Sterling Dundas Intersection Community Meeting

Dundas and Sterling, looking North (2009)Dundas and Sterling, looking North (2009)

You can download a PDF copy of this meeting announcement, with map, here.

Community Meeting Notice

Sterling Rd. and Dundas St. West Intersection Modifications

Transportation Services Staff and Councillor Bailão invite you to a Community meeting to discuss intersection modifications being proposed by the City to make this intersection safer for cyclists and pedestrians.

Map of Proposal click here

Date: Time: Location:
Background
Monday July 30, 2012 6:30 PM – 8:30 PM
St. Helen's Church (1680 Dundas Street West - East of Lansdowne Ave.)

The intersection of Sterling Rd. to Dundas St. W is currently is not signalized. When travelling southbound off of Sterling Rd., from the stop bar motor vehicles must merge into the stream of traffic on Dundas St. W.
It has been observed that because the point at which Sterling Rd. meets Dundas St. is an incline, motor vehicle drivers may drive up the incline, in order to be able to see a gap in the traffic on Dundas St. W.

Proposed Improvements
Transportation Services has studied a wide range of ways to make this intersection safer for cyclists and pedestrians.
Transportation Services is recommending: The full signalization of this intersection A 'no right turn on red' restriction for vehicles turning off of Sterling Rd. onto Dundas St W. The installation of zebra stripe crossings for pedestrians The installation of cycling crossings for cyclists That the stop bar on Sterling Rd. be pushed back behind the junction where the West TorontoRailpath meets Sterling Rd.
Pushing the stop bar back behind the cyclist crossing will help to keep motor vehicles in a position where their ability to see cyclists at the intersection will be improved.
The installation of a signal phase, will mean that motor vehicle drivers will not have to search for a gap in traffic on Dundas St. W. Instead, they may wait behind the stop bar, until their signal phase is green, at which time they may make the turn onto Dundas St. West.
We Want to Hear From You:

If you are unable to attend the public event, you can still get involved by contacting Transportation Services:
Transportation Services Cycling Infrastructure & Programs

E-mail: bikeplan@toronto.ca 100 Queen St W, City Hall, Fax: 416-392-4808 22nd Floor East Tower Toronto, ON M5H 2N2

Meeting notes are now posted here.

AttachmentSize
2012-07-30_Sterling_Community-Meeting.pdf110.01 KB

Comments

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

Dundas/Sterling in The Grid

The Grid has an article today, though it lacks any significant details of the proposal.
http://www.thegridto.com/city/local-news/making-dundas-and-sterling-safer/

(I hope to post some notes/photos here soon)

Dundas/Sterling/Railpath meeting on Monday

Don't forget, this meeting is just a couple of days away. Please come if you can.

Even if you can't make it, please post any additional comments, suggestions, or other random thoughts here.

Extend the railpath!

Why not extend the railpath beneath Dundas West and connect it to Sorauren Park and Sorauren Ave?

And, as a selfish resident of Carleton Village, why not also extend the railpath north past Cariboo to connect with Old Weston Road or, better yet, Junction Road (if it ever opens again) ??

I suggest you read

I suggest you read www.railpath.ca as both things you suggest are currently being studied. Also look for an upcoming story in the Villager that will be posted here.

[I edited Scott's post to fix the URL typo. www.railpath.ca is the correct link, which goes to railpath.wordpress.com --Vic]

did you mean

Wipeouts on loose surface

I've seen more than one wipeout as people on bikes riding from the street to the railpath as they try to adjust thier course on the crushed rock. The loose surface is evil in this location, and it should be paved. In addition, more thought needs to be made about how people on bicycles enter and leave at this location.

Lastly, I see large number of people making left turns at this intersections. This is a particularly tricky manoeuvre while on a bike. I'd like to think that bike boxes would likely help out here quite a bit.

Railpath loose surface

Staff mentioned this at the meeting last night. Apparently this was left unpaved due to one of the utilities needing to do additional work. Not sure if that's actually done or not, but they said they're planning on paving it soon. No idea exactly when...

I cycle through here twice a

I cycle through here twice a day, taking the lane while I wait for a gap to turn left. Sometimes it is a long wait. Traffic lights would be a very welcome addition.

temporary in terms of Railpath

The feasibility study for Railpath 2 will look at these issues regarding the south side. Until that study is done these changes are temporary in terms of Railpath. That strip of road has become a race track over the last few years so we need to slow traffic down. If they put lights in then they need to square off the intersection more to stop people from sliding around corners as they do now.

I believe that the College intersection is under revue (I would like to see the one block that goes uphill and joins Dundas become one lane).

RP 1.1

I would never want to delay or take away from RP 2, but I think RP 1.1 would be an important step and if this meeting could be used to turn up the heat for either I would be all for that.

Missing Piece

I am very concerned about this intersection and it's fifty ways to get yourself killed. To me the glaring omission in these recommendations is a direct access to the rail path from the south side of Dundas. This would probably be complex and expensive but I think it would remove pedestrians and cyclists entirely from a dangerous situation. The biggest obstacle might be the owner of the land across from the intersection but they would also be the biggest beneficiary with increased pedestrian traffic past a commercial property.
I also thought the intersection with College was being reviewed along with this one.
There has also been a suggestion that a bike lane on the bottom end of Stirling might remind motorists to leave a little extra room at an intersection likely to have more pedestrian and bicycle traffic than one might expect.
I don't want to make the perfect the enemy of the good and getting some action is very important, but I'm a little underwhelmed by the proposal.