By Staff
June 25th, 2017
BURLINGTON, ON
Burlington just loves being on lists where the city is named the best of this or the best of that.
Canadian Automobile Association recognizes a Burlington street.
An observant ready recently came across a mention the city got from the CAA – the Canadian Automobile Association.
Another public mention for Burlington – joins our being the BEST small Canadian city to live in
We are number 3 on the CAA’s 2017 Worst Roads list.
The CAA has New Street as the recipient of that distinguished mention.
If you drive that road today there is a nice new layer of asphalt with bright white lane markings. A worst designation can’t be about the quality of the surface – must be about the lane markings or the reconfiguration of the traffic lanes.
White blotches of paint show where the bike lane lines are to be located.
New Street will have one lane in each direction, a turning lane between the two traffic lanes and a bicycle lane on either side of the road.
The bike lanes are the issue. City hall just hasn’t been able to get a grip on a problem that is perhaps not clearly understood.
The city’s transportation department is trying to deliver on a city council objective – do a pilot study and see what happens when the traffic lane configuration is changed and bike lanes are added to each side of the road.
The cycling community wants bike lanes, which they argue, will be heavily used once there is a network of bike lanes that allow a person to actually get somewhere.
The car drivers want their traffic lanes back – something about a God given right Burlingtonians have to roads to drive their cars on.
Those who like driving a bike and would use it as a mode of transportation providing there are barriers that protect the cyclists from the cars or the buses and trucks.
New Street has become a thorn in the side of the Mayor – he seems to be the lightning rod for the issue.
Poor man gets button-holed by voters when he is at the Y exercising – they want him to do something about the road.
In the world of politics skill at managing issues is vital – and having departments that can put together plans to manage the way an initiative is rolled out is critical. Both communications and transportation get a thumbs down on this one. One wonders where the communications people in the Mayor’s office are on this one.
Everyone seems to be adrift.
The pilot study that was supposed to start last fall got derailed. It is set to begin in the very near future. Let’s see what the data looks like when it becomes available.
Can’t wait for those eager citizens to claim that the data was rigged to give the city the results it wants.
There is some doubt that the people at city hall really know what they want – on this project at least.
City has outdone itself with road markings on newly paved New St west of Guelph line. The way it is marked east bound cyclist can use the full lane (4 or 5 abreast), however west bound only have marked cycle lane.
Nowhere in my many years and thousands of miles spend driving throughout North America have I ever seen such inconsistent markings.
Incompetency has even hit the Engineers now.
I wondered about that also, very odd.
On a recent vist to Burlie I was THE ONLY motorist driving at 40kph in the FLASHING 40 zones on New Street. One nice lady honked & flashed her lights at me until she could pass. Good to see some things never change in Burlie.
New Street from Walkers to Appleby: the water main work took years to complete, has been completed for 2 or 3 years now with no resurfacing in site. This section is a suspension killer. Also check out the Appleby/New St. intersection…….brutal. According to the Region this stretch is scheduled to be resurfaced in the future????????
I live downtown and really have been trying to make an effort to walk to local stores and leave the V8 in the driveway. Saying good morning to other walkers, sometimes passing the time of day, looking in store windows.
RUINED! by inconsiderate cyclists riding on the sidewalks, they complain how they are treated by motorists on the road, but they are the worst offenders. I am back to the V8 for errands, even the ones just round the corner. Local business has just lost a browser and a customer.
I have also given up walking the Spencer Smith promenade (same reasons) I walk the down town residential streets its safer. This is not just a Burlington problem. A quick search on Google reveals they are causing problems in other countries.
“Poor man gets button-holed by voters when he is at the Y exercising – they want him to do something about the road”. I hope this was a “tongue in cheek” comment and not a serious expression of sympathy.
Before we queue the violins and the four-string quartet let’s keep one thing clearly in mind: this fiasco is entirely of Rick Goldring’s making. Well in advance of the decision by Council there was clear and obvious opposition to the New Street Road Diet proposal. The Mayor and Council were clearly told by citizens in multiple e-mails, phone calls and communications that this was a bad idea, and that taxpayers wanted no part of it. There are nearly 2,500 names on the petition opposing the Road Diet. How much more graphic illustration of public opposition can you get?
The Mayor was told it was a bad idea for several reasons: 1) it would create additional gridlock and traffic congestion; 2) it would add to commuting time; 3) it was a waste of money; 4) there was an insufficient number of cyclists who would use it; 5) there was a viable cycling route (i.e. the Hydro right-of-way) already in place a short distance away that could be used. Instead, the Mayor chose to listen to a group of diehard advocates on the Cycling Committee and blatantly thumbed his nose at the public thinking opposition would subside. It didn’t. The outpouring of public animosity and disgust with this decision is a prelude to what the Mayor can expect in the next municipal election.
If the Mayor and Council want to do something to redeem their credibility they can, as writer Steve has suggested, do something about the traffic gridlock in this City. Rick Goldring promised when he ran for Councillor in Ward 5 in 2006 that he would address this problem. Eleven years on residents are still waiting. In the meantime, since the Mayor and Council only seem capable of addressing the needs of special interest groups maybe we should disband the Cycling Committee in favour of one dealing with Commuters.
Steve
The plan is to make sure roadways are so jammed with bourgeois cars, that you leave your car at home and take the bus, or bicycle. That’s the gist of it anyhow.
There has been enough data. The pilot is a failure. But we all know that despite this, the bike lanes are here to stay now the lanes have been newly painted. At least for now. The whole thing is ridiculous. A small vocal part of the community lobbies city hall. Our politicians think this is a great idea. Less lanes is less roadway to maintain and we can sell it as being good for our health etc etc. We have bike lanes enough for the few that use them. Getting around Burlington is getting slower every day, even without restricting lanes. Is it our God given right to have roads to drive on? No, actually it is economically a necessity. But it is my God given right to vote these morons out of office.