General Road and Highway Discussion

[dtkvictim]

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 couldn't find any comparable situations jumping around on street view. Nearly all narrow streets I found in Utrecht were one way, while every two way road I found was wider, had edge lanes, parallel parking spaces, was a dead end, or had a mountable median or sidewalk.

The tight parts of Halls Lane does have stall parking, but I don't think the majority of our drivers could even pull into one of them.

The choke points of Halls Lane are pretty short in distance anyways, and the current free-for-all of it works well enough, so whatever. I just think it might fall apart if significantly more traffic is added to it.

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.

Ironically, I think making it one way might actually make this less of an issue. People will still ignore it, but from my experience those driving the wrong way know they are in the wrong and yield/reverse out of the way.

Side note: I was surprised at the amount of (presumably) illegal parking I came across on Netherlands streetview, on grass medians, etc. I didn't expect that level of vehicular entitlement there, but I guess my perception was wrong? I'm used to the entitlement here though, as apparently my own parking space in Halls Lane with a No Parking sign is a community parking space just because it's usually empty. Every single event (BLM protests, Ribfest, Bluesfest, etc), I can guarantee someone had taken it. Or the construction company who had the gall to park their machinery there over night, including blocking my neighbour's garage, and then put up cones with warning tape (bonus: bylaw wouldn't do anything because the construction vehicle didn't have a license plate).