Pt 2 - LSB/LDRT Intersection Hazards - Driver Sightlines

Conflicts between Drivers and Lower Don Recreation Trail users at Lake Shore Boulevard and the neighbourhood streets running north-south out of South Riverdale - Morse St, Logan St and Booth St - are the usual coarse of events when motor vehicle drivers try to make the dangerous and heart pounding merge onto the fast Lake Shore Boulevard.

The specific behaviour that is causing the perception amoungst cyclists that these are really dangerous places, is the vast majority of driver's habit of nosing into the Lower Don Recreation Trail (or completely blocking it) almost every time drivers make turns onto the LSB at these three intersections.

I watched for an hour and a half as drivers - confronted with so many vectors (and different qualities of vectors - cyclists at one set of speeds, joggers and at another speed) actually make mistakes - and force cyclists to brakes or steer evasively to avoid being hit as the driver slams on their brakes also - just in time to avoid collisions.

In these two videos I use the camera to imitate how a driver in a car sees the intersection, by standing where a driver would be seated with their car stopped at various places - behind the stop line; halfway into the Trail; and right across the trail - in order to understand what's going on:

PART I

LDRT/Logan - Driver Sight Lines I 2014/08/27 6 39pm


A multitude of sign posts to the east of the Logan/LDRT intersection blocks driver's sightlines to the east - obscuring high speed motor vehicle traffic speeding off the light at Carlaw. This seems to be the reason drivers are moving forward such that they block the entire width of the Lower Don Recreation Trail here as they try to make their turns westbound onto the Lake Shore Boulevard.

PART II

In the second of these videos I talk about a great conversation I had with a driver, a resident nearby, who noted a West sight lines issue that I hadn't seen. From a driver's point of view, a fence blocks their view of cyclists coming eastbound towards the intersection:

LDRT/Logan - Driver Sight Lines II 2014/08/27 7:21pm


A fence to the west of the Logan/LDRT intersection blocks driver's sightlines to the west - obscuring cyclists coming eastbound on the LDRT. This seems to be one of the reasons drivers are nosing halfway across the Lower Don Recreation Trail here as they try to make their turns westbound onto the Lake Shore Boulevard.



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