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Jason Thorne

A new “continuous sidewalk” in . The design differs from regular sidewalks in that it doesn’t dip down to road level at intersections. It continues at an uninterrupted height. This slows cars turning onto the street + reinforces pedestrian priority through the intersections. Same at the driveways, so you don’t get the up-down “roller coaster effect” when you’re , or using a wheelchair.

@JasonThorne
Wait, you get nice things in Kitchener? Who approved this? You're supposed to be car dependent sprawl, not making us in Toronto look bad!

@triddles @JasonThorne Don't worry. I was there in the winter. It's still mostly a car dependent sprawl that doesn't make Toronto look bad.
(Also, super weird to see this story about Kitchener because it was retooted by fellow Japan-based nerd @rdviii who has no idea I was born there.)

@stagerabbit @JasonThorne @rdviii
I'll always celebrate the good and mourn the bad, even if I joke about jealousy. Even if they've only done this in a single place it's still a bit of good planning I didn't expect to see in Ontario yet, and they can roll it out to the rest of the city next.
Hopefully people from other cities go look and try and realize yes, this is better.

@triddles Oh indeed, I hope this means that they've turned a corner and that Kitchener City Planning is no longer an oxymoron. (I might be bitter because they tried to put the Fairway road bridge right down the middle of my family's farm. ) @JasonThorne

@JasonThorne this is pretty sweet but theres literally nothing stopping cars from using it, also if its paved then the roots of trees can be cut and then the pavers can go back down....?

@JasonThorne For sidewalks doubling as speed bumps, they should probably have more marked colors in the border between the sidewalk and the street. I can see more than a vehicle going over them full-speed anyways.

@csolisr @JasonThorne they have the speed bump/table marking, arrows, for the cars and it's a stopped condition for perpendicular traffic. I can't figure the right turn situation, but it is probably a small street with signage on the main road.

@csolisr @JasonThorne The crossing street don't have right-of-way, so they'll still have to stop. Now it's just more clearly marked - and the pedestrians get to cross first. It actually makes a huge difference for walking and biking.

@csolisr @JasonThorne maybe that's on purpose?

After getting launched a few times, lead foot drivers will become conditioned to fear any sidewalk crossing, pay attention and slow down? 😉

@JasonThorne I love this as a walker, as a cyclist, and even as a driver. There are a few raised mid-block crosswalks in Philadelphia, mostly on college campuses, and they're much better than the short speed bumps at slowing traffic without causing back pain or teeth clacking.

@JasonThorne City of Kitchener has been excelling at rolling at new infrastructure the last few years. While there are certainly challenges, councillors and staff are committed to building better. And this new continuous sidewalk and cycle path are as lovely to ride on as the photos suggest!

@JasonThorne

This seems similar to the approach in Switzerland: here such raised sidewalks crossing an intersection also affect right of way on the intersection (vehicles from the road that crosses the sidewalk must yield to everyone else as if they were entering traffic from a stop), which (IMO, I don't have real evidence) reinforces the expectation that they pay more attention.

@JasonThorne appreciate that they still have "sidewalk Braille" so that you do get an indicator that you're at an intersection on the sidewalk part.

@geonz Yes, that’s an important feature.

@JasonThorne
And FYI its called tactile paving: wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ke paving (always mappable with @streetcomplete, which I can recommend).
@geonz

@JasonThorne There are some driveway rollercoasters in the first pic, right?
Eliminating those often significantly improves any region.

@richlv I didn’t notice any roller coasters when I walked it. I think the darkness of the tire tracks across the new sidewalk might be creating a bit of an optical illusion (or I’m just a bad photographer!).

@JasonThorne Oh, very interesting - I'm looking at this part, the edge between the cycleway/footway. That couldn't be affected by tyre marks, so it seems.

Could it be that the rollercoasters are less severe, more noticeable on a bicycle?

@JasonThorne Is this a Capcha? Find the Sidewalk? I hate Capcha’s!

@JasonThorne At an intersection where two roads cross, is the whole intersection raised to sidewalk level, or does it drop back down? Raising the whole intersection would make four-way stops and a pedestrian scramble (criss-cross) easier on everybody, but there has to be real enforcement against right turns on red. There would be greated risk of cars taking the corners too tight without curbs. #FremontCalifornia has been doing many safety improvements for cyclers and pedestrians, some of which all ill-advised, I think. At many intersections the right turn lanes have been removed, with the sidewalks bumped out to include the former safety islands. This slows trafic and shortens the crosswalk.

@JasonThorne love this! Such a simple design change, but the impact is huge

@JasonThorne Getting rid of driveway cuts across the sidewalks requires park strips (or “boulevards”) so there’s room for a ramp first. Many California subdivisions with homes on small lots, detached or not, gave up that amenity to crowd in more houses. In some locations, space for a ramp can be created with a bumpout on both sides of the driveway. This will cost a few parking spaces on the street, which is okay, but it also interferes with street sweeping and garbage collection.

@skip_lacaze @JasonThorne depending on the required height of curb you can get away with mountable curb sometimes. I figure about 4" and then get 2 in past sidewalk you still have 6 in of water block. We use mountable just to avoid curb cuts as a cost saving item.

@JasonThorne 1st thought "What a great idea."

2nd thought "There's no way this is happening in USA"

@JasonThorne what does it look like at an intersection?

@hayawi @JasonThorne I imagine they just have a conventional intersection with traffic lights and pedestrian crossings. Makes sense there because it's a road crossing another road (where cars have priority), rather than a road crossing a footpath in front of housing (where active transport has priority).

@JasonThorne
Important to note, it still has tactile pavings! That's great!

@JasonThorne not familiar w the neighborhood, is that Highland Rd?

@JasonThorne this isn't just more accessible, it's also aesthetically beautiful!

@JasonThorne Excellent! I was wishing for this in January when we had an ice storm in Oregon, and every curb ramp was treacherous!

@JasonThorne
Such an obvious thing to do. Excellent, calming traffic and putting the priority back on pedestrian access.

@JasonThorne Has this been shown to get cars to stop for pedestrians? I can imagine how it could do that, but at the same time, the drivers where I live have been getting to the point where they turn left into a red light. So I'm not sure how much it would deter them!

@JasonThorne Great job.
Now there is room for living and not just drive-through.

Cities are for people, not cars.

@JasonThorne Ah! A very Dutch 🇳🇱 idea. Second the previous poster: Cities are for PEOPLE, niet voor auto's.

@JasonThorne Respectfully I think it's a terrible idea made for auto repair shops.

@JasonThorne @mhoye I saw an absurd example of the opposite of this in April. The street view photo doesn’t do it justice. It’s a stretch of maybe a quarter mile that roller coasters every ~15 feet.

@JasonThorne
How do they handle changing direction? Seems like that's when pedestrians and cyclists have the biggest problems.

👀 @SheDrivesMobility
This is a really good idea, how to build a minor intersection.

@JasonThorne

@JasonThorne
Think #design courses in higher #institutions need to be reset though-so many poor design choices across the world from residential to academical to medical to hotels to business places.
Eg, in modern houses with large-spaced sitting rooms, bedrooms & kitchens, ther ar stil small spaces, tall people cant move abt freely like tiny bathrooms or tiny toilets, some, even kitchens, u cant move or cook freely its so frustrating.
#design #construction #building #architecture #convenience

@SheDrivesMobility Warum kommt bei uns niemand auf so eine simple Idee? (see original post above)

@JasonThorne Sidewalks are like the strip of grass and ramps in my town, except without the grass. For most driveways, the sidewalk is angled towards the street. Then there’s also streets on small hills, making it double angled. I recently injured my foot making walking on uneven paths painful. I hate it so much.

@JasonThorne @ShaulaEvans This looks a lot like the "shared space" concept but what has been done to ensure blind people know they are leaving the footpath and going into the road? Are the textures of the two surfaces very different?

@indigojo @JasonThorne @ShaulaEvans The tactile paving is still there to do that. In Europe these are usually also used to create an ‘implicit zebra’ where cars should give way to people using the footpath and bike lane

@JasonThorne Wait? This is not common? in NL this is always done when the people crossing have right of way.

@JasonThorne I spent a few days in Kitchener recently. I was pleasantly surprised. It was about as good as things get in North America.
There’s even a tram! (And some cycle ways, actual cycle lanes, sort-of-kind-of pedestrianised streets too.)

@JasonThorne
Damn you Canadians and your good ideas. How very dare you sir!!! /s

This is an amazing urban planning idea. Thank you for sharing.😃

@JasonThorne Are there local blind self-advocacy groups involved in the design of this? IIRC (although I donmt have a cite for this), one of the intentional design-features of the bumps on most currently-traditional street-corner curb-cuts was, in addition to providing friction for wheelchair users, to also provide tactile legibility to blind cane-users.

I notice there are still those bumps in some of those pictures, but not in others?

(I can't give many thoughts about what good tactile legibility might be, I can just notice its absence. I'm not functionally reliant on that evironmental feature for access.)

EDIT: unless the second two pictures are driveways?

@JasonThorne
YES!
Glad to know of another one in Canada. There is also one on Metral Drive in Nanaimo, BC.

Transformative. Psychologically brings car drivers up into the space of people on foot and on bike. Subtle, but I think matters.

Here is a video of riding the Nanaimo one:

youtu.be/ZpfTHLfgzLA?si=TO1ea-

@JasonThorne I’m still waiting for safe cycling routes in my neighbourhood. Right now, I feel ok about biking to Waterloo, but I don’t know of any safe way to ride my bike to and through downtown Kitchener. The drivers here HATE cyclists. I’ve been assaulted and threatened by drivers many times. Even had witnesses say they’d speak up for me in court, but the cops don’t give a shit and ignored all my reports.

@Shanmonster @JasonThorne FWIW, Shantell, have you tried @CyclingGuide? It really does provide the best available low-stress routes. And we do respond to all the feedback we receive. Plus, it’s designed, built, and maintained right here in Waterloo. 😀🚴‍♂️

@uxmark @JasonThorne @CyclingGuide I haven’t tried it in a while, but I haven’t gone anywhere in a while, either.

@Shanmonster @JasonThorne @CyclingGuide If you do try it again, please let me know what you think. We do take all feedback seriously!