Before much of anything happens in this city, survey crews mark out the scene of the crime change.
I recently noticed two markings. One is along the OTrain corridor. These markings appear to delineate where the OTrain is being double-tracked in spring, 2013. Double tracking will be required for some portions to handle the additional train sets and more frequent service. Alas, the trains will run very slowly on the double track section between Gladstone and Bayview as the city is not [yet] building Gladstone/Little Italy station. Users will have more frequent, albeit slower, service on the Bayview-Carling segment.
The second set of markings are all through Hintonburg, along West Wellington. The X’s look like they mark the spot for bollards, simple black metal posts inserted in the walk to prevent sidewalk plows from hitting trees or lampposts. In this case, the X’s are marked just upstream of most lamp posts.
On a related move, the City announced that all the new ped lighting posts along Bronson will also be “given” these posts. They add to sidewalk clutter, and detract somewhat from the enhanced pedestrian experience that is supposed to come from having wider sidewalks. Note that they do not protect the lamps from motor vehicles parking along the street.
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The West Wellington markings look more like they’re for bike racks. The bollards on Bronson are closer to the lampposts and closer to the road and only on the leading side as you’re driving toward it. The ones on Bronson were required because the lamps there are too close to the roadway (which in turn was necessary to have a wide enough sidewalk for snowplows), and the bollards are there primarily to break the impact of errant vehicles, since replacing a bollard is cheaper and less dangerous than a lamppost.
The bike rack theory is also consistent with the City adding more cycling upgrades to Wellington West (such as the sharrows added relatively recently)