I am writing again about the poor planning and bad drivers regarding the intersection at Lynn Valley Road and Mountain Highway. Pedestrians seem to have been left out of the equation of safety.
Again, yesterday, I stepped into the intersection when the WALK sign was visible. In front of me a driver, turning right on a red light failed to even look to the right for pedestrians. I don't know what the solution is other than to put up a sign that says "No right turns on red."
Monday, January 18, 2010
Pedestrian safety
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40 opinions/comments:
Councillor Robin Hicks' daughter had a letter published in the North Shore News regarding the idiocy of this intersection.
Perhaps something should be done to prevent a possible disaster.
What specifically would you suggest and what direction were you going at the time?
I've had an accident at this specific intersection (heading westbound on LV Road turning onto Mountain Highway) which was purely my own fault in misjudging how fast the oncoming car was coming. But that was my own fault - it was not an issue of traffic engineering or anything else.
Do you think your incident was chiefly due to human error? (Sounds like it to me) I don't think DNV can reasonably be held to blame for someone running a red light.
I've talked to Kevin Volk the former head of traffic and had changes made to turn lanes as a result - I've heard his successor Erica Geddes is at least as approachable as Kevin.
My solution is to prevent right-turns on a red light.
Make eye contact with the driver before you step off the sidewalk. Regardless of what the lights are doing and what the law says, it is in your best interest to make sure the driver sees you before you step off the curb. The law says the car is supposed to stop for you, but to assume it is going to could be hazardous to your health. There's nothing wrong with the way the intersection is designed. The only problems are a result of the people negotiating it. It's not just automobile drivers who do stupid things at intersections, pedestrians can be just as bad.
Okay, drag Hick's kids into this. But seriously is there really any traffic in Lynn Valley?
That intersection might need some work but please don't blame the high traffic counts because if you live anywhere near Mountain Highway and Lynn Valley Road you know that that simply isn't the case.
Wendy, if it really bothers you that much why not stop by the Irly Building centre, pick up a large framing hammer, and just smash out the headlights of any car that cuts you off?
That should stop 'em.
(woo woo! I got a Letter to the Editor in the NSN yesterday! I'm so proud!)
Stop repeating yourself over and over ...
Oh cry me a river, try using any crosswalk in lower lonsdale
Yep, good ol' Impark, ya gotta love'm. Gougers all the way to the bank. Always have been, always will be. Good letter Barry.
P.S. Just to solidify their guilt I predict the price to come down to $8 after the the 3 ring, 3 week circus.
Making eye contact with drivers as a pedestrian is always good advice and common sense. I do this as a cyclist as well. It doesn't matter what the Law is, if you get hit by a car the car usually wins.
I have no issue with making any intersection safer. I would rather see pedestrians/people safe. A 'no right turn on a red' at the intersection in question, I would support.
Wow!Parking meters quashed by the entire North vancouver city council...just as Bill Bell predicted in his ringside column!
cut the communications office, put off replacing perfectly good vehicles with new ones, cancel conferences for a year, stall staff replacement for a six month period, layoff one parking enforcment officer, stop replacement of computers unless they are broken, half the advertising budget, ect ect....it just takes guts and determination and you won't have to raise taxes or cut essential services, but you know that city Staff person
At least we don't have cell phones glued to the drivers' ears anymore, do we?
In fairness, traffic safety as a pedestrian is the same whether you're in Hong Kong or North Vancouver. (Been there done both)
LV Road & Mountain Highway is bad enough but there are plenty more intersections as bad or worse.
(It's not just cars - crossing the street downtown when Critical Mass has taken over is no fun at all!)
ICBC has a rule that they talk to the municipality when an intersection has 25 or more accidents in a 5 year period - that's how 15th & Pemberton got a pedestrian controlled light. Both 14th & Pemberton and 15th & Pemberton had had 25+ accidents and it was understood that "something had to be done".
(It was clear both were not going to get lights and 15th was the official bike route so...)
Now only if we could get some Mounties with radar guns at 4-5 pm to catch the idiots who race north to Marine Drive and do U-turns in the middle of the intersections!
Hey ...you the expert...I don't know the city budget enough to cut but as Bell stated 30 plus years of no cuts is unheard of in commercial budgets...it must leave a lot of at in municpal budgets that can be cut.
In fairness to Wendy's post perhaps someone who has posting priveliges could post the question...what can be cut from Municipal budgets without causing major harm to the community?
Well bro if you want to rap yo got get down with Mussatto and walton...they can rap with brothers like no other....
Well bro if you want to rap yo got get down with Mussatto and walton...they can rap with brothers like no other....
Well bro if you want to rap yo got get down with Mussatto and walton...they can rap with brothers like no other....
Bell never advocated to cut staff wages...he just said that there was tremendous waste in the system because there was never a poltician (he didn't even exclude himself) who asked the right questions on what could be cut....a blogger above asked some those questions...maybe we need a boston tea party right her North vancouver?
As an elected member of the board of directors of the North Shore Safety Council, I will pursue this issue at Lynn Valley Road and Mountain Highway.
It is all about safety...not just children's safety.
The CNV is having a 2 point something increase in municipal taxes. I believe the DNV will be over 5....
Barry Rueger:
Nice stuff: You got a letter published. Doesn't it feel great that editors decide that your comments are worth publishing?
Kudos.
Wendy
Anon 7:09
You are naive
Why do municipal governments never lay off during economic downturns?
Anon 11:05
You will never find ways to not raise taxes with the status quo. If the organization lacks accountability, cannot be compared or measured then how would you identify the organizations strengths and weaknesses and how to improve?
"elected member of the board of directors of the North Shore Safety Council" sounds impressive but what does Elmer the Safety Elephant have to do with pedestrian safety?
Anon 7:09
I did a “try it at home” like you said. I had a budget of $5000.00 for a new notebook. I went and purchased one that could do everything I needed for $1400.00 a savings of $3600.00. Pretty good huh? Wonder why the city can’t practise the same restraints when purchasing notebooks for the city manager? Wait it’s not their money it’s the tax payers. No need to be fiscally responsible.
Anon 7:08. You "had a budget of $5000" for your home laptop as an analogy to the city's budget. Would that be the "Rock Extreme SL8", the world's fastest laptop costing just under $5000?
As equipment acquisitions only take place every few years, then you will have budgeted the $5000 for this year over the last few years.
This equipment is above and beyond your normal annual revenues and expenses as they must equal zero each year to replicate the city.
Therefore, you will have had to not undertake something that you usually do or you will have had to acquire extra funding to meet your extraordinary expense this year.
Did you accomplish it by cuts in your normal expenses, working overtime or a combination?
Well done on minimizing your expenses to meet your needs you've set a good example.
Anon 7:38
We did it by cutting normal expenses and by taking on more responsibility. We use to have maids come in and clean the house but we decided to get off our butts and take on these chores. $200.00/month saved. Instead of having Peter’s Pool Service come in and clean/maintain the pool we now have taken on this responsibility. Another $125.00/month saved. We only text and talk on our cell phones so we cancelled the data plan. Although being able to surf the web using our cell phones is a nice convenience we felt it wasn’t really needed so saved an additional $25.00/month. Finally instead of buying groceries at Whole Foods we found that prices are much more reasonable at Price Smart and have now reduced our grocery bill by an average of 30%.
Yes we had to make sacrifices and learn how to be productive, creative and look for savings but it is certainly possible. I expect we will have saved enough in a few years to take a trip overseas and find a sister family perhaps in Japan or China. We see a great economic benefit in this....
Here's the link to the website where you can apparently watch live video during the torch relay...hope it works on Friday!
http://www.ctvolympics.ca/torch/index.html
Thanks 9:54. You've described achieving your purchase through a combination of service cuts and internal cost reductions without requiring additional income (taxes at the city).
The city's annual operating and capital budgets are published each year. You should review them and highlight suspect expenditures. You can contact the staff of the identified department and ask them why it is necessary. While sitting by the pool, compile a list and give it to your favourite councillors to ask the hard questions of staff. If you find a really wild one tell the papers.
Vocal members of the public will make life miserable for council if you propose service cuts so I suggest that you focus on internal excesses. My bet is that they have been cut to shreds over the last decade and you won't come up with anything that even scratches the surface of the $1million in revenue that would have come from parking meters.
That will come from a composite of little internal and service cuts and raises in licenses, permits, fines and taxes. You be the judge of the composition.
Good luck - I'll be watching for your results.
Actually the powers that be at District assume people are generally contented on municipal tax matters since few people turn up for the budgetary meetings. Last time round ONE person spoke on the financial plan!
(I would have been a second but I serve on an advisory committee and was presenting to Council that night on a different matter - this isn't excuses, I've spoken at this meeting each of the past 4 years before and NONE of them were well attended. I even told DNV Director of Finance Nicole Deveaux in front of the mayor that the best way to get a good turnout to the next meeting was for the first budget draft to have a recommended 20% tax increase!)
As for your comment about every possible cut having a special interest group to protest it, if we're going to reach financial sustainability that requires a degree of fiscal discipline I don't believe Council has a political will for. This was demonstrated in spades last September by the way Council backed down on its July decision to axe a tax exemption for a certain group after that group's political campaign in response. Their campaign wasn't based on how well they did or did not meet Council's criteria for an exemption but purely on politics.
That may be good at election time but it's a lousy way to balance a budget!
I agree with each of Lyle's comments today (not always the case).
The points on this thread about politicians unwilling to make budget cuts by standing up to the special interest groups out there and the general lack of budget concern by the majority as they don't attend budget meetings.
I also agree with the point on another thread about the unbridled soaring taxation collected by local gov't on behalf of unelected bodies.
True in each case.
"elected member of the board of directors of the North Shore Safety Council"
I believe the election results were:
QURESHI, Wendy 2
ABSTAIN 3
(Write-in) None of the above 3
(Write-in) Elmer the Elephant 1
(Write-in) Safety Sucks 1
(Write-in) George Pringle 1
(Write-in) Richard the Troll 1
The problem is not so much that MV and TL don't run a tight ship (though I asked this question of Johnny Carline the last time he came to North Vancouver for a public meeting and he insisted they did) but rather the lack of accountability.
Given the current governance of both how COULD they be accountable? Frankly I'm more worried about Translink than MV since MV is about utilities (waste and water mostly) while Translink has an amazing ability to spend money and is subject to the endless tug-o-war between Vancouver and the 'burbs.
For instance can somebody tell me why TL is spending money analysing extending Skytrain to UBC when the Evergreen line was identified as #1 priority prior to the feds ponying up money for the Canada line thus causing #1 not to be so #1?
If Translink had the money (and they've demonstrated both the "need" and the desire to spend whatever budget we can be coerced into paying for) wouldn't the shovel be in the ground already for the Evergreen Line?
So please tell me why public dollars are being spent to pursue a secondary line when the dollars aren't there to build the priority line?
Anon 6:09
You forgot two major players: Anon 6:09 Major idiot;
and Elmer: He doesn't know me yet and he will get to know me far more for my talk about safety than you will ever understand.
I certainly hope you don't have children.
Lyle,
Only TL could reply to your question and even then the response would likely be incomprehensible.
It has taken until this year for TL to even approve installation of turnstiles like every other modern system in the world so I wouldn't expect too much in the way of understandable decision making.
Speaking personally I knew Translink was in trouble when I asked Kevin Volk (former DNV chief traffic engineer) "Kevin, suppose I came up with a plan for a new bus route so overwhelmingly brilliant that everyone who heard about it was convinced it needed to be adopted right away. How long would it take for such a route to become a reality?" and his reply was "six to eight months"
That tells you how hidebound the current system is though my main concern about Translink is lack of financial accountability.
I hope it goes without saying that public service is a big part of what Translink's about and that it's recognized that needs change both throughout the day and over the longer term as time goes on.
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