Raise the Hammer

Some would say that speed is not a factor. Speed may not be THE factor, but it is a factor in this case; witness the extent of damage. Drivers actions are almost always THE factor. However, multi Lane roads encourage expressway type driving (frequent lane changes etc.). If you want to see what I mean, drive East on Wilson St. (two way section) to Victoria where it then converts to one way. Drivers at this point increase speed and revert to the expressway type of driving, that has no place in an urban environment.

Sorry; why is this relevant on RTH?

Is it because of the 'excessive speed' element vis a vis slowing down our traffic towards more complete streets? I'm going to assume that it is. So I feel obliged to point out that the issue is the driver. Just as the spate of school (and elsewhere) mass killings in the US over the past half-decade is the result of mental health issues, not access to guns. (Even though, unarguably, that gun access takes the situations to a much worse level of tragedy.)

I strongly believe in a reduction of residential speed limits. The area in which I now live cries out for 40Km/hr limits, perhaps even lower than this because of the innate tendencies of people behind the wheel (myself included) to drive above the limit, no matter the environment. (The 'Why?' here is another conversation entirely.) And I am against our inner-city thoroughfare roads. But to me, the highlighting of incidents such as this one as a 'news item' for the –perceived– purpose of galvanizing people towards demanding change falls far short of the behaviour necessary to attain more humane streets.

Comment edited by ItJustIs on 2014-07-07 09:09:34

Sure, you may be correct in pointing out that driver error was largely responsible for this.

The problem is, this type of driver error occures all too frequently in this part of the city. The results are horrific. And just think about the fact that in a residential area, near a school playground, it was deemed necessary to install concrete collision barriers to protect children as they play.

In any normally functioning city, such things are unnecessary.

It's been proven that people resond much less to lowered speed limits than they do to engineering that is designed for lower speeds. Part of the problem is a society that has normalized the practice of driving at 10-15km/h over the legal limit, a practice that in an inner city environment like this one, results in average speeds that are 20-25 km over what is considered safe. And since that is an average, there is always a small percentage that is much faster, more dangerous and threatening.

This was a case of someone driving a car too powerful for their abilities at a speed they couldn't handle. The road is irrelevant. That particular car is capable of accelerating very quickly and it is also capable of getting very squirrely in a hurry if you hit the gas too hard. This shouldn't be an opportunity to bitch about the roads, call it what it was, a bad driver made a bad mistake. It could have easily happened on a regular residential street with that particular automobile.

Comment edited by calder12 on 2014-07-07 09:31:06

It makes perfect sense to highlight this incident in support of re-designing Main Street. Main is designed to encourage dangerous speeds, period. It's a five-lane one-way straightaway with timed green lights straight through to Stoney Creek. It practically begs people to speed and jostle for position, and man, do they ever. It's like NASCAR. I actually believe the city is criminally negligent for not re-designing Main Street. And if those pictures don't make the case, what will? I mean, look at that car. Look at that bus shelter. That's my neighborhood. My kids went to that school.

Bollards are good. Vehicles are crashing through store-fronts on a semi-regular basis as well. Bollards should make a comeback in architecture when businesses and streets are being designed.

This guy should have wrapped his car around bollards. I went pale at the thought of a family standing in that bus shelter at the time.

Charges ... meh. Hope so. Cynical me says they'll give this idiot his license back and a new car. If there had been a family in that bus shelter this poor guy would have had to pay the entire $500.

Comment edited by mikeonthemountain on 2014-07-07 10:23:46

Trust me Ryan, that car is more than capable of getting up to speeds to do that much damage on ANY road.

Sorry, I'm not arguing the point trying to be made, I'm arguing the method. It's a huge pet peeve of mine to take something and twist it to fit an agenda. This has nothing to do with the design of Main Street. It has everything to do with a very powerful car and a driver that couldn't handle it. Nothing more.

My minivan is also more than capable of getting up to those speeds. Just because dude couldn't handle his muscle car doesn't mean street design isn't a huge contributing factor.

I've raised it before and I'll raise it again: How can we sue the city on the issue of dangerous streets? Thankfully no one dead this time. But how many have to die?

Seriously? You don't think that freeway type streets have no impact on the pscychology of drivers and tendancy to speed? Have you driven down Main St?

Sorry. Don't not mind the double negatives.

It absolutely does. Your minivan is really unlikely to be able to do it as quickly or as uncontrollably as a 5 litre Mustang is. I spoke to someone that witnessed the accident yesterday at the scene. The street isn't the cause, it's just turning into a convenient way to further an agenda, which honestly in my opinion takes validity away from that agenda. Don't make everything that happens on the street an excuse, it just makes it sound like those that want a redesign are grasping for reasons.

meh

herp derp

A person on a bicycle is a negligible safety risk? Really? I disagree, wholeheartedly. Particularly after seeing my younger brother come home bloody after being hit by a cyclist. Cyclists regularly cause automobile accidents as well by being unaware of their surroundings and/or acting like "I have the right of way so I don't have to care" but then I suppose that's on the drivers?

Not all cyclists are dangerous, but please stop making these discussions so one sided. Cyclists are capable of causing serious bodily harm, they are also more than capable of causing death. That is far from negligible.

Within a week of the bike lane being put up on Hunter I was driving down Hunter with two oblivious cyclists to my right blocking a lane... They are NOT blame free and they are NOT a negligible risk. They're human, treat them as such.

The whole us against them attitude that pervades the comments here is really starting to lose you, and this site some supporters to be honest. I get frustrated every time I see this stuff because it is just so not true. I live on Main Street. I sit on my porch regularly and you know what I see? Normal traffic, not a highway, not people doing 100 kph. Just normal traffic with the odd idiot. Stop blaming everyone because of the idiots, we aren't school children where everyone stays behind because one clown misbehaves.

Comment edited by calder12 on 2014-07-07 18:44:10

Car drivers in Hamilton crush to death and kill 15-20 people every year. Car drivers in Hamilton poison and kill an estimated 93 people each year. Number of people killed by cyclists? That would be zero.

Why do you think that people, particularly parents with children, are so desperate to live in the car-free zones of Dutch cities that they have substantially bid up the real estate prices?

Why do you think that people, particularly parents with children, are so desperate to live in the car-free Toronto Islands that they will shell out $120 for a chance to enter a lottery with less than a one in ten chance of getting on to a 15-year waiting list?

Car drivers pose a lethal threat that kills us and our children, blights our environment, and makes our cities hostile, unpleasant places in which to live.

meh yourself, bastich.

Your point is well taken, calder12. This particular case is not directly about the road design. It is directly about an irresponsible driver. Only remotely does the road design enter in as a factor. Still, it does enter in. It is a statistical fact that the traffic on our streets is not as safe as the traffic on streets in most other cities in the province, and a lot of comparable cities around the world. That is probably not a result of something in the drinking water. It is probably a result of road design.

I live just off Main Street, so I, too, see it at all different times. "Normal traffic" on Main Street in Hamilton is not "normal traffic" on (almost) any other urban street I've ever seen. Hamilton has unique traffic patterns. They are generally convenient for drivers, and a lot of people like that. What seems to get people on RTH is that Hamilton's urban thoroughfares--and a lot of minor streets, too--are unpleasant to walk, nearly impossible to cycle, unusually dangerous, and not conspicuously prosperous. There is some evidence to suggest that these negative features are interconnected.

the problem is YOU. what's your god damned hurry?

I live just East of Sanford. After posting this I went and sat on the porch while my fiancée barbecued dinner. I watched the cars go by, in smallish packs. Most doing right around 50km at a guess, the odd one going faster. You know what I didn't see? I didn't see gridlock, I didn't see anyone weaving in and out of traffic trying to get ahead. I don't see people travelling much faster than the pack often because it's not necessary.

I also cross that street, daily, and very rarely at the cross walk. Do you know why I very rarely walk to the cross walk? Because there's usually no need, unless it's rush hour. At which point I walk to the cross walk and cross safely.

I'm not suggesting that things can't change, in fact in an earlier discussion I suggested that Main and King are perfect places for those Dutch style bus stops. What bugs me, and continues to bug me is the almost attack like mentality and the flawed reasoning. Try it, make a new account and make a reasonable comment that is in contradiction to the general consensus of the users here. You might be surprised at the reaction.

For the record I spoke to someone, in person, who claimed to be an eye witness to the accident. The road had nothing to do with what he described. It could have happened anywhere and if it were a smaller residential street it could have had much worse consequences.

Could Main and King be slowed down? Probably. Do they need to be 5 lanes? No not really. Is everything bad that happens on them because of one of those two thing? No, of course not. But you can be damn sure that it will be used as a reason for the proponents of slowing it down and taking away lanes because it suits their agenda. THAT is what annoys me, and this site, and more specifically it's commentors are very guilty of this kind of campaigning. It takes away from the validity of the argument and it gets peoples backs up. Immediately you know, you aren't guessing you know, that people are going to try and make the facts fit their argument and it makes everything they say sound the same. It's like the discussion we were having on Twitter recently and somehow the fact you can't cross on the west side of Dundurn was speed related.

If you want to be taken seriously in these concerns then use cases that fit your concerns.

PS. You know which drivers DO concern me in front of my home? HSR drivers that consistently drive too fast for the conditions and have actually splashed my front windows (15ish feet from the road) during the rain. Something a car or truck has NEVER done.

Comment edited by calder12 on 2014-07-08 08:53:15

Yes, these are good points. The thing is I was never suggesting that the ideas put forward are wrong. I'm suggesting that this habit of taking everything that happens on Main or King and making it part of the problem, even when it's rather obviously not, is the issue. If the streets need to change, and again I am not suggesting they don't, then use case history that is relevant to illustrate that need. Stop grasping at straws, which is what I feel this particular story is doing.

That's the only point I was trying to make. It frustrates me when people twist things to fit an agenda, even when it's an agenda I share.

"Council recently balked at implementing a small number of modest, inexpensive two-way conversions " inexpensive? compared to what? each traffic light at each intersections costs $50,000.00. Multiply that by the number of intercessions, plus the costs of line painting, etc. Not inexpensive at all.

14 blocks of Hess and Caroline were converted to two-way about ten years ago at a total cost of $72,000. That is only about $5k per block ... pretty reasonable. And the pending Council-approved changes are similar to these streets.

Of course, not every block had lights, but there were multiple stop signs and changes in street marks and signage.

Compare this with the $7.5 million (out of a total cost of $25 million split 25/75% between the City and the Province) the City spent on a single highway interchange (Clappison Corners). http://www.hamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/3104...

Note that $25 million is only the non-levy cost (i.e. the cost not recovered from development charges). The total cost of the project, including internal roads, is a whopping $75 million!

Why is $75 million for a single interchange on the periphery of Hamilton a wise investment in infrastructure, but a few tens or hundreds of thousands for two-way conversions of multiple streets in the most densely populated area of the city an unacceptable luxury?

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-07-08 11:51:12

Just to put it in perspective, $75 million (or $75,000,000.00 as you would put it) is enough to pay for traffic lights at 1500 intersections according your estimate! Or we could do over 1000 blocks of two-way conversion at the price of the Caroline and Hess conversions for the price of one Clappison's corners interchange.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-07-08 12:37:57

Another perspective is that the health-care costs of treating people in Hamilton who have been poisoned by car drivers is $511 million.

That would pay for a lot of prevention, in the form of mode shift. By doing the things necessary to ensure that walking, cycling and public transit are the fastest, safest and easiest way of safely travelling from A to B.

is it 75 or 7.5 get your "facts" straight

please provide proof of the statement "health-care costs of treating people in Hamilton who have been poisoned by car drivers is $511 million"

Please just shut up instead

Why do you think Hot Rod Harry took out a bus shelter right there at Main and Victoria, and not, say, James Street North? Or Ottawa North? Or Barton? And why do you think a Ford Taurus plowed into the gas pumps at that exact same location back in 2007, taking the entire gas bar out in a ball of flame? That driver was charged with carelessness too - do you think bad driving was the only contributing factor then? Why, in your head, does one contributing factor (buddy couldn't handle his sweet ride) preclude other contributing factors (the street is designed to encourage dangerous speeds)?

What do you mean "get your facts straight": $7.5M is the net cost to the City of Hamilton and $75M is the total cost to the taxpayer, i.e. the total amount taxpayers are spending on this intersection. As someone inevitably says when talking about LRT (maybe even you) "there is only one taxpayer" and this taxpayer is spending $75M on the intersection!

To summarize from the City report:

$7.5M - net cost to the City of Hamilton $25M - net cost to the City and the Province $75M - total cost of the project including development levies

Even if we only count the $7.5M, that's still 100 blocks of two-way conversion or 150 intersections with traffic lights.

And the total amount "taxpayers" are spending on this project is huge: about 10% of the total cost of the proposed B-line LRT for a project that facilitates unsustainable sprawl at the edge of the City and caters to only one transport mode: driving.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-07-08 14:57:21

Note that $25 million is only the non-levy cost (i.e. the cost not recovered from development charges). The total cost of the project, including internal roads, is a whopping $75 million!

Wait, you can do that? You can say "this project costs $25 million*"

*plus $50 million that we're pretty sure we'll get back afterwards.

Is it only road expenditures that are allowed to do that? Because otherwise I'm confused why we don't count things like the Cannon bike lane or the LRT that way.

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2014-07-08 14:56:38

Just to be clear: the total estimated development and other non-levy (i.e. non tax) charges contributing to this project are $23M (including $1M for a parkland dedication fee!). Which means the province and the city actually pay a net (tax generated) amount of $52M to the project, $39M from the province and $13M from the City.

The City figure of $7.5M is only the total construction cost (which is capped). It does not include land costs or overhead. All costs are split 75/25 between the Province and City.

Of course, this expense is claimed to facilitate the new development, which will raise new taxes, but this sort of auto-centric sprawl development is unsustainable in the long term (and does it really require a $75M new interchange to work?). The development charges estimate also assume full build out.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-07-08 15:25:34

The costs of converting this road to 2 way is irreverent. Its not free or inexpensive. In the end the idiot driver will still be an idiot. If it was 2 way he might of hit someone head on and the incident would have been fatal. If the was a train on the road he might of hit it. Lower the speed limit and he would have been driving that much more above the limit.

were typing not talking

When faced with facts, just wring your hands and conclude: "Whatever!"

The Medical Officer of Health data may be found here and here.

From the first source, we break out Hamilton's share of total GTHA deaths due to people being poisoned by car drivers. "...traffic-related air pollution is responsible for over 850 premature deaths a year and thousands of hospitalizations." This share is broken out based upon Hamilton's proportion of the GTHA population, and gives 93 people dead every year in Hamilton because they were poisoned by car drivers.

From the second source, we get the ratio of health-care costs per death.

The current study determined that traffic gives rise to about 440 premature deaths and 1,700 hospitalizations per year in Toronto. While the majority of hospitalizations involve the elderly, traffic-related pollution also has significant adverse effects on children. Children experience more than 1,200 acute bronchitis episodes per year as a result of air pollution from traffic. Children are also likely to experience the majority of asthma symptom days (about 68,000), given that asthma prevalence and asthma hospitalization rates are about twice as high in children as adults...

... This study estimates that mortality-related costs associated with traffic pollution in Toronto are about $2.2 billion.

Applying the same ratio of deaths to injuries to costs in Hamilton leads us to conclude that it isn't just 93 people killed in Hamilton every year because they are poisoned by the lethal air pollution put out by car drivers. An additional 395 people in Hamilton are poisoned by car drivers every year and injured so seriously they have to be hospitalized.

Children, the elderly and hospital patients are particularly vulnerable to these poisons. Every year in Hamilton children suffer 15,510 asthma symptom days and an additional 279 children suffer acute bronchitis attacks due to being poisoned by car drivers. Health care costs due to people being poisoned by car drivers are $511 million every year in Hamilton.

It is mostly just simple ratios, but if you have trouble following any part of the math, just let me know and I'll walk you through it.

What is most important, of course, is to put an end to this horrific death and injury.

Comment edited by KevinLove on 2014-07-08 20:06:48

Why is $75 million for a single interchange on the periphery of Hamilton a wise investment in infrastructure, but a few tens or hundreds of thousands for two-way conversions of multiple streets in the most densely populated area of the city an unacceptable luxury?

Um because the big boys stand to make virtually nothing from rejuvenation of downtown hamilton, They don't care it's all a giant brownfield to them.

You, I and the rest of the readers (combined) could quite happily live off the 'donations' that the 'big boys' give to politicians.

None of these decisions are about 'wise' they are about 'pension'.

At least Russians now their politicians are on the take, in Canada we are oblivious to the corruption which makes it all the more dangerous.

The problem is me? LOL

Why was there a single car accident on the Escarpment the other day? I was talking about THIS SPECIFIC accident. Why is it so difficult for anyone to actually read and comprehend what I'm saying? I never said Main or King were perfect, I said stop twisting everything that happens on either of them to fit an agenda.

Major contributing factor, not one of many. As I said, and again you'd know this if you read what I initially wrote, is that according to the witness I spoke to the only contributing factor was the person unable to handle the acceleration of the car, not the travelling speed, the acceleration. That makes where it happened completely irrelevant because it could have happened anywhere that had 100 feet of open road.

PS. If Main and King are so dangerously fast, why exactly does the HSR require a dedicated lane to stay on schedule? The same people that are fans of the dedicated bus lanes are the ones saying the rest of the streets are too fast. Seems to be arguing both sides unless I'm missing something.

PSS. Quoting two accidents 7 years apart isn't exactly ground breaking evidence.

Comment edited by calder12 on 2014-07-09 08:44:07

There's been a lot of racing lately. The spec has frequent articles in the last few weeks about cars striking hydro poles on Wellington, Mohawk, Queenston, Centennial. Skateboarders were hit on Garth last year. I have heard of no such occurrences on Concession, or Dundurn, or Locke. Just saying, there's more to the pattern than two accidents 7 years apart.

My opinion is that if the streets are going to remain conducive to speeding, at least the delicate spots like bus shelters should at least have bollards or planters. This sort of protection could be incorporated into the streetscaping. Little barriers like that to at least mitigate out of control cars are sprinkled much more all over Britain and other well developed urban centers.

The math is simple to follow, the fault with the augment is it is bases on guess work. you can't estimate something and treat it as fact. if person is ill the cause has to have a direct line to the result. they all breath air and drink water you can use stats and show breathing and drinking played a roll in the illness. if it was a death caused by CO poising from car exhaust they it would be. Hamilton has a higher rate of asthma than Toronto but Toronto has more cars. perhaps it is caused by many other factors not just cars. Also car drives don't poison anyone they emit methane and co2 in small quantities.

Redesigning the streets doesn't punish drivers, it robs taxpayers. if the current design is so unsafe, why don't we read about the thousands of incidents that occur daily. we don't because they happen rarely as a result of carelessness not a design flaw. sure there are different design models but we don't need to pay millions for them just to improve safety marginally.

It's definitely political. When Bratina was councillor I suggested a no cost idea (in fact might generate revenue with the installation of meters) that would not impact traffic and would make pedestrian travel on Main St. safer. The suggestion was to allow all day parking on one side of the street giving pedestrians a buffer zone. The answer I got back was that it would have an impact on traffic flow. What a joke. Losing one lane on Main would have zero effect on traffic flow. I witnessed an accident at Wellington where traffic was down to one lane and traffic was only backed up 2 blocks. This suggestion did nothing for cyclists but there are a lot of people who walk Main and it can be an uncomfortable feeling , not to mention unsafe, having cars zooming the curb lane within inches of you. But we all know, cars rule.

I appreciate those in this city who keep bringing this issue forward for change. In fact we must change the mentality that the car driver rules the "world". The other day while crossing in the crosswalk, with the light, a vehicle like a Hummer was in the crosswalk waiting to turn right. I stopped at his door and stated in your in my way, since I have the right to cross. The driver told me to go around him, which meant I had to go out into the new bus lane in order to finish crossing the street.

The driver of the vehicle yelled out his window as he turned after I had to walk in front of his vehicle in the bus lane that I was " a lazy, ignorant, effin white bitch".

That's perfectly reasonable. Although I can assure you that "lately" has nothing to do with the racing. It's been going on at least since I was a teenager and that's going back 30 years now. It was never relegated to Main or King either for that matter.

redesigning the streets and spending billions will not change this goofs mentality.

ya so let's just do nothing for ever and ever and ever

The Medical Officer of Health disagrees with you. I suggest that you read the Medical Officer of Health reports linked to above.

You literally have no idea what you're talking about.

Nobody has said that. I love how we swing from absolute edges of the spectrum during this "debate".

Whatever. Who are you and what have you done for this city? That's what I thought. Just another anonymous naysaying loser who takes joy in hamilton being depressed