General Road and Highway Discussion

[danbrotherston]

Not sure if this was posted already, but Highland is finally getting a MUT on both sides to Ira Needles.

Guess that hit-and-run death turned up the pressure. Happy to see it, but a sad state of affairs.

That project was planned and proposed long before the death. Unfortunately, as is typical for the region, it has nothing to do with safety, nor cycling infra, the project is planned because the road is 10-20 years away from being over capacity for a two lane road. Therefore regional doctrine requires it be widened immediately. And because the road is undergoing work, and regional staff must maintain the illusion of supporting the strategic pillars, this pig (road expansion) is slated to get lipstick (active transpo infra).

(Now pay attention those who think I never say anything good), I have mentioned this project before however, because which ever engineers were involved in actually designing this improvement also proposed the best active transportation infrastructure I've ever seen in the region. The MUTs have proper fully protected intersections designed for all three major signalized intersections, the turn radii are...if not residential, than at least minimized as far as the region allows, these are things I have never seen before in the region. And I don't mean to imply the bar is low, the proposed infrastructure is legitimately excellent outside of a regional context.

While this does not negate the harm an unnecessarily wide road will cause, it does show that even within the restrictive bounds of regional upper management, lower level engineers do have the power to create some great cycling infrastructure, if they have the skills and willingness to do so.