An example of one of the 10 video cameras that were used on July 6, 2022 to document users of the Blackfriars Bridge and Thames Valley Parkway in London, Ontario.
Session #3 of the Blackfriars Bridge Traffic Study (BBTS) was completed this morning, July 6, 2022, between 0700 and 0900 hours. This data will be revealing as it comes from the morning peak (rush) hours in the middle of a work week. We are now in the process of copying and shrinking the videos to enable insertion into our Adobe Premiere video-editting program. This should take a couple of days.
There are always unusual situations that arise when conducting such observations. In this Session a sidewalk sweeper appeared at the site travelling northbound on the Thames Valley Parkway (TVP), as shown in the photo below.
Larger vehicles such as this sidewalk sweeper are needed to maintain the trail yet they pose safety problems since the Thames Valley Parkway (TVP) in not meant to accommodate such vehicles.
The narrow confides of the TVP make it difficult for units like this sweeper to conduct its maintenance activities in safety, as shown in the photo below.
On the steep downgrade of the TVP just north of Blackfriars Bridge a cyclist may not see a maintenance sweeper in sufficient time to avoid it, particularly in this section that is also quite narrow. Practical difficulties such as these need to be highlighted to warn cyclists and pedestrians so that they can be on the lookout.
It is important to document any safety-related problems in an unbiased and clear way. Some conflicts may be inevitable but if we done not identify them we will never know if some can be done to lessen their consequences. Once the basic volumes of traffic units have been reasonably well established at the Blackfriars Bridge we will be able to look more closely at some of these potential conflicts. Stay tuned for more data…
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