10-09-2017, 09:41 AM
(10-09-2017, 06:32 AM)Canard Wrote: Re: Erb/Caroline - I guess a curious question might be: Why are left turns actually prohibited on NB Caroline to WB Erb? There's a separate lane there for queueing, so stopping there doesn't hold anyone up. The only thing I can think of is it would deny a bus the ability to bypass everyone else and get it's own left turn... but this is the only place on the entire LRT line that I can think of where they've done that. So, why did they do that, here?
Somebody else suggested there isn’t space for a long-enough left turn lane. I’m not sure I buy that explanation however as I don’t see any particular shortage of space. One thing I do recall from before is that the presence of the tracks messes up how people use the intersection — they tend to stop on the tracks to wait to turn, then they don’t proceed when the light turns red and end up on the tracks. Not an issue before, but definitely an issue with LRT.
Actually, upon consideration, I’ll bet that is why. The stop line has to be back of the tracks, meaning the effective size of the intersection is huge. So either people drive correctly, meaning only one vehicle in the intersection at a time waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, leading to very slow advancing of the line, or, in real life, they drive wrong, and end up stopped on the tracks when the light turns red.
Not a problem with one bus every few minutes, but an issue with constant traffic.
Weird that they realized the rules for the intersection should change but didn’t realize what the signals should actually be.