sheppard and Finch. But otherwise they don't feature on our roads much.

In the inner suburbs, where roads are busy and also pretty wide, a narrow concrete strip would improve safety and flow of traffic (e.g. cars cannot make crazy left turns across 2 or 3 lanes of oncoming traffic).
 
Here's the portal link for others to play with:

Next you'll be offering us potato chips and saying "Just have one or two" ;-)

I did play a bit - and to your comment about Scarborough showing change - I found this view interesting.

The brown lines are roads that have seen speed limits lowered. Definitely a lot of change has gone on in Scarborough particularly.

The purple dots are locations that have seen speed enforcement cameras.

My hypothesis would be - perhaps simply reducing absolute speed on main roadways has made a difference in the burbs, at least for some types of situations.

Hard to demonstrate causality, but food for thought anyways.

- Paul



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