From My Bottom Step

Reducing Vehicle Speed Limits

London’s pedestrians may have a hard time believing this, but there’s a place in this province where pedestrian safety is actually given some consideration within the rarified atmosphere of a City Hall.

Just down the road a bit, Councillor Bill Saundercook received support from the 2009/09/22 meeting of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee for a report back from that city’s Transportation Services GM about “the feasibility of reducing the vehicular speed limit by 10 km/h on all Toronto roads” except for the ones which pedestrians and cyclists are not allowed to use (presumably, those defined as “highways” under the HTA).

E-Bikes

At that same meeting, a motion passed asking that Toronto’s City Solicitor prepare a report about the possibility of prohibiting the parking of power-assisted bicycles (e-bikes) on city sidewalks.

I haven’t seen many e-bikes here in London yet. But I’ve had to jump out of the way of a few maniac mobility scooter drivers. What would do more damage, I wonder? Getting run into by one of those, or by one of London’s maniac sidewalk bicyclists?

CSCP Hypocrisy

Item #9 in the 8^th report of the Community Safety and Crime Prevention Advisory Committee is titled “Pedestrian Safety” says that CSCP would like to provide the Division Manager of Transportation Planning and Design (that’d be John Lucas) input into the safety aspects of the “warrants and standards for pedestrians” material that’s being considered “in the creation of Book 15 of the Ontario Traffic Manual.”

I guess those would be the same warrants that David Leckie keeps mentioning to justify denying my requests for improvements to dangerous intersections (like Commissioners/King Edward).

But don’t let this inquiry fool you into thinking that CSCPAC is concerned about pedestrian safety. Remember when I tried to get the advisory committee to explore the legal right of pedestrians to cross at intersections and was told that they weren’t interested in such things?