This is the third article in a series of four, that discusses the findings of Gorski Consulting related to an examination of the site on Gainsborough Road in London, Ontario where a retired professor was killed when using a multi-use cycling path. The previous two articles provided results from the first 40 minutes of videotape of a two-hour session conducted on Sunday, September 13, 2020.
In the previous two articles the results of eastbound traffic volumes and speeds was provided for vehicles approaching the cycling path located on Gainsborough Road just west of Hyde Park Road on the western outskirts of London. It was apparent that a commercial event was taking place next to the site which caused large numbers of vehicles to enter and exit two driveways just west of the cycling path. It is likely that these turning vehicles caused interference to vehicles travelling straight through the site and therefore the speed of many vehicles was likely reduced.
The new data presented here is for an additional 40 minutes of observations. In the first 20 minutes of this new data there was a continuation of the disruptions caused by the turning vehicles. However in the second 20 minutes the commercial event must have come to an end as the number of turning vehicles ceased. This had an effect on the calculated speed of eastbound vehicles as indicated in the following tables.
The first table shows the average speed of all eastbound vehicles that travelled straight through the site. This table was shown in the previous article but now we have added the data from the “40 to 60 Minutes” and the “60 to 80 Minutes”. What this shows is a marked increase in average speeds as the number of observations decreased as the number of turning vehicles dropped in the “60 to 80 Minute” period.
This is indicated further when we look at the smaller number of observations containing only those vehicles that experienced no interference, shown in the table below.
With less interference the speed of eastbound vehicles increased such that between 200 and 100 metres west of the path the average speed of eastbound vehicles was in the range of 73 to 75 km/h. We can examine the data further by selecting just the speeding vehicles as shown in the following table.
Note in the table above that the number of speeding vehicles increased in the last 20 minutes (“60 to 80 minutes”). 70% of the eastbound vehicles were observed to be travelling at 72 km/h or higher. We even had two observations of vehicles travelling over 90 km/h. This is in an area where the maximum speed is posted at 60 km/h, reducing to 50 km/h just before reaching the cycling path.
Thus the data is beginning to show a trend whereby the average speed of vehicles appears to be unacceptably high when eastbound drivers are not interfered with their selected speed. We will have more to say once we complete the remaining 40 minutes of videotape and present the results in the final article on this issue.
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