Margin Notes: Travel, Fountain, United, Flags

The International Fountain at the Seattle Center puts on impressive shows, though in this 27-December-2010 view it was far from its peak 120-foot height

TORONTO, ONTARIO - As a final follow-up on my recent visit to the Seattle Center, the most interesting scene at the Seattle, Washington tourist attraction is likely the International Fountain. This isn't the fountain I remember from my youth, but a 1995 installation by WET Design that shoots water up to 120 feet in the air in patterns coordinated with music. It may not be the Bellagio in Las Vegas (also a WET installation), but it's worth seeing if you're at the Center--and it even keeps performing in the rain.

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While rain may be the defining characteristic of the Puget Sound region, militant secularism is another. Thus, perhaps it is not surprising that I think I heard "Merry Christmas" or even "Happy Holidays" uttered less often in public that in any time in my lifetime. People were definitely shopping, celebrating, and giving to the Salvation Army, but they weren't greeting each other much when I was around.

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The holiday spirit did not seem to be missing at Customs and Immigration. Both entering the United States and returning to Canada were far more straight-forward than usual in the past few years--some of the basic questions weren't even asked, and the US agent was even polite for the first time in recent memory.

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A United 777 in the new paint scheme prepared to depart Denver, Colorado for Zurich, Switzerland on 22-December-2010

While I also have no complaints about United Airlines for the first time in recent memory (I still had frequent flier miles to use), I encountered a United plane in the post-Continental merger paint scheme for the first time. Frankly, I thought the 777, bound from Denver to Zurich, looked terrible. When the same paint scheme was used by Continental, at least the airline name was in a serif, sophisticated font. The sans serif, all-caps font used by United with the colors looks terrible to me.

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As a final transportation note that I keep neglecting to make on each trip to the Pacific Northwest, the city of Kirkland, Washington deserves credit for the pedestrian flags it places at crosswalks. A holder on each side of the street is filled with flags that pedestrians can use to signal that they want to cross the street and stop traffic. It seems to work quite well--though I still think that Toronto's directions to simply point at the other side of the street seems to accomplish the same thing without all the infrastructure used by Kirkland.

Transport: Pedestrian Infrastructure

Dylan Reid of Spacing Magazine pointed out the grooves designed to help the sight impaired find the crosswalks at King and Bathurst in Toronto, Ontario on 1-May-2010

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Arguably, there are some Jane's walks that should almost be mandatory introductions before taking any of the other walks. One is to go through the neighbourhood where Jane Jacobs chose to settle in Toronto, the Annex, including her home and a running commentary comparing her writings to features of the neighbourhood. The next is to walk the proposed route of the Spadina Expressway, which Jacobs famously led the effort to stop. This year, I think a third walk qualifies as a needed introduction--the King West pedestrian infrastructure walk led by Dylan Reid.


A rare functional and complete example of the infamous privately-owned garbage bins was found on King Street West in Toronto, Ontario on 1-May-2010

Reid, a senior editor at Spacing magazine, has served as co-chair of the Toronto Pedestrian Committee and thus has gained quite a bit of insight into how the city addresses pedestrians. Some on the walk were highly critical of the city, pointing out that only pedestrians have to put up with privatized infrastructure, citing the often non-functional garbage receptacles and poorly designed transit shelters that are supplied by a private contractor that gets to put advertising on them. Yet, in some ways, that is the least of the issues pedestrians face in the city.


An example of a nice 2.1 metre-wide "clearway" was found on King Street West in Toronto, Ontario on 1-May-2010

One of the plethora of tidbits that came up over the course of the walk was that pedestrian spaces are supposed to be at least 2.1 metres wide. However, there are many examples of shelters, restaurant patios, planters, and other obstacles that cause the sidewalk to be much narrower. Furthermore, at locations such as jogs in streets and at the edge of parks, the city has generally done a poor job of designing "desire paths," or the shortest routes to where pedestrians will want to go, leading to unofficial routes across grass or private property, leading to not just livability concerns but safety concerns.


A "desire path" was noted for pedestrians to walk across the grass at Clarence Square Park directly to a crosswalk on 1-May-2010

One of the liveliest conversations of the walk came up in discussing crosswalk signals. It turns out that though Toronto has installed countdown timers across the city, the laws have not been updated. A pedestrian has the right-of-way in a crosswalk if they entered it when the "walk" signal was still lit, regardless of how long they take to cross. But, if they enter during the flashing stop, they could receive a ticket, even if they clear the intersection before the countdown expires. Provincial law would need to be updated to change that. Furthermore, the default pedestrian activation system used by Toronto (called "PS2MVG" for "Pedestrian Signal 2 - Minimum Vehicle Green") will automatically do a countdown regardless of whether an opposing path is desired--and if no vehicle or pedestrian requests an opposing move, it will return to the default pattern and turn green again after the countdown. This practice is incredibly annoying for pedestrians, who stop at the flashing stop only to receive a green and be able to continue--cars face no such needless delays.


Dylan Reid closed the King West pedestrian infrastructure walk at Clarence Square in Toronto, Ontario on 1-May-2010

Jane Jacobs emphasized walkability as a key to creating a livable city. The King West Pedestrian Infrastructure Jane's Walk was a great way to learn more about how a city becomes friendly to pedestrians, and to how well her chosen city is doing in that process.

Culture: Pedestrian Deaths Unsurprising

TORONTO, ONTARIO - The plight of pedestrians in the city of Toronto is finally receiving some attention as ten pedestrians have been killed in the last eight days. While I'd rather be a pedestrian in Toronto than anywhere else I've been lately, the spate of deaths does not surprise me, as driving patterns in Toronto are atrocious.

One thing that definitely made me feel at home after returning to this city after five weeks away was how nice it was to walk around here. Unlike some places (this is mostly you, suburban Arizona and El Dorado County, California), there are reasonably-sized sidewalks on all the streets that I want to walk down, pedestrian request buttons at crosswalks are generally well-maintained and responsive, and streets are well-lighted at night even on residential streets. It may not be environmentally sensitive, but the street lights are a really nice feature in the winter months when any evening errand will be in the dark. Never mind crime rates, which I rarely think about anyway, the well-lighted, clearly well-designed sidewalks made me feel safe as a pedestrian.

The feeling of safety was tempered somewhat, though, by how terribly people drive in this area. It's far from the worst in the world; I'd rather deal with drivers in Toronto than Boston, Massachusetts (where I admit there is a method to the driving madness but it's a rude, uncivilized method that I disdain), New York city, or my personal least preferred location, Hartford, Connecticut (where if there is any method to their sheer madness, I never figured it out). When I was growing up, people used to disdain California drivers, but now I'm not sure one can tell the difference in driving style between any California city and those in the Pacific Northwest, and that style, flawed as it may be, is much safer than how people drive in Toronto.

I have issues with how people make turns here. It is rare to see people check all relevant directions for pedestrians or bicycles before making a turn. If there's no vehicle in their way, they just go, often without fully stopping at a stop sign or red light. People also turn into adjacent lanes to those occupied by other cars, not taking into account that the other vehicles may be changing lanes (because people aren't great at using their turn signals here). Most of the accidents I have seen have come from some combination of lane changes and aggressive turning behavior.

The other major problem is that people exceed the speed limit here too often. It's not uncommon to see vehicles going 70 km/h on streets signed for 50 km/h, or people going 50 km/h on streets signed for 30 km/h. (They don't obey the limit on the high end, either; I once had to pull over on highway 69 because I was going the speed limit, probably 90 km/h at that location, and had a line of fifteen vehicles behind me that wanted to exceed the speed limit.) That problem would be somewhat ameliorated if appropriate trailing distances were observed, but people don't do that, either. The remainder of the accidents I have seen have resulted from people following too closely and not stopping when the leading vehicle did. I once "caused an accident" myself when I was using a crosswalk when I had a walk signal and a van intending to make a right turn (I believe he was even signaling!) through the crosswalk stopped to allow me to proceed and was rear-ended.

So, having seen the results of this borderline-uncivilized driving behavior first-hand on a regular basis, it doesn't surprise me that pedestrians are being killed. Drivers that don't look properly when they turn, speed, and follow too closely are likely to kill people. As 8-80 Cities (who advocate safe urban features for those under age 8 and over age 80--what a concept!) activist Gil Penalosa argues, there is a need to enforce speed limits through traffic calming and enforcement and generally raise awareness, since pedestrians hit at higher speed are more likely to die.

I'm not against any of Penalosa's suggestions, but to me there's a broader problem with driving in Ontario. I have been told that people used to at least observe speed limits before the Harris government in Ontario slashed traffic enforcement after taking office in 1995, and then it became a free-for-all on the highways. Things have only partially recovered in the years since Harris stepped down as premier in 2002. That's what needs to change.

It's time to start enforcing traffic laws again, strictly. It needs to happen anyway, and if it does, then there will be fewer pedestrian deaths. That's the real root problem, and it's time to address it, if you pardon the phraseology, head-on.