General Road and Highway Discussion

[danbrotherston]

IIRC, those parking spaces (some for the PUC building, and like, 2 for Pizza Pizza) also border on Halls Lane. So while they're currently accessed from Gaukel, I feel like feasibly the access could be moved to instead by from Halls Lane, no?

There are ~3 directly behind Pizza Pizza that are not directly connected to Halls Lane. They are separated from the lane by more parking which is directly off the lane. The owners of the PUC building don't want to lose any parking, and won't be paying for any such reconfiguration, so I don't know what powers and options the city has there. That parking lot does at least seem possible though, if an agreement can be made.

It effectively already is between Water and Gaukel. Charlie West construction blocked Halls Lane at the Gaukel end for years, so the city installed a stop sign at the Water St end, clearly expecting people to be going that way. There is still one one-way sign, near Gaukel, but there's no no-entry sign from Gaukel, and 90% of people exiting the Charlie West garage head towards Water (as the connection to Gaukel was only just re-opened).

The Halls Lane signage has changed on both blocks next to Gaukel St so much over the last few years that I'm not sure what is correct anymore. Regardless of signage, it is effectively two way because that's how people choose to drive on it.

FWIW, that Water St entrance to Halls Lane now has a 2 way sign, so I'm not sure at what point it becomes a one way. Probably at the Charlie West garage?

Most of Halls Lane is not wide enough to actually support two directions at a time though, and unlike a thin country road, there is no option to pull off the road to let oncoming traffic pass.

And lastly, don't forget that Halls Lane is still actively used for loading/deliveries, meaning the entire lane is blocked for 10+ minutes many times a day.

Halls Lane does have a few pinch points that would make overtaking difficult, that being said, it absolutely does have lots of places to pull over for oncoming traffic to pass.

It is not the case that someone needs to be able to pull over everywhere, that is certainly not the case here (*most* residential two way streets cannot accommodate two way traffic along them, and drivers must pull aside into empty parking spaces or onto the sidewalk to pass each other). I do realise in North America because of our different context, there's a much higher chance of getting two drivers who both refuse to pull in, who then come face to face and throw a tantrum about it. Of course, since this is Canada, not the US, it's less likely to devolve into a shootout at the ok coral.

That being said, the whole thing is moot, I don't think our engineers would actually do it, no matter how reasonable it may seem to me sitting here.