(02-04-2016, 09:20 AM)MidTowner Wrote: On Union, some motorists seem to already be in the practice yielding their right of way to trail users. That’s maybe a nice courtesy, but it’s dangerous when behaviour is unpredictable and people have different expectations.
This is why we should be doing a lot more with pedestrian refuges. If I only have to cross a single, one-directional lane of traffic, it’s not hard to see whether it is safe. On top of that, many drivers want to be helpful to pedestrians and will yield — but doing so on a two-directional road isn’t as helpful as the drivers may believe, and this is even more so on a four-lane road, where one driver stopping doesn’t even guarantee that all traffic in their direction is stopped.
It’s hard and confusing to talk to planners about this though. I mentioned the idea of pedestrian refuges to them, and got back something about new legislation enabling some sort of enhanced crosswalk. Now that I see this “level 2” stuff, it seems clear that is what they were talking about, but my initial impression that this is nothing really new was confirmed: “level 2” is just something that has already existed with slightly improved signage.