Showroom7561

I absolutely know what should be done, but it's extremely difficult to convince planners and decision makers to do it.

Hell, I was told by a city planner that the only way they could put painted lines on some bike routes was if they kept on-street parking (NIMBYs did not want safe roads).

So, now have bike routes with painted "bike lanes", but people just use it as a parking lane, making it more dangerous for cyclists... maddening, and unnecessarily frustrating.

And in other areas, we have bollards to slow down traffic, but guess what? Assholes park in a way that makes it dangerous for cyclists!

Like this guy:

Or this guy:

No, i am currently learning driving and that would confuse me so much

For clarity, the idea is that the sign would not turn on unless you were speeding. So there should be no confusion, and it would be no different from the current "YOUR SPEED IS" signs (except, that those are always on and tend to strobe when people go over the limit).

My thought is that someone might not be bothered by being told what speed they are going. After all, they SHOULD ALREADY KNOW! But if they are told what the consequences are for speeding in real time, perhaps it might deter some drivers or bring attention to those who are unaware?*

*Some are just assholes who will speed no matter what. And then run from the police when they are spotted. You can't really deter those drivers with a sign, or laws...

"Go fast enough to ignore traffic signs. CHECKMATE!" /s

I hear you. I'm just so frustrated by drivers ignoring those YOUR SPEED signs. Maybe a dose of "You're going fast enough to get a $400 ticket!" might just get their attention. But probably not... 😫

I’d rather they just put some resources towards fucking enforcement.

Story of my life. Believe me, I'd rather they just enforce the rules, but after having witnessed too many drivers ignore those "YOUR SPEED" signs, I wonder if taking a different approach would work.

I'd personally want to have automated speed enforcement and actual traffic-calming measures, but there must be something low cost that drivers would be responsive to.

Just looked up some “penalties” in Canada for murdering people with your car.

If you use a car to drive aggressively and cause death, you only get a maximum of 2 years in jail. That's it. Take a life for maybe up to 2 years in jail.

It's not taken seriously at all.

The HWY7 stretch in Vaughan would be amazing if they cleaned those lanes. It's SO fast to go from one end to the other (except those super long intersection wait times). When there's car traffic, you're flying by hundreds of cars at a time, though. LOL

Steeles... that's a sketchy one. No better alternatives, unfortunately.

Reduce mail to 3 days a week.

TBH, if it avoids privatization and saves money, I'd be happy getting mail even once a week. Nothing we get by mail is so urgent that a few extra days will destroy lives.

In cases where something is needed urgently, there's courier, express mail, etc. as premium options. Regular "snail mail" isn't meant to be fast.

Explain.

Do police, ambulance, and fire need 4 lane stroads packed with gridlock, or 18 lane highways filled with traffic congestion to function properly?

We can have a working road system for emergency services, transport, and public transportation without the burden of car dependency.

GTA... Steeles Ave. at Markham/Scarborough, and HWY 7 in Vaughan. Thankfully, I'm only on those routes a few times a year. If I had to commute by bike in that, I'd take a car.

Kind of maddening that people who can't even afford to own a car have to pay for other people's car dependency, only to be yelled at for "not sharing the road" when they've got to get to work or school by bike.

The objections are kind of infuriating to listen to:

“They’re necessary, however, it doesn’t hurt to review what goes on with bike lanes and the money that is spent on them,” Hatcher says. “The reason why I say that is if you look downtown, for instance on Rainnie Drive, if you ever had to evacuate the city for a short term or an event downtown or what we do, it wouldn’t hurt to look at the traffic congestion.

Sigh. In an emergency evacuation or event, car traffic is what would be the most problematic.

“I don’t see that many people riding them. These thousand a day, I don’t know where they’re at. Not anywhere I see,” says De Angelis, who believes they pose a safety concern.

First, unless this person is watching all the bike lanes 24/7, of course she wouldn't "see them". And if connected cycling infrastructure isn't already there, then you won't see as many cyclists as you would.

“They make me nervous because people are wiggling back and forth, you don’t know whether to slow down, speed up or whatever.”

Exactly why cyclists need to be separated from “nervous” drivers. We can't safely share space if you're nervous, and we need room to negotiate around manhole grates, road debris, potholes, and parked cars.

“A lot of people ride bikes but there are more people driving and why didn’t they put them on the side streets instead of the main streets where there isn’t as much traffic?” says Adams. “There is enough traffic on the main roads already without putting more on the main roads.”

A) traffic comes from cars, not cyclists. You can fit 100 cyclists in the same space you can fit 10 cars, and you'll never have "traffic congestion" moving 100 or even 1000 cyclists.

B) Accessible, safe infrastructure needs to be places that lead to destinations, not away from them. If main streets are a direct link to a destination, then it should be for active transportation, public transportation, and pedestrians. Motorists should only use their car to drive long distances, then the last mile should be using any other method available.

C) The argument that there are more car drivers than cyclists is lame. You can induce demand for forms of transportation outside of car driving, simply by building the infrastructure. The fact that there may be more drivers than cyclists at any given time is more of a symptom of a car dependency and a lack of safe, connected active transportation infrastructure.

but you can make it as annoying as possible.

This is the way! It's a shame that we have to also inconvenience ourselves because of some degenerate thieves, but prevention is way better than dealing with the aftermath of theft.