10-24-2017, 09:54 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-24-2017, 09:54 AM by danbrotherston.)
(10-24-2017, 08:44 AM)jamincan Wrote: I strongly support MUTs when they're in their own right-of-ways, like the Spur Line, Iron Horse, Walter Bean etc. I wish that the network would be expanded and be designed to be a bit more useful as well - there are some very notable missing links. I don't feel it's the best choice alongside an existing street, though, when segregation of all road users is an option.
Segregating all users is always an option, a MUT can be a sidewalk plus a bike path just as easily away from the road as it could be next to the road.
We don't do so here primarily for reasons of cost, lack of vision, and really, lack of need, many of our sidewalks and bike paths aren't heavily used enough to make ped/cyclist conflicts a major issue.
The irony is that the Spur Line Trail and the Iron Horse Trail are the two major exceptions in the case of need, and yet despite substantial advocacy during the IHT improvement plan, this segregation was not done, although in Waterloo Park this will be done in the upgrades that are currently in progress.
But on a road like this, there would be so few pedestrians (and cyclists) that segregation is unnecessary. Even in the Netherlands, where bike paths are often separate from sidewalks, in rural or suburban areas, they're often not, and people just walk on the bike paths.