General Road and Highway Discussion

[ijmorlan]

There's a petition on change.org to reconfigure Keats Way for pedestrians and cyclists. Not sure the exact concept is practical but Keats Way is one of the most overbuild roads in the region, and I would love to see it used better.

https://www.change.org/p/waterloo-city-c...-keats-way

Thanks for linking. Absolutely the design is an improvement. I will say there is some ironic comments though. The author is clearly afraid of being labeled anti car.

He isn't quite right though. The middle space is used for a turn lane. Moving to the profile he proposes would remove that. Now I fully support that idea. And I believe traffic on Keats way doesn't need turn lanes. But I know even in this forum that would not be accepted. 

Actually even I might be OK with this on Keats Way. There is so little traffic that it’s hard to imagine a lack of turn lanes causing much trouble. I would probably do a traffic study to see if there are specific locations where turning traffic is higher and turn lanes would be a benefit. The fact that there are no traffic lights is part of this. Being held, along with a line of others, behind somebody turning left, followed by being held by a red light, especially when there is little to no cross traffic justifying the red, is very frustrating; pausing briefly while somebody makes a turn is another matter.

The author also seems to dislike crossing islands and feels narrowing the road would remove the need for them. I suspect many people in our region are poisoned against crossing islands by the utter garbage that gets built here. In fact a narrow two lane road still needs a crossing island.

While it's fun to read between the lines, I support the proposal, but given the portion of Keats with a center median I suspect some of it would have to wait for a complete rebuild. It could maybe be done from westmount to Fisher Hallman to start.

But I don't know when Keats way is scheduled for work and it's unlikely to happen before then.

Agreed about crossing islands. Imagine a 3-lane road with the outer 2 lanes for motor traffic and the middle lane not a lane but instead a continuous crossing island (maybe except for some judiciously placed turn lanes; or not, depending on circumstances). You couldn’t ask for an easier-to-cross road.

Years ago, Keats Way was simply a 2-lane road with the width of a 4-lane road. Then the City proposed a project to install a median and make various related changes, including narrowings and other traffic-calming measures (although presumably not speed bumps, inasmuch as it is main road for the area). As far as I knew, it was ready for construction; but then instead they just installed a couple of islands here and there and did the rest with paint. I would probably start by digging up the plans from that time and asking why they weren’t implemented.