Letter of the Month?

Tuesday, December, 04, 2012 - 3:03:23 PM, Dundas Star News

Bone-headed design reduces safety

Robert Pinder, Dundas

Re: Tragedy on Governor’s Road

I don’t know any of the details of this tragedy, but I do know this area of Governor’s Road is a very densely populated residential one with hundreds of condos, apartments, a busy grocery store and even a retirement and long-term care facility. Add in a large church not too many metres from the intersection, the fact that this is a main route to two schools, and the picture is complete.

I also know that there is not one crosswalk along the 1.1-kilometre section of Governor’s Road between Ogilvie and Creighton. I will add further there are no left-turn lanes. However, absurdly, there is a third driving lane located on the westbound side of Governor’s, which allows for drivers, for some unfathomable reason, to greatly exceed the speed limit for 1.1 kilometres and pass those on the right lane, which they unquestionably do on a residential road in the town of Dundas.

This makes me very angry, not just for the poor casualty of this bone-headed road design, but for the safety of the thousands who use this daily. This is a terrible and deplorable “All Hail the Automobile” situation.

City roads designers, please get some crosswalks on that road — and other desolate lengths of city streets — today. Convert that preposterous middle lane into cycling lanes in either direction and left-turn lanes as needed.

Governor’s Road traffic a complex issue

Kitty MacLeod died for lack of a crosswalk (Opinion, Dec. 10)

Letters, Hamilton Spectator, December 15, 2012

To suppose that Kitty MacLeod died for lack of a crosswalk on Governor’s Road opposite St. Joseph’s Villa is to hold a misguided view of public policy. Any public policy based on one death or the possibility of “someone getting killed” cannot be reasonable. If it were, in the absurd extreme, we would have a crosswalk at every point where a pedestrian chose to cross a road, an all-way stop or signal at every intersection.

The contributing factors in MacLeod’s death are many. Those within the purview of municipal policy extend back in time at least to the approval of Governor’s Estates with no provision for adequate vehicle access. Simply painting a new lane line on a roadway without widening it in anticipation of greatly increased volume does not create a new lane. Moreover, the pedestrian-operated signals at Creekside-Hatt and Creekside-Ogilvie are, for most who encounter them, more of a problem than a solution.

“Everybody knows” (with a nod to Leonard Cohen) that the Ogilvie-Governor’s intersection has been dysfunctional from a traffic perspective for years. Its geometrics, lane markings, permitted moves, lane widths and approaches are all in need of a rigorous rethink given the volumes of vehicles, pedestrians, transit riders, cyclists, and scooters who take their chances every day.

Before Councillor Russ Powers acts to bring forward a crosswalk planned for 2017, with its guarantee of serious collateral discontent, I’d like to propose a community user-driven review of traffic policy and operations for the area centred on the Governor’s-Ogilvie intersection.

George Vance, Dundas

Kitty MacLeod

Woman, 87, killed while walking to Dundas seniors’ home for visit

Hamilton Spectator, Dec. 3, 2012

When Cynthia Thomas heard the accident outside her Governors Road apartment building, she looked at her watch and she knew.

“Instantly I thought ‘Oh no, Kitty,’” she said Sunday night.

“I ran out in my pyjamas.”

Kitty MacLeod, 87, crossed the street at that very spot — twice a day, every day — to visit her brother at St. Joseph’s Villa across the street, despite crippling arthritis that forced her to walk with a hunch.

Everyone in the building knew her, Eleanor Andrews said.

“She was a wonderful lady.

Cynthia’s daughter Jahvon Thomas, 13, remembers her sitting on the benches out front in the nice weather, watching the people go by.

“She was really nice,” she said.

MacLeod had two children, Jay MacLeod and Jill MacLeod Jonkman, neither of whom live locally, said neighbour Anne Foley.

“She was in the armed forces as a young woman with her husband,” Foley said. Together, they’d travelled the world.

MacLeod had recently cared for her brother in her apartment before he moved into the facility across the road.

“She was very independent and an incredibly sociable lady. She was always on the go,” Foley said.

In addition to her twice-daily visits with her brother, she was known to shuffle down to the grocery store every day.

Residents gathered in the lobby Sunday night, sharing stories of the woman as news of her death travelled.

“We all said Kitty’s going to be killed one day crossing there,” Judy Walker said. “Some of us are very angry … that road is like a highway.”

Many residents in the building said they’ve complained for years that a crosswalk is needed on that stretch of road.

“They go 100 (kilometres an hour), some of them,” Cynthia Thomas said. “It’s so dangerous.”

Police have not released the cause of the accident.

Hamilton Staff Sergeant Bryan Grigsby said Sunday afternoon that the accident reconstruction unit is continuing its investigation.

Plus ça change, plus ça reste le même.

December 4, 1968
Dundas Star News

Governor's at Creighton, photo by Randy Kay

"Mr. and Mrs. William Hill 230 Governor's Road, appeared before council to inform them that residents of Highland Hills were alarmed at the danger from the heavy flow of traffic through the Creighton Road and Governor's Road intersection. A petition carrying 229 signatures in the area asked for a traffic signal for protection of adults, and children attending St. Bernadette's, Central Park, Central and Highland Secondary School.

Mr Hill said the crossing guard had told him he could not handle the heavy traffic and had resigned. Several occasions had happened recently when vehicles had driven through stop signals. A tractor trailer going 60-70 miles an hours had gone through a signal.

Mayor Everett assured the delegation that they would receive a full report shortly. He said a traffic study was in course on the intersection."

Fatal on Governor's

Another pedestrian fatality on Governor's Road in Dundas, near the location of previous fatalities at Ogilvie/Governor's, according to a CBC news report.

If the city has their way, they would widen Governor's, making the crossing for the large population of seniors in the area all the more dangerous by allowing room for increasing traffic speed, passing, and an extra lane to cross.

For TLC's response to the Dundas Transportation Master Plan, follow this link.

The victim was an 87-year-old woman crossing Governor's at Overfield around 10am on Sunday.




View Larger Map

Governors and Ogilvie, again

[If the city gets their way, this already dangerous intersection will be made more so for pedestrians, given the City's plan to widen the crossing by adding through lanes, as presented in the final draft of the Downtown Dundas Transportation Master Plan...]

Dundas woman struck crossing road TheSpec.com - Local - Dundas woman struck crossing road

Paul Morse, Hamilton Spectator

A 51-year-old Dundas woman is in hospital with non-life threatening injuries after she was struck by a car while crossing Governor’s Road in Dundas this afternoon.

Police say the pedestrian was in the crosswalk heading south at Ogilvie when she was struck by a car turning right onto Governor's around 1 p.m. Monday.

Charges against a 71-year-old female driver from Woodham, Ont. are pending, said Hamilton police media officer Sergeant Terri-Lynn Collings.

http://thespec.com/News/Local/article/694664

sick of traffic?

Safety issues won’t move H1N1 clinic

Governor’s Road site will remain in use

Craig Campbell, News Staff

Published on Nov 06, 2009

Dundas Baptist Church on Governor’s Road will remain one of Hamilton’s four HINI influenza immunization clinics as long as the city still has doses of the vaccine, despite problems with traffic safety in the surrounding area.

Hamilton Police expressed concerns over the location of the main immunization clinic when it was announced. And Division 30 Inspector Bob Buck said there were traffic and pedestrian safety issues on the already controversial road right from the start.

“It became dangerous,” Inspector Buck said. “We raised that issue. We expressed concern about that location. From a traffic and pedestrian standpoint, it’s a difficult location.”

As the only immunization clinic for at-risk residents open all five days Oct. 26-30, the Dundas Baptist Church site saw the biggest influx of people by far. Hamilton Public Health Services staff say more than 8,000 people were injected with the H1N1 vaccine –that’s more than 1,600 people each day and over 280 people every hour.

But residents saw the impact as thousands of people looked for limited parking and lined up along the side of Governor’s Road waiting their turn.

“It was crazy,” said Randy Kay of the group Transportation for Livable Communities, which has been calling for safety and pedestrian improvements to Governor’s Road.

“The parking lot filled, cars parked on the side street, and cars backed up two lanes wide to Overfield. Crazy!”

He went by the Baptist Church clinic last Friday about 15 minutes before it closed. Mr. Kay suggested hindsight may encourage Public Health to examine the location, and move the immunization clinic somewhere with more parking or find a site people can get to without a car if they choose.

But Public Health spokesperson Tara Hall said no review of the location has taken place, and the clinic will not move from that site

“Dundas Baptist Church is one of four permanent locations,” Ms. Hall said.

The site met the required criteria for H1N1 clinics, including providing enough space and being available to the city for the required four to six weeks.

As long as Hamilton still has vaccine available, the Governor’s Road location is scheduled to be used until just before Christmas. It wasn’t known earlier this week when the clinic will open to the general public.

Ms. Hall said the public health department hopes having more clinics open this week, and insisting only the most at-risk residents get the vaccine for now, pressure on the Dundas location will ease and there will be fewer traffic and pedestrian safety problems.

Hamilton Police put an on-duty officer at the site immediately, expecting it to be an issue when it opened last Monday at 1 p. m. But when police discovered how busy it was and the officer was unavailable to respond to calls, a paid-duty or overtime officer was assigned to the site.

But police and public health commended each other on their individual efforts to keep the location as safe as possible, and manage the large numbers of people.

Inspector Buck said clinic staff did a really good job managing the people who showed up, and Ms. Hall said police did a great job managing traffic and providing safe pedestrian crossing across Governor’s Road.

http://www.dundasstarnews.com/news/article/193731