General Road and Highway Discussion

[Markster]

Just so everyone's on the same page, I pieced together the pages of the Planning & Works document.  It was quite a job, as they've been stretched and squished to varying degrees to fit on those pages.  I had to undo that mangling:

   

My main concerns are:

• What's with the ultra-wide unused pavement on Erb? The supporting documentation claims that there is space for an 'on-road bi-directional cycle track, but that doesn't explain the layover-bay style curbs in front of the church.
  
• Albert has no legal way to bicycle south to Erb, despite being an otherwise very convenient bike route.
  
• There's a stub of a bike lane and bike box on Caroline, but no one using the MUT can get to those, so... what exactly is the deal here? Are bikes supposed to be on the MUT, or the road?
  
• The Caroline/Erb Intersection needs to allow straight-through travel for bikes coming south on the MUT. That crossing way to the east won't cut it.
  
• The sharrow situation on Erb is laughable. That right hand lane that appears east of Caroline/Erb is traditionally a speedway for impatient drivers. I'd say make that lane a dedicated turn lane for the mall parking, to prevent that, while allowing bicycles to continue through.
  
• Pedestrian crossing infrastructure is dismissed at Erb/Albert and Caroline/Dupont, because the current roads are terrifying to cross, and so "pedestrian counts are too low". I think they will find that people will actually start crossing the street now, when they're no longer super-wide speedways.
  

Things I like:

• Caroline is the right size. There are only two real ways to go at Caroline/Erb, (straight, or turn right) so you only need two lanes to feed that. The chokepoint is the single-lane right hand turn, and no number of lanes will fix that.
  
• Albert/Erb finally makes it possible to cross Albert without taking your life into your hands. It's nuts, trying to follow Erb's north sidewalk right now. In. Sane.
  
• The MUT is wonderful, and connects to a couple trailheads that go into Waterloo Park. The driveways are few, and low-volume, so they're no concern. It's Great. Perfect. Print it.