Raise the Hammer

I don't understand... there's a crosswalk at Upper James, and another at East 5th. You're proposing a third crosswalk within a 300m span?

Yes, just like the one that's been in front of the Queenston Rd Zellers for years now, between Nash Rd and Woodman. Works great.

It doesnt have to be a stoplight type crosswalk either, it could just be a yellow light crosswalk where cars just have to stop until the pedestrian has crossed. I don't recall if there are any of these in hamilton but they work well in other cities.

Edit:Toronto calls them PXO's http://www.toronto.ca/transportation/wal...

Comment edited by AnjoMan on 2012-12-05 08:41:48

Are you sure that we are talking about the same thing? The PXO's are pedestrian activated lights, but not stoplights, so driver has to stop when they flash, but they can treat it as a stop sign - so they only have to wait for the actual pedestrian, not some arbitrary period until the stoplight changes.

Anyways, if we are talking about the same thing, then it seems pretty clear to me that if a motorist hits a pedestrian at a flashing-lights crossing, it is their fault, unless the pedestrian didn't press the button or the signal is broken

Unfortunately, this is the standard response of the traffic department to every request for new pedestrian crossings: claim that the crossing is either not justified (there is no safety issue or there is insufficient demand), or can't be implemented because of the need to cater to fast traffic flow.

Even the request of the Durand Neighbourhood Association to decrease the response time of the pedestrian activated light on Queen near Ryerson Rec Centre and school (currently up to 60 seconds) has been met with a straight out refusal!

This is why residents have had to resort to petitions and their councillor, who has the ability to over-rule the opinions of the traffic engineers through a vote of council.

As the writer points out, the value scale used to justify these decisions (the need for smooth and fast motor vehicle flow trumps the needs of all other road users) runs directly counter to many other officially adopted city policies. It is also counter to the principle that it is up to residents, not engineers, to identify problems and determine the value scale and it is the job of engineers to find a technical solution to fix the problem. The traffic department even sometimes claims to put pedestrians first, but can't seem to bring itself to actually make changes on the ground that could possibly impact traffic flow.

Apparently, the city will soon adopt an official plan that mandates a pedestrian first traffic hierarchy. Once it is adopted, residents should demand to know what policy changes the traffic engineers have made to prioritize the needs of pedestrians (and cyclists) above those of motorists.

For example, the time of a pedestrian will need to be valued higher than that of a motorist ... which implies no longer asking pedestrians to walk hundreds of metres out of their way to a signalized crossing just to cross the street.

In the recent Dundas incident the city was demanding that seniors walk an extra 630m just to cross the street. For an (active) senior walking at 4km/h, this would take about 10 minutes. This is like asking a motorist driving at 40km/h to take a 6.7km detour just to cross an intersection. Of course we would never inconvenience motorists like that ...

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2012-12-05 11:00:08

What constantly bugs me is that the city is obviously aware of this because they'll put in a pedestrian crossing to connect a private institution to its parking lot. Hamilton General has one, Arcelor-Mittal-Dofasco's offices have one, and McMaster Innovation Park has one.

Apparently pedestrians don't need to walk out of their way as long as they're motorists.

And delay issues shouldn't be considered when it's a push-button crossing anyways, since there is no delay if there's no pedestrians.

If you want to go fast traveling East-West on the Mountain, just take the Linc, that's what it's for.

To be fair, that distance is almost 500m.

To be honest, I'm surprised they haven't put up some kind of a sign reminding pedestrians to "Cross at the lights" as that seems to be what the city typically does.

My only concern is that this spot is not "unique" in any way, there are hundreds of spots like this where a pedestrian crosswalk would be useful. Do we implement them all?

Concession street is one of my favourite examples, since it has relatively few signalized crossings along it's length, and is rather highly trafficked by pedestrians. I can think of at least 3 spots that could use a pedestrian crossings, but I doubt the city would want to spend a quarter million dollars on one street.

A huge advantage to these is that as soon as the crosswalk is cleared, the cars can continue to move, and if someone presses it "As a joke", no one needs to stop. With a full pedestrian activated stoplight, the cars have to wait until the full signal changes to cross. And if a pedestrian hits the button, and then crosses before his signal turns green (maybe thre was a gap), then the light will still change even when the pedestrian is long gone, and then cars are stopping for nothing.

The Toronto style pedestrian lights serve everyone most efficiently. Pedestrians get instant gratification, plus their path is lit up where they walk. Motorists only have to stop for as long as it takes the person to cross rather than for a full signal.

We need to fight for the adoption of these here. Are they in the highway traffic act? If so then what's the problem?

The city just put a light in at Augusta crossing John South. This was under the guise of assisting pedestrians.

The problem is, the programming of this light is horrendous. First of all, if no one hits the pedestrian button, the pedestrian signal never changes even if a car triggers the green cycle

So if a car has triggered the light and you walk up to it as it's turning green to cross John, the pedestrian light does not turn green. According to the city, you should press the button, wait for the entire augusta vehicular green, then wait for the entire john street green, and then cross at the next Augusta green cycle.

Second, if you hit the button, the delay is absurd. And sometimes, when you hit it, the john street flashing hand starts - but before augusta gets the green, the john street green man comes back for a while, and then starts flashing again, and THEN augusta gets the green.

I have never been able to trigger the light with my bike - there is absolutely no feedback to a cyclist that their presence has been detected.

My observations tell me that, except during an hour a day in AM and an hour in PM rush times, almost every pedestrian and cyclist crosses against a red for frustration of the delays for the green.

The city's response is that they can't tie up John street by lowering the pedestrian button response time.

This despite the fact that the only bottleneck on john is the bizarre scene at hunter with buses blocking one lane and turning vehicles blocking the other. A proper Augusta pedestrian crossing will NEVER be a bottleneck as long as the bus routes and turn lanes are maintained on john between hunter and jackson.

They are all over Toronto, as well as in other cities - the first time I saw one was in Halifax, and it blew my mind!

As a motorist, you feel like a dummy waiting at a red for no-one, when you could easily just go...PXO avoids that annoying wait time after the pedestrian has crossed.

gotta start somewhere!

Google maps shows 190m between the Woodman crosswalk and the "seniors" crosswak to the east of that.

I do wish they were a flashing red though instead of flashing yellow. Flashing yellow just means "caution" and lets the driver know that a pedestrian intends to cross. Flashing red is a stop-sign (not a stop light) and means that drivers must pause at the line and check for pedestrians before they continue.

I'm not necessarily arguing against adding this one, simply that adding similar crosswalks at all such intersections will take a significant amount of money and time.

This intersection was identified by chance - someone at the right place at the right time spotting an issue. But how do we identify the hundreds of similar intersections across the city? Do we then prioritize which ones get crosswalks fist, given constraints on our time and money?

I'm just not sure about saying "let's start with this particular one".

Part of the problem is that the "approved" crosswalk solution in Ontario, the pedestrian crossover, is inconsistently implemented (not at all in Hamilton) and is almost as expensive as the pedestrian operated traffic light solution that is used in Hamilton.

In most other places, crosswalks are cheap and easy to implement: zebra stripes and/or white lines on the road, combined with one sign on each side of the road (and perhaps a warning sign further away). And these are regular traffic signs, not suspended, illuminated signs.

This cheap solution is used in western Canada (and France, for example), and means it is much easier to implement.

The rules for motorists at pedestrian crossings also need to be changed.

Currently in Ontario motorists are only required to yield (i.e. stop) when a pedestrian enters a lane travelling in the same direction they are (which is crazy). In BC (and most other places), motorists travelling in both directions must stop as soon as a pedestrian takes a foot off the curb.

As with cycling, motorists (and pedestrians) will be more respectful of pedestrian crossings once they are standardized and installed widely (ideally at every urban non-signalized intersection and in mid-block where the distance to the intersection is too far). This has always been the case in Vancouver.

As pointed out by other commenters, the pedestrian operated traffic light is a very safe solution (also used in western Canada), but in Hamilton they have drastically reduced its usefulness by making pedestrians wait so long for the light to respond. You are only forcing motorists to stop when a pedestrians actually needs to cross, so why is there any need to delay? If there are really so many pedestrians crossing that traffic is getting seriously jammed, then a regular traffic light (synchronized with the others) is warranted. If not, then there is no reason to force the pedestrian light to operate on the same cycle as the other lights which are timed for motor vehicles. Once again the time and convenience of pedestrians is valued far less than those of motorists (not at all, really, since they have to fit in with the needs of drivers) .

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2012-12-05 16:06:09

the problem is they require drivers to watch for pedestrians. Surely we can't expect them to do that AND look out for the next Hortons drive-thru at 65km

this is what they do in Florida, and many other states.

http://imagesus.homeaway.com/mda01/588e7...

Hard to read, but it says 'state law; yield to pedestrians in crosswalk'.

We met with a traffic big-wig at Locke and York a couple years ago to ask for longer pedestrian crossing 6 lanes of York. The city traffic guy almost threw a fit and said "if we add 20 seconds here, it means we have to adjust ALL 30,000 signals in the city!!".

The rest of us instinctively started laughing. I wanted to pin a medal on the guy for saying something so stupid with a straight face and lots of passion. Needless to say we didn't really get much headway with our ideas.

Last update from McHattie was that the city was willing to add 2-3 seconds to the light.

Comment edited by jason on 2012-12-05 18:12:00

Very nice to see that the stereotype of all people living on the mountain not caring about pedestrians isn't true. Too many people who are healthy and drive don't realize how much you're trapped in this city if you don't drive or can't walk easily or far, thank you for putting yourself in someone elses shoes and caring enough to do something about it!

A few months after the fact but...

where did the author come up with $80,000 for a pedestrian signal? a pedestrian signal or partial signal costs about $250,000 and a PXO isn't much cheaper since the major cost is the underground work. not that money should be an issue since the city busied themselves to install 4 unwarranted, useless and dangerous (to pedestrians and drivers) partial intersection signals in Dundas just a couple years ago.

I personally think pedestrian islands are the best solution as they slow traffic but don't disrupt it, even if the city doesn't want to call them "pedestrian" islands I am sure they would improve the situation. That said this suggestion is for pedestrians accessing the plaza which is a nightmare in itself, what is the point in adding a crossing on Fennell when you will probably die walking into the plaza from that side.

I am sure the commenter who thought changing signal timings for the whole east west downtown corridor was laughable would change their mind if they realized what a massive project that would be, unfourtunately you don't just hit a button and make every intersection perfect