Traffic Calming

[JM1]

Does traffic calming work? I see councillor nussbaum is developing some proposals for his Rideau-Rockcliffe constituency. Will such measures have an impact?

[MoreTrains]

Some does, some doesnt, but most just piss people off. Speed bumps are terrible, especially when you are waiting on EMS to show up. Wavy roads just make people drive like rally drivers. The only real way to calm traffic, but only for a short period, is narrow lanes of say 10 feet instead of 12 feet. Or, just get rid of traffic all together, but thats highly unlikely.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by MoreTrains

Some does, some doesnt, but most just piss people off. Speed bumps are terrible, especially when you are waiting on EMS to show up. Wavy roads just make people drive like rally drivers. The only real way to calm traffic, but only for a short period, is narrow lanes of say 10 feet instead of 12 feet. Or, just get rid of traffic all together, but thats highly unlikely.

On Kirkwood heading north just before Byron (i.e. a very busy intersection), some brilliant traffic engineer decided the best way to calm traffic at that corner was to extend the curb 2m into the roadway... effectively reducing the road from 3 lanes to 2... you can see here the result:

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3930...7i13312!8i6656

What happened is the "left turn onto Byron" lane was eliminated... so one left turner (and there are many) cause traffic to back up for blocks on Kirkwood during rush hours (and other times too).

To solve this we now have people cutting out earlier and bombing through residential streets to bypass this intersection.... there are now calls for speedbumps on the residential streets to cut down on that...

Who comes up with this crap????

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by JM1

Does traffic calming work? I see councillor nussbaum is developing some proposals for his Rideau-Rockcliffe constituency. Will such measures have an impact?

I am not aware of Councillor Nussbaum's proposals, but traffic calming can work well in certain circumstances, but in others it can actually increase congestion.

Optimally it is used to discourage the use of a less desirable route and encourage the use of a more desirable route (i.e. prevent people from taking short cuts through residential neighborhoods). For this to work though, there has to be an alternate route for the traffic to use that is more desirable (and not just moving traffic from one NIMBY to another).

It can also be used to slow down traffic past schools and playgrounds, but care needs to be made that the traffic calming doesn't make things even more dangerous by creating blind spots.

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

On Kirkwood heading north just before Byron (i.e. a very busy intersection), some brilliant traffic engineer decided the best way to calm traffic at that corner was to extend the curb 2m into the roadway... effectively reducing the road from 3 lanes to 2... you can see here the result:

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3930...7i13312!8i6656

What happened is the "left turn onto Byron" lane was eliminated... so one left turner (and there are many) cause traffic to back up for blocks on Kirkwood during rush hours (and other times too).

To solve this we now have people cutting out earlier and bombing through residential streets to bypass this intersection.... there are now calls for speedbumps on the residential streets to cut down on that...

Who comes up with this crap????

That sounds like NIMBYism at its worst. According to Map 6 of the Transportation Master Plan, Kirkwood is considered an Arterial route from Richmond to Merivale. You want to maximize traffic flow on Arterial routes, not restrict it. The problem is it wasn't designed to be an arterial route and so they put houses on it.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by roger1818

That sounds like NIMBYism at its worst. According to Map 6 of the Transportation Master Plan, Kirkwood is considered an Arterial route from Richmond to Merivale. You want to maximize traffic flow on Arterial routes, not restrict it. The problem is it wasn't designed to be an arterial route and so they put houses on it.

Most arterial roads built before about 1970 are physically indistinguishable from other types of roads (same right of way, same residential or commercial use) except that at some point the city or the province or the NCC decided to dump traffic on some roads and not others (say on Kirkwood and not Tweedsmuir). So there needs to be some mechanism to align the speeds on those roads with the use.

I know they're not politically correct, but I think speed bumps are the way to go, they're effective and don't create lanes that are dangerously narrow.

[hwy418]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

On Kirkwood heading north just before Byron (i.e. a very busy intersection), some brilliant traffic engineer decided the best way to calm traffic at that corner was to extend the curb 2m into the roadway... effectively reducing the road from 3 lanes to 2... you can see here the result:

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3930...7i13312!8i6656

What happened is the "left turn onto Byron" lane was eliminated... so one left turner (and there are many) cause traffic to back up for blocks on Kirkwood during rush hours (and other times too).

To solve this we now have people cutting out earlier and bombing through residential streets to bypass this intersection.... there are now calls for speedbumps on the residential streets to cut down on that...

Who comes up with this crap????

This is how it usually goes for these projects:

Start --> resident(s) on Kirkwood bitches about speed on this arterial road --> whines to City --> do nothing / no enforcement for several years --> resident bitches to City Councillor --> Councillor jumps if election year (or after community assoc. bitches) --> Councillor bitches to City Staff --> Staff come-up with pre-arranged plan for traffic calming --> may or may not hire consultant --> stuff gets built --> Go to Start

Note that the plan is usually pre-arranged by the Councillor's office or at the staff level.

[rocketphish]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

On Kirkwood heading north just before Byron (i.e. a very busy intersection), some brilliant traffic engineer decided the best way to calm traffic at that corner was to extend the curb 2m into the roadway... effectively reducing the road from 3 lanes to 2... you can see here the result:

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3930...7i13312!8i6656

What happened is the "left turn onto Byron" lane was eliminated... so one left turner (and there are many) cause traffic to back up for blocks on Kirkwood during rush hours (and other times too).

To solve this we now have people cutting out earlier and bombing through residential streets to bypass this intersection.... there are now calls for speedbumps on the residential streets to cut down on that...

Who comes up with this crap????

This was entirely predictable outcome to creating artificial blockages on this arterial route. And if they try to solve the resulting symptoms of the problem by adding more traffic calming measures on the side streets, the drivers will adapt and find other shortcuts through the neighbourhood. The City needs to solve the root cause of the problem, which in this case is unimpeding the flow of traffic along the designated arterial route.

[zzptichka]

Originally Posted by HighwayStar

On Kirkwood heading north just before Byron (i.e. a very busy intersection), some brilliant traffic engineer decided the best way to calm traffic at that corner was to extend the curb 2m into the roadway... effectively reducing the road from 3 lanes to 2... you can see here the result:

https://www.google.com/maps/@45.3930...7i13312!8i6656

What happened is the "left turn onto Byron" lane was eliminated... so one left turner (and there are many) cause traffic to back up for blocks on Kirkwood during rush hours (and other times too).

To solve this we now have people cutting out earlier and bombing through residential streets to bypass this intersection.... there are now calls for speedbumps on the residential streets to cut down on that...

Who comes up with this crap????

What do you mean "now"? It's been like that for like 20 years, way before traffic calming was trendy.

[HighwayStar]

Originally Posted by zzptichka

What do you mean "now"? It's been like that for like 20 years, way before traffic calming was trendy.

Negative.

I live in that neighborhood and have driven through that intersection almost daily for 20 years.

Originally Posted by hwy418

This is how it usually goes for these projects:

Start --> resident(s) on Kirkwood bitches about speed on this arterial road --> whines to City --> do nothing / no enforcement for several years --> resident bitches to City Councillor --> Councillor jumps if election year (or after community assoc. bitches) --> Councillor bitches to City Staff --> Staff come-up with pre-arranged plan for traffic calming --> may or may not hire consultant --> stuff gets built --> Go to Start

Note that the plan is usually pre-arranged by the Councillor's office or at the staff level.

It was put in under Shawn Little's watch, at the request of area resident(s), with the support of the WCA (Westboro Community Association). This was right at the time the Westboro Superstore (NW of that intersection) was being built.... apparently "traffic calming" of Kirkwood would solve the issue of cars "flooding into the neighborhood".

It's not just that corner... Kirkwood from Carling to Byron had many of those "curb protrusions" put in at the same time. There's also a couple of nasty speed bumps on Kirkwood for good measure.

I remember the day this went into operation 10(?) years ago... and thought "this is nuts... who comes up with this crap?"

hwy418 - Nice summary... that is exactly what happened.

[lrt's friend]

The most infuriating traffic calming measure ever taken by the city was the closure of the Albion-Lester intersection (near the airport) to through traffic. It turned the neighbourhood against itself, city councillor against city councillor, drivers making dangerous U-Turns, shortcuts on private streets, traffic signs popping up all over the place, other road closures, and a police field day for issuing tickets. Finally after a couple of years of this insanity, it was decided to re-open the intersection and implement more reasonable traffic calming measures, which simply amounted to adding a few stop signs to slow down through traffic. And it worked.

[Richard Eade]

How to deal with traffic seems to be somewhat of a puzzle that this City can’t seem to figure out. Cars don’t just disappear when a road is narrowed; they move to routes that have less obstacles. The corollary, of course, is that if the City widens a road, it soon becomes full of cars. But those cars don’t just materialize out of nothing any more than cars just disappear when a road is blocked. They are drivers choosing the path of least resistance.

There really needs to be a proper design of big roads and they need to actually be built. At one point Conroy Road was planned to be part of a main artery from the south end up to Nicholas, but it hasn’t been built. Alas, this started the City piece-mealing road changes to try to ‘fix’ failing areas from the south. For example, the City is now ‘planning’ to widen a part of the Airport Parkway. Unfortunately, that will only dump more traffic down-stream, through the Glebe. If the Conroy Road/Alta Vista ‘Parkway’ had been built, then the Airport Parkway would not need widening since it would continue to only be a link to the airport.

The City needs to really think about traffic on a region-wide basis. An east-end bridge over to Gatineau from the Aviation Parkway would be a good start; same for one in the west end, connected to the 416/417 interchange. But, building big roads is unpopular, so instead, the City tries to throttle traffic on small streets without offering that traffic anywhere else to go. That just makes people mad.

Traffic will always be with us in the city. It is an essential component of the connectedness of a city. It needs to be properly dealt with. This City doesn’t.

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

How to deal with traffic seems to be somewhat of a puzzle that this City can’t seem to figure out. Cars don’t just disappear when a road is narrowed; they move to routes that have less obstacles. The corollary, of course, is that if the City widens a road, it soon becomes full of cars. But those cars don’t just materialize out of nothing any more than cars just disappear when a road is blocked. They are drivers choosing the path of least resistance.

There really needs to be a proper design of big roads and they need to actually be built. At one point Conroy Road was planned to be part of a main artery from the south end up to Nicholas, but it hasn’t been built. Alas, this started the City piece-mealing road changes to try to ‘fix’ failing areas from the south. For example, the City is now ‘planning’ to widen a part of the Airport Parkway. Unfortunately, that will only dump more traffic down-stream, through the Glebe. If the Conroy Road/Alta Vista ‘Parkway’ had been built, then the Airport Parkway would not need widening since it would continue to only be a link to the airport.

The City needs to really think about traffic on a region-wide basis. An east-end bridge over to Gatineau from the Aviation Parkway would be a good start; same for one in the west end, connected to the 416/417 interchange. But, building big roads is unpopular, so instead, the City tries to throttle traffic on small streets without offering that traffic anywhere else to go. That just makes people mad.

Traffic will always be with us in the city. It is an essential component of the connectedness of a city. It needs to be properly dealt with. This City doesn’t.

A voice of sanity.

This is a quality of life issue. If we find all kinds of ways to impede traffic, the quality of life for a large number of Ottawans is going to deteriorate.

This all seems to be about political correctness. Everybody should use transit or cycle or walk, but the Confederation Line is not going to address all our transportation needs. Far from it.

I get nervous when I hear all these proposals to narrow roads, first Main Street, next the John A MacDonald Parkway. But are we giving people an alternative?

As a child, I remember how we travelled to downtown Ottawa, when my father worked there and my mother shopped there. Those routes have all been blocked. We wonder why people don't shop in downtown Ottawa anymore?

[roger1818]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

How to deal with traffic seems to be somewhat of a puzzle that this City can’t seem to figure out. Cars don’t just disappear when a road is narrowed; they move to routes that have less obstacles.

Agreed.

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

The corollary, of course, is that if the City widens a road, it soon becomes full of cars. But those cars don’t just materialize out of nothing any more than cars just disappear when a road is blocked. They are drivers choosing the path of least resistance.

In the short term they won't appear out of no where, but in the long term it will make living along that route more desirable, so there will be more development (kind of a build it and they will come type thing). California is a perfect example of this where they kept building more and wider highways to ease congestion but only created more traffic and thus more congestion.

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

There really needs to be a proper design of big roads and they need to actually be built.

The city does have a plan. The problem is the counselors (who make the decisions) are influenced more by the lobbyists for developers and community groups than they are by the city planners and the actual plan. Knowing this, the planners only propose solutions that they think the counselors will actually approve rather than what is truly best.

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

An east-end bridge over to Gatineau from the Aviation Parkway would be a good start; same for one in the west end, connected to the 416/417 interchange. But, building big roads is unpopular, so instead, the City tries to throttle traffic on small streets without offering that traffic anywhere else to go.

There was a plan to build a new western bridge to link to Highway 50, but the the residents of Britannia raised such a stink about not wanting a highway through their neighborhood, that it got cancelled.

IMHO, before building new bridges, we need to get better utilization of our existing ones. All of them have traffic lights on at least one end of them, meaning cars are stopped on the bridge waiting for the light to turn green. The proposed truck tunnel will help, though I am not convinced it should be limited to trucks.

[lrt's friend]

I think we are going to find out that it is going cost a pile of money to build a tunnel under downtown for trucks, let alone a bigger tunnel for mixed traffic.

The bigger problem is that we have created an environment where it is impossible to build a new bridge across the Ottawa River in the future, no matter how spread out Ottawa and Gatineau become. Already, in the east end of the city, you have to go downtown before you can cross the river on a bridge.

On bridge design, I much rather have bridges with traffic lights on either end, otherwise they are freeway bridges. In my opinion, freeway bridges are much more objectionable to neighbourhoods than a bridge with slower traffic that can be built into the urban fabric of the area. A non-freeway bridge also encourages bicycle and pedestrian traffic.

[TransitZilla]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

How to deal with traffic seems to be somewhat of a puzzle that this City can’t seem to figure out. Cars don’t just disappear when a road is narrowed; they move to routes that have less obstacles. The corollary, of course, is that if the City widens a road, it soon becomes full of cars. But those cars don’t just materialize out of nothing any more than cars just disappear when a road is blocked. They are drivers choosing the path of least resistance.

There really needs to be a proper design of big roads and they need to actually be built. At one point Conroy Road was planned to be part of a main artery from the south end up to Nicholas, but it hasn’t been built. Alas, this started the City piece-mealing road changes to try to ‘fix’ failing areas from the south. For example, the City is now ‘planning’ to widen a part of the Airport Parkway. Unfortunately, that will only dump more traffic down-stream, through the Glebe. If the Conroy Road/Alta Vista ‘Parkway’ had been built, then the Airport Parkway would not need widening since it would continue to only be a link to the airport.

The City needs to really think about traffic on a region-wide basis. An east-end bridge over to Gatineau from the Aviation Parkway would be a good start; same for one in the west end, connected to the 416/417 interchange. But, building big roads is unpopular, so instead, the City tries to throttle traffic on small streets without offering that traffic anywhere else to go. That just makes people mad.

Traffic will always be with us in the city. It is an essential component of the connectedness of a city. It needs to be properly dealt with. This City doesn’t.

The purpose of traffic calming isn't to get rid of traffic, it's to try to influence driver behaviour so that traffic travels at reasonable speeds in residential areas.

I'm not sure what will be proposed in Councillor Nussbaum's ward, but we have some measures that will be implemented in Findlay Creek (see: http://www.findlaycreek.ca/2016/04/t...findlay-creek/)

What we're talking about is things like painting the speed limit on the road and installing flex posts along the centre line. These things are not onerous to traffic but have been shown to be effective at reducing the operating speeds of traffic.

[Aylmer]

Originally Posted by Richard Eade

How to deal with traffic seems to be somewhat of a puzzle that this City can’t seem to figure out. Cars don’t just disappear when a road is narrowed; they move to routes that have less obstacles. The corollary, of course, is that if the City widens a road, it soon becomes full of cars. But those cars don’t just materialize out of nothing any more than cars just disappear when a road is blocked. They are drivers choosing the path of least resistance.

Traffic will always be with us in the city. It is an essential component of the connectedness of a city. It needs to be properly dealt with. This City doesn’t.

Your logic is sound, but incomplete: it's not drivers who choose the path of least resistance - it's PEOPLE.
This is an important distinction, because when you think of it only as drivers, then there are only two choices: drive on road A or drive on road B.
When you consider that people exist outside of their cars, then there is a whole range of possibilities: drive on road A, take the bus on road B, take your bike on path C, walk on street D and even things like changing your destination or travel times or stay home. This is a much more accurate assessment of the real-world workings of mobility as opposed to the very theoretical (and rarely-materialized) traffic-management.

People will take not only the path of least resistance, but also the mode of least resistance. So when you open a new road, bus ridership is likely to go down (at least in the short-medium term) and, conversely, when you close a road, people will find other ways to get around. This isn't some kumbaya principle - it's a well-documented and oft-observed fundamental law of traffic. The "common-sens-o-logical" argument of absolute traffic volume, on the other hand, has never been observed outside of our collective imagination of gridlock apocalypse.

And in that sense, dealing with traffic is not an objective or scientific exercise - it's a public question as to how we want our city to look and work; by action or inaction, we decide which mode of transportation will be the path of least resistance. Beyond the minimum imperatives of emergency vehicle access or the most basic public transit, it is all up to us - there is no imperative one way or another.

So let's not sleepwalk into something we might not want. If we want an auto-focused city, then let's have that discussion and make that choice. But to just claim that prioritizing the car in every neighbourhood and for every trip is an inevitable fact of life is false and is proving less-than-ideal of everyone - drivers included.

[Ottawa Champ]

Originally Posted by bradnixon

The purpose of traffic calming isn't to get rid of traffic, it's to try to influence driver behaviour so that traffic travels at reasonable speeds in residential areas.

I'm not sure what will be proposed in Councillor Nussbaum's ward, but we have some measures that will be implemented in Findlay Creek (see: http://www.findlaycreek.ca/2016/04/t...findlay-creek/)

What we're talking about is things like painting the speed limit on the road and installing flex posts along the centre line. These things are not onerous to traffic but have been shown to be effective at reducing the operating speeds of traffic.

I agree with your definition of traffic calming. What I don't understand is why the city continues to build resedential streets that are too wide, making them condusive to speeding.


Findlay Creek Drive is a perfect example but far from the only one. Here is a street in a residential neighbourhood that is excessively wide for a resedential, two lane road that pass by at least three parks where presumably there are children playing. Even without the parks, it's still too wide.

As a new development, Findlay Creek should not be going through these traffic calming exercises. The city should have learned from their mistakes of the past and designed the streets within the neighbourhood in a way to achieve desired speed limits. Instead, the city spends extra building a wider road than required, then spends more on traffic calming band-aid solutions and continues to do so with nearly every new neighbourhood.

What I find ironic is the developers are advertising the wide resedential streets as a benefit! See here:http://www.findlaycreek.com/community.html

So we have the situation of residents complaining about driving speeds, the city acting on the complaints by implementing traffic calming measures, while the developers tout wide streets as a selling feature.

Residents speed complaints:
http://www.findlaycreek.ca/2015/08/r...n-white-alder/

edit: typo

[AndyZagg]

Sunnyside is an example of calming which seems to be effective. Adding some flower beds and landscaping while reducing the width of lanes makes the street more pleasant to walk on and it's slowed the cars considerably. Granted I don't spend that much time in this area, but I was impressed the last time I was there.

[lrt's friend]

I went to a community meeting when they were first planning Findlay Creek. I was dumbfounded by an activist who was advocating wider streets for safety reasons. In other words, keeping children on the sidewalk farther from the traffic. But of course, the wider the street, the faster the traffic moves. Just look how unrealistic a 50 km speed limit is on a 4 lane road. Even if posted, most traffic is moving significantly faster.