Myth: Stop Signs Reduce Accidents

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Burnett Country Club Stop SignBack in March I read an article in the local paper that mentioned that the stop sign on Burnett Ave. at Country Club Dr.  would not be removed against the recommendation of City Staff.   City Council overruled staff based on feedback from local residents.  The residents felt the removal of the stop sign would decrease safety in the area.  Feelings are not facts.  It may seem counter intuitive that removing a stop sign will make an intersection safer but the statistics bear this out.  Unlike the neighbourhood residents I took the time and paid the cost to learn the facts.

According to the Waterloo Regional Police from 2008 through 2010 there were 31 accidents on Burnett Avenue between Can-Amera Parkway and Saginaw Parkway.  This stretch of road includes eight intersections where four are all-way stops, one has a set of lights and the remaining three are partial-stops (Burnett traffic does not stop).   Of the 31 accidents that happened in that two year period not one accident happened at the partial-stop intersections.   The accidents either happened where a driveway meets Burnett or at an all way stop (including the traffic light).   The presence of an all way stop does not inherently make an intersection safer, it could be said that it has the opposite effect.  There is  a town in Holland that has taken this idea to the extreme and removed ALL road signs.

At a City Council meeting neighbourhood residents told council things like “signage was implemented in 2001 and that the number of vehicles and children using that intersection has only increased since that time.” (Complete Council Meeting Minutes 32meg)  Based on the development of other Cambridge roads traffic on Burnett has actually gone down since 2005. According to numbers provided by City Staff 3798 vehicles used Burnett in 2005 had dropped to 2928 in 2010.  The numbers quoted are for cars counted about halfway between Saginaw Parkway and Can-Amera Parkway.   The closure of Townline has produced a temporary increase of traffic on Burnett.

This incident is an example of how emotions sway politicians.  The people that are trained in public works are the City Staff.  They are the experts.  As a taxpayer of Cambridge I like to think that the employees of the City are doing a good job and their opinion is valued.  Every day between 16:30hrs and 18:30hrs there are many residents of Cambridge that have to wait as much as 20 minutes because of a knee jerk reaction of City Council.  None of the statistics I looked at either in this specific case or in the research I reviewed on stop signs in general indicate that City Council made a factual decision.  I won’t say they made a wrong decision because wrong is subjective.   It’s the right decision if they don’t want to receive angry phone calls from ill-informed residents who think they know better than the City Staff.  Is It the best decision for the residents of Cambridge?  I don’t think so!

 

Google Plus Nuances

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‘ve been using Google Plus for a few days. It’s very much like Facebook but with some subtle improvements. For one thing it will hyperlink URLs even if they don’t begin with http or www. That’s a small difference but is quite helpful. If you are the kind of person that care about this sort of thing there are no ads on g+.

Google has been for a while now using your social graph to influence the search results you see. Using g+ Google will have a lot more data to use to filter your results making them more relevant to you. This is the real reason Google got in the social game. They want the data. As they do now Google will contintue to crowdsource the user base as a filter for what is relevant. When my Geocaching circle interacts with some content I shared with them that content will get a geocaching signal added.

We live in interesting times.

Google Plus Launch +5 days

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Anyone that has spent any time around me knows I like tools.  All kinds of tools.  Everything from my Swiss Army knife to my portable projector.   I even like online tools like Facebook and Twitter. I’ve discovered that the right tool makes a job go so much easier.   When Google launched their social networking tool I wanted to get a crack at it and see if it will make what I do online any easier.   It’s too early to tell if it really will.   Facebook has a HUGE network that will not move en masse to  a new platform.  I do have some thoughts on why Google has a shot at being successful with this product.

  1. Google already knows who my friends are.
  2. Google knows stats.
  3. I already use Google products every day.

I like almost 200,000 other people,  use Gmail for email.  This means that Google already knows who I communicate with most often.  The suggest tool in gmail prompts me to confirm the recipient if there might be confusion over which John or Bob I’m trying to send a message to.    Google could  apply this or similar algorithms to my plus account to help me figure out who belong in which circle.  Google isn’t doing this yet but some variation of this is going to come.

I’m a big fan of Google Analytics.  I use it on a large number of websites including Google Knol (Google’s Crowdsourced encyclopidia) and just recently Google Picasa (Picture Sharing website).   The latter are two are Google servicess you don’t generally associate with Google Analytics.  I don’t think it will be long before you can track your Google Plus traffic in Google Analytics.  Facebook offers stats if you use their “Pages” but you can’t see them for your profile.  Would we be alarmed to see how often our profile is viewed?  Is this something we want to know?

Today on Facebook one of my friends said he wasn’t switching to Google Plus until he had to.  I get his thinking.  All his friends are on Facebbook so why switch.  This is a sound rational if you are are already on Facebook and really, who isn’t?   I invited another friend to join me on Google Plus and he declined because he doesn’t use social media.  This is where Google has an edge.  Pretty soon all Google services will have a g+ hook.  Any Google service that offers sharing today will easily hook in to g+.  Services like Google Reader, Bookmark, Library and others will all be made more useful when attached to Google Plus.  The social graph is a powerful filter.   These services all have an installed base.  Leveraging that base is a way for Google to overcome the enormous inertia that Facebook has.

Ultimately who knows if Google Plus can usurp Facebook’s dominance in the social graph.  The folks at Facebook will have something to think about if the adoption rate keeps up with the current pace I’m seeing.