Lets Talk Transportation

I have been asked for my opinion on the Transportation Master Plan (TMP), Division Avenue, the 8th St SE roundabouts and Bump Outs. Here are my thoughts about the various transportation issues.

First of all, I believe the City failed in their communications. There was not enough meaningful consultation with the neighbourhoods involved, there was not enough meaningful engagement about the TMP, there was not a meaningful information program.  Effective Communication is incredibly important. You can have the best idea in the world but if it is not communicated effectively then you will not get buy-in. Without buy-in, the project is a waste of time and effort by our hard working employees.

Ineffective communication is as bad as someone deliberately trying to sabotage the project.

Let’s Talk - The Transportation Master Plan (TMP)

This never should have been made such a big issue. This is not a plan with specific projects, it is a high level visionary document that guides the future planning.This plan needed updating to accommodate for the new forms of transportation. Previous TMPs had some grand ideas which never came to fruition; I was puzzled by how upset people were over this. 

Courtesy of the City of Medicine Hat

The TMP caused such an uproar that Council actually decided to hold a public hearing to discuss this document that had no teeth.

City staff was exposed to a lot of venom and vitriol over the nearly 4 hour long hearing.

It was our City Council that allowed this to happen, they threw city staff under the bus. Council wanted the public to feel they had been heard - fair enough. They could have done that without putting staff in the hot seat. Council could have asked their questions of staff in a different forum - a Council Committee of the Whole perhaps. Instead they had staff stay there until nearly 11pm to answer questions - that is an ineffective use of staff time given that there was no decision to be made. Imagine how tired and frustrated the staff must have been when they went to work the next day.

Eventually Council even decided to postpone bringing it to Council for approval, leaving it for the next Council to deal with. That has to be incredibly frustrating for everyone who worked on it and sat through that public hearing.

Can you imagine how much this affected our city staff? Whether you think it is good or bad, they all worked hard on it, having to attend numerous meetings and give numerous briefings only for it to get thrown on the trash pile until a later date. That is disrespectful of their time and the public’s time. Talk about wasted money, there’s a bunch right there.

There is a difference between dreams and reality. The TMP is a dream, the individual projects are reality. It is the individual projects that will directly affect residents.

Let’s Talk - Division Avenue

Let’s face it; there are a lot of bad drivers in this city. In fact, a young person from Medicine Hat “won” season 4 of Canada’s Worst Driver. The city must make accommodations - not everyone is a professional driver. I have seen semi drivers back trailers up into impossible spaces, not everyone has that level of skill.

I grew up on the West Coast where many roads are narrow and windy. Add in the steepness and you will see that the hills of Medicine Hat are like "bunny hills" compared to the "black diamond slopes" of the coast. The West Coast does not have the luxury of having such wide streets because a lot of the coast is built on solid rock - it is expensive to blast through rock just to build a wider road. There is often no shoulder at all, no place to pull over to allow emergency vehicles to pass. People who have only lived on the prairies have little to no experience with the narrow roads many people in our neighbouring province must deal with.

1 There should have been more consultation with the neighbourhood. Here’s how it should have gone. 

We have these problems. Here is the proof. Here are the options to solve the problems including the pros and cons. Which option do you prefer?

They would have gathered important input and perhaps changed their plans.

2 There should have been more education about the usage of Division Avenue. 

Division Avenue on the Hill is not a major artery - it is a neighbourhood with schools and parks. Yes, it is a collector street but it is two lane the whole way. Children cross Division Avenue to get to the 5 schools within 5 blocks of Division Avenue.

Courtesy of the City of Medicine Hat

Courtesy of the City of Medicine Hat

Division Avenue is not a truck route, it never has been. 

Trucks may use the road to get to a local delivery via the shortest distance from a truck route which is either the #1 Highway or College Dr. (Third St N is a Restricted Heavy Truck Route meaning they can only use it between the hours of 7am - 11pm.)

My late husband Carl hauled flat deck b-trains, I was often his swamper. When delivering to a new spot, he or I called ahead to make sure there was enough room for b-trains. If there wasn't enough room he would either drop the lead or the pup; sometimes the receiver made arrangements for a smaller truck to do the local delivery. 

Division Avenue is only a 2 lane road with parking but was often viewed as having more than the two lanes, even our own Councillor Sharps admitted she used the Division Avenue parking lane as a driving lane. One of the reasons why people never used the on street parking on Division was because their cars would get sideswiped.

Maybe the parking on Division Avenue does not need to be there; if nobody uses it, what's the point? Perhaps a centre lane to facilitate left turns could work like they have on 10 Ave SW which allows traffic to keep flowing. (I’m open to suggestions.)

Let’s Talk - Bump Outs

In the right place, Bump Outs can be a very useful tool. Downtown is a great place for them.

- it shortens crosswalks which means vehicles do not have to stop as long

- it slows down traffic which means people are more likely to see the businesses they did not know existed

Downtown Days Medicine Hat - Photo Credit Kelly Allard - Notice how the bump outs shorten the crossing time.

This does not mean Bump Outs are good for every area.

Seattle Washington put out aa document about traffic calming measures called SEATTLE SAFE ROUTES TO SCHOOL ENGINEERING TOOLKIT - the residents have easy access to it and can get informed about the possibilities. The graphics are excellent, the document is written for the layman and not the engineer.

Let's Talk - Roundabouts

Again, roundabouts can be a very useful tool in the right place.

This is what then Director of City Assets Pat Bohan (now Managing Director of Deveopment and Infrastructure) said two years ago about the need for roundabouts on 8th St SE in a Briefing Note.

“In response to public calls regarding speeding issues in residential neighbourhoods, staff reviewed 8th Street SE (between 2nd and 4th Avenues SE) and determined that a mini roundabout was an appropriate traffic calming measure and a good place to introduce the measures to the public. This area has also been identified for upcoming deep utility rehabilitation work, which allows for project synergy opportunities (cost savings) to install the measures at that same time.

Given that traffic calming measures are relatively new to Medicine Hat, the measures are considered a “pilot” project and will be monitored for their effectiveness before other installations are considered.”

If you watch the YouTube video of the meeting, Bohan says that speeds up to 80kph were recorded on 8th St SE. Traffic calming was necessary in this area unless we wanted to spend money to have police enforce the speed limit in this one neighbourhood - I think that is waste of our police resources. If we can achieve the same result by using cost effective traffic calming measures, why not? I believe it is usually better to be proactive than reactive. Are roundabouts a good fit for 8th St SE? Maybe not, there are other traffic calming measures they could have used instead. The neighbourhood residents were not really given a choice. The City decided to do this as a pilot project and again, communication about it was lousy. There should have been more consultation with the people that live in the area.

Roundabouts can be great - in the right places. My mom lives in a small town on Vancouver Island. There was a lot of opposition when the roundabouts were first proposed but now people navigate them with ease, even my 90 year old mother (yes she is still driving, she just passed her medical for her licence). It’s a 4-way intersection that could otherwise result in quite a back up if it was a 4 way stop; the roundabout keeps the traffic moving. You only have to look in one direction which is great for pedestrians, cyclists and especially motorcyclists - many get very injured by someone turning left.

Chemainus Roundabout - credit Kelly Allard

Bottom Line

Traffic calming measures in neighbourhoods should be done in meaningful consultation with the neighbourhood residents. City Communications needs to step up their game and make sure the public is properly informed /consulted.