(12-03-2017, 10:41 PM)tomh009 Wrote:(12-03-2017, 10:32 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: And yes, removal of lanes is definitely worth considering, but the public pressure against removing lanes for any reason, but ESPECIALLY for cycling, is insane. Even totally useless unused lanes.
Agree on that. It might work on Benton St as there is a lot of resident support, but that would be the exception rather than the rule.
Which is why I think trying for narrower streets at rebuild time could be a good initiative. But we need to make a case for that -- for example, with or without curb replacement -- and show a real ROI, in addition to the other benefits of a narrower street. And I would think it would be easier to start with city streets rather than regional roads; in addition to them typically being just two lanes, usually residents want slower traffic so the diet would be easier to support.
I think some effort should also be made at framing the change as a traffic capacity increase. For example, unless they’ve screwed up some details, King St. southbound at Erb now has higher capacity than it did before the recent rebuild, since there is a lane dedicated to through traffic and not blocked by left-turning traffic. Previously there was no useable through lane. Usually intersections are the bottlenecks, not the sections of road between intersections.
Also good point about residents and City vs. Region. I think most of the really absurd cases I’m thinking of are probably city streets, and also have houses on them who would probably like to have slower traffic in front of them. Another point to consider would be leaving the curb lane in place but turning it into parking only, enforced with re-design of the space near intersections so the curb bumps out to mark the end of the parking area and making it hard to use the parking lane as a traffic lane. This wouldn’t actually save on construction, but would give most of the safety benefits of narrowing the road and get people used to the idea of having fewer traffic lanes.