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  #21  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 4:53 PM
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Originally Posted by megadude View Post
For instance, I sometimes drop my car off on Corporate Dr. in Burlington and then walk to the bus on Appleby.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.39011...7i13312!8i6656

It's actually my favourite industrial park because there's lots of grass, trees and a creek passing through. And it has relatively little traffic going through it for a city like that. And it's just around the corner from shopping and housing. I used to live around nearby and would take those roads to get somewhere because you can just breeze through there.

But why no sidewalks? It's not new but it's not that old either like some industrial streets you would find in Scarboro, Etobicoke or North York.

It's a huge pain in the a$$ to walk there in the winter. Imagine you took the bus to work there. Imagine there are snow banks and it's a slushy kind of day. Good luck when cars and trucks are passing you as you walk from the bus stop on Appleby.

.


So how many times when you do this walk to you pass by other pedestrians? The cost to put in sidewalks and maintain them is a lot. It's not worth it if only a handful of people make that trek by foot each day.

There is an old beat up sidewalk along Commissioner in Toronto that they don't even plow in the winter sometimes. They only maintain it up to Pinewood Studios and Fed Ex. Also the sidewalk doesn't go down the entire street.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.65524...7i16384!8i8192
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  #22  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 5:02 PM
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Originally Posted by esquire View Post
^ Ditches in urban industrial parks are a bit much IMO. You want rural servicing standards, go to the country.

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The context of my post was new industrial development on the edges of a city.


Industrial neighborhoods typically evolve over time. 1/4 sections typically get subdivided into a handful or two of very large lots. Predominantly used by pipe yards, salvage and wreckers, storage, fabrication yards. basically large lots that need very little permanent infrastructure and only really care about cheap land and access to transportation. The gravel for the yard costs more than the buildings they erect.

At some point, this land that was on the edge of the city, now has many sections of similar development between it and the egde of the city. Taxes become higher, trucks entering and exiting yards every ten minutes with pipe get backed up with traffic..etc.. and this land is no longer suitable for land intensive operations.

Parcels get gobbled up, and redevelopment occurs. large pipe yards get subdivided, new roads added, and we start to see the light industrial operations with "permanent infrastructure" expensive manufacturing facilities, logistics, commercial frontages with warehouse behind kind of thing. At this point, we start to see the urbanization of the infrastructure.


Take a look at a satellite map of Edmonton. Start on 75th street north of Whitemud and scroll to the West. It shows this type of thing happening right before our eyes.
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  #23  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 5:07 PM
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This my friends is where the Government of Canada prints your passports. It's actually really close to where I live.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/22...6!4d-75.706349

Since it's a government facility and federal public servants love taking transit (OK the feds are not generous when it comes to employee parking these days), more than a few of the workers commute by transit.

Here is where the bus stop is:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-75.7028713

I drive by there fairly regularly and during rush hour (AM and PM) there are always quite a few pedestrians in the area.
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  #24  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 5:07 PM
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It does seem like inefficient use of money to have sidewalks in places that only have a handful of pedestrians a day, but it is the standard now and has been for probably at least three decades.

I cannot recall any industrial park built since the 80s by my best estimation that doesn't have sidewalks.

I'm speaking in urban terms of course.

Also in Burlington, couple years back I dropped off my car at the same mechanic and walked to Appleby. But it snowed a couple days in a row and there was probably 15cm of snow on the ground it caused massive delays on the bus routes. So I decided to walk a few minutes down to the Hortons.

Well, a couple minutes into my walk I find a stretch of unplowed sidewalk. At least 30 feet. This was basically in between two buildings where the parcels of land meet. I'm guessing each building owner had different snow removal companies and one plowed to what he thought was the boundary but stopped short and the other plowed right to their boundary.

This is just a guess that the city had an arrangement on this stretch of road with the landowners because if it was a city employee or contractor responsible then that would be a massive fail. But then again we know how incompetent municipal workers can be.

Anyway, I gave up and turned back because I had nice work shoes and pants on.

Several years ago I believe it was on Lakeshore where Etobicoke and Sauga meet. The exact situation happened and an old lady was forced to walk on busy Lakeshore Rd and was struck and killed.
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  #25  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 5:13 PM
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Originally Posted by TorontoDrew View Post
So how many times when you do this walk to you pass by other pedestrians? The cost to put in sidewalks and maintain them is a lot. It's not worth it if only a handful of people make that trek by foot each day.

There is an old beat up sidewalk along Commissioner in Toronto that they don't even plow in the winter sometimes. They only maintain it up to Pinewood Studios and Fed Ex. Also the sidewalk doesn't go down the entire street.

https://www.google.ca/maps/@43.65524...7i16384!8i8192
I've done this four times with this mechanic I'll guess. So eight times. Never saw a pedestrian.

In the morning it was after 8am so employees were all at work by then as it's industrial in nature. And 5:30 pm or so on the walk back so everyone gone home long time before.

And on weekends when I might drive through here to get to the store, none of the businesses were open.

So basically I can't give any analysis. But I have seen footprints in the snow here.
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  #26  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 5:16 PM
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We may be the worst offenders but in my experience it's not just a Canadian-American thing. It's common in much of the world (even in countries not notoriously auto-dependent) to see industrial areas with no sidewalks.

In some places due to more scarce land or space, the businesses have little on-site parking, and so the sidewalk-less road will always be lined with parked cars on both side sides.

Or when there is something resembling a sidewalk (often a raised, narrow strip of asphalt on the side of the road), it will again be totally occupied by parked vehicles.
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  #27  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 5:19 PM
megadude megadude is offline
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Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
This my friends is where the Government of Canada prints your passports. It's actually really close to where I live.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/22...6!4d-75.706349

Since it's a government facility and federal public servants love taking transit (OK the feds are not generous when it comes to employee parking these days), more than a few of the workers commute by transit.

Here is where the bus stop is:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-75.7028713

I drive by there fairly regularly and during rush hour (AM and PM) there are always quite a few pedestrians in the area.

That is brutal!

If I ran a business that had a quite a few employees and was looking for a space to lease, this is definitely one thing I'd have to take into consideration.

Another thing would be controlled access if on a busy street. So basically a traffic light. I purposely avoid some plazas on busy streets if I know I'll have to play Frogger when leaving the plaza and turning left. Also wouldn't want my employees to go through that.

All this is assuming I could be picky in choosing the location.
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  #28  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 5:22 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
This my friends is where the Government of Canada prints your passports. It's actually really close to where I live.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/22...6!4d-75.706349

Since it's a government facility and federal public servants love taking transit (OK the feds are not generous when it comes to employee parking these days), more than a few of the workers commute by transit.

Here is where the bus stop is:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-75.7028713

I drive by there fairly regularly and during rush hour (AM and PM) there are always quite a few pedestrians in the area.
Yeah, wow. That's awful. I hope buddy in the blue shirt didn't get schmucked by a semi.

In my general experience, industrial park roads in Winnipeg without sidewalks tend to be pretty wide and low traffic so you can at least walk without being in traffic.
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  #29  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 6:09 PM
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Originally Posted by megadude View Post
That is brutal!

If I ran a business that had a quite a few employees and was looking for a space to lease, this is definitely one thing I'd have to take into consideration.

Another thing would be controlled access if on a busy street. So basically a traffic light..
To be honest, the federal building is probably the only one in the industrial park where employees use transit. It has limited parking options, whereas AFAIK all the other businesses there have ample free parking.

Interestingly enough our local cutesy café-sandwich-dessert chain has a location right in the middle of the industrial park.
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  #30  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 6:36 PM
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One of our clients owns a few buildings on the same industrial street in Sauga. One of the older buildings that was mortgage free he was considering demolishing and building a parking structure to satisfy the tenants of his other buildings and those that work in other nearby buildings, who he could charge parking to.

It's funny how industrial parks got to that stage where employees have to line the roads with their cars.

Another client who owns buildings in Markham said that when he was developing these properties back in the day that you utilized as much of the parcel of land as possible for revenue generating purposes. So fill as much as you can with the actual building and fill it with tenants and get paid x amount of dollars per sf. Parking was an afterthought.

He said now the restrictions are much tighter and more space had to be dedicated to parking.
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  #31  
Old Posted Nov 22, 2018, 6:45 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Acajack View Post
This my friends is where the Government of Canada prints your passports. It's actually really close to where I live.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/22...6!4d-75.706349

Since it's a government facility and federal public servants love taking transit (OK the feds are not generous when it comes to employee parking these days), more than a few of the workers commute by transit.

Here is where the bus stop is:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bo...!4d-75.7028713

I drive by there fairly regularly and during rush hour (AM and PM) there are always quite a few pedestrians in the area.
That's bad, but it's better than the worst bus stop in North America, which is in Pitt Meadows, a suburb of Vancouver.
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