Topic: YOW Airport Parkway road rage

[Railton]

Looks like someone (and a cop at that!!!) finally snapped with those taxis headed to the airport and riding the right merge lane past the other (patiently waiting and/or stopped) motorists in the left lane.
No good will come of this but I'm surprised it's taken this long for an occurance like this to happen.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/duty+officer+investigated+airport+road+rage+incident/1592244/story.html
Railton

[Angry Chicken]

Looks like someone (and a cop at that!!!) finally snapped with those taxis headed to the airport and riding the right merge lane past the other (patiently waiting and/or stopped) motorists in the left lane.
No good will come of this but I'm surprised it's taken this long for an occurance like this to happen.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/duty+officer+investigated+airport+road+rage+incident/1592244/story.html
Railton

I didn't see anything in the linked article or the article that 1st appeared on the front page of the Citizen this morning (http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Ottawa+taxi+driver+recounts+horrific+road+rage+incident/1589817/story.html) that indicated that the taxi driver had merged ahead of the left lane queue.  In fact, the taxi driver said that the other car had tried to overtake *him*.  Wondering if the roles were somehow reversed?  Admittedly, those taxi drivers are very aggressive and tend to drive like they own the Airport Parkway.

Another thought.  I know that exact place you speak of.  Don't you think waiting in a left lane queue with 30 to 50 cars when there's 300 metres of empty lane in front of you is inefficient?  I really don't think it's queue-jumping if a person uses that lane (what's it for anyway?) and waits patiently to merge with other queued traffic at the head of the lane if they don't cross onto the shoulder and try to bully their way back into the traffic flow.  It's not a merge lane (though Brookfield merges into *it*) and is just the last part of the RH lane before it narrows down to the single lane.

Edit:  Typo.

[stodge]

I confess I have a disdain for taxi drivers who blatantly ignore all road rules. They drive up your arse when it suits them or they cruise at 20km/h, weaving around while using their radio when not on the job. There's a basic lack of respect, courtesy and common sense in this city and the police need to clamp down.

[wing]

So, who wants to bet the officer is suspended WITH pay in a few weeks?

[stodge]

You mean days? I'll wait for the full story before I pass judgement. I doubt someone would lose it because they couldn't overtake. I hope so anyway!

[Railton]

Yes, one should try to fill up all lanes (to be efficient as you say) but not drive on the bike lane as what tends to happen with the 'for hire' vehicles.
Year's back I watched two commercial vans dare each other till one of them side-swipped the other causing an accident.
The problem is that the road should be double laned all the way to the airport. It should've been widened over ten years ago when they put the Hunt Club ramps in yet it remains as a single lane each way. Crazy.
Traffic calming my ass.
Railton

[Winklovic]

Another thought.  I know that exact place you speak of.  Don't you think waiting in a left lane queue with 30 to 50 cars when there's 300 metres of empty lane in front of you is inefficient?  I really don't think it's queue-jumping if a person uses that lane (what's it for anyway?) and waits patiently to merge with other queued traffic at the head of the lane if they don't cross onto the shoulder and try to bully their way back into the traffic flow.  It's not a merge lane (though Brookfield merges into *it*) and is just the last part of the RH lane before it narrows down to the single lane.

Edit:  Typo.

I agree: that lane is open to use until it ends or is barricaded.  In the book "Traffic" by Tom Vanderbilt, he references a study that says just that: use all the lanes that are available and traffic will move more efficiently.

[Oz]

Still.... for an officer of the law, its very wrong for this guy to do what he did.

[Railton]

Still.... for an officer of the law, its very wrong for this guy to do what he did.

It's wrong for 'anyone' to beat up on someone because they pulled in front of them.
What's wrong here is that the city should've widened the Airport Parkway 10 years ago.
Railton

[99 Silver]

I thought the NCC owned the Airport Parkway.  They don't care about traffic flow, only that it looks good for visitors.  The city may not have the authority to widen the road.

[Angry Chicken]

I thought the NCC owned the Airport Parkway.  They don't care about traffic flow, only that it looks good for visitors.  The city may not have the authority to widen the road.

Executive summary:  The road is a crappy two-lane, oversubscribed ribbon of asphalt that should've been widened a long time ago or shouldn't have been purchased and ruined by the city in the first place.

The city purchased the airport parkway and abutting lands from the NCC some time ago.  The NCC, in turn, acquired some land from the city.  As Railton said, the city's first order of business was to add access to the airport parkway so downtown commuters could exit it southbound on their way back home.  The parkway was originally designed as an express route to/from the airport and for that purpose it was suited admirably.  The city, true to form and with typical near-sightedness, has left the parkway as a two-lane road as the population in the south has added mounting pressure to a road that was never intended to support the amount of traffic it's seeing. Several fatalities have occurred on that road in the years since its "improvements". (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2009/04/14/ot-090414-airport-parkway.html) Most recently, City Council has started another round of improvements and has also accepted a report called "In-Service Safety Review" from city staff.

[dorin]

What the off-duty cop did was completely unacceptable.  Period.  No excuses.  The guy is a cop and should never be allowed to lose it like that.  I do not want a clown like that in a position of power in my city. 

What his uniformed buddies did is even more disgusting.  In a situation like that you are not allowed to play favourites because the dude flashes a badge.  They should have treated him like they would have treated anyone else and there's no way they would have let a regular person write his own statement and then hopped with him in his own car.  I'm not saying that they had to handcuff him on the spot, but at the very least he deserved a timeout in the back of a cruiser.  I hope those clowns also get the book thrown at them.

As for the airport parkway where it narrows from 4 lanes to 2, I for one always use whatever lane is shorter before the narrowing.  Anybody who sits in one lane while the other lane is open is a poor driver and doesn't deserve to get to complain about being incompetent.

There isn't a good reason to widen the airport parkway as long as the exits are the cause of the backlog.  The real problem for the traffic backing up at Bronson is the bottleneck at Hunt Club.  Widening the parkway will do nothing for getting people off faster at Hunt Club.  If anything, it will only serve to overburden the Hunt Club intersection even more.

As for urban sprawl, I blame developers first and the developer-rabid Ontario Municipal Board more than the city.  I've lost track of the number of stories I've heard of developers demanding more sprawl and going to the OMB to get it to force the city to give in to more sprawl.  Developers are the real root problem for further sprawl at this point.

[Angry Chicken]

   What he said! 

[carjoe]

What the off-duty cop did was completely unacceptable.  Period.  No excuses. 

What his uniformed buddies did is even more disgusting.

Dorin for president!

I agree completely. As far as I'm concerned, an officer of the law should be dismissed for violent conduct. They are there to protect people against stuff like this.

I read today that he's been assigned to a desk in the meantime.

[unctuous]

The merge lanes always move faster than the lane where traffic is mergiing into.  I have seen Semis bloack the merge lane and think it is a good thing.  Too many people will ride up the merge lane to the very end and try and cut in, causing people to slam on there brakes and slow down all traffic.

We have a similar problem on the DVP Southbound from the 401/404 in Toronto.