General Urban Kitchener Updates and Rumours

[danbrotherston]

Turn lanes are an interesting question, I support them in some instances, when they improve safety, but I don't really support them just to improve motor vehicle flow. In some places, realistically, they are needed, but in other places, especially downtown like this, the space would be better used for other purposes...then you have the choice between restricting turns (and using camera enforcment to make the restriction legitimate), or just allowing turns and dealing with the reduction in vehicle throughput--basically it's one more form of traffic calming, which again I don't see as a bad thing (I am after all a "soldier" in this entirely real and totally not made up "war on cars").

Turn lanes are needed anywhere that there is significant turning traffic, which as far as I’m concerned pretty much means anything busier than the driveway of a house. If they can’t be fit in, turning should be forbidden; it’s more efficient for those turning to perform an alternate maneuver (e.g., 3 right turns around the block) than for the entire road to come to a halt every time somebody wants to turn.

Making the entire street wait for one person to turn left isn’t traffic-calming; it’s destroying the value of the investment in travel lanes. If we’re going to pay for motor vehicle lanes reaching every destination, we should get the value out of that enormous expenditure by making intersection capacity comparable to the capacity of the roads between the intersections.

Also consider this: turn lanes are a form of traffic calming, in that straight-through traffic can smoothly and predictably move past the people waiting to turn, rather than trying to squeeze through unpredictably whenever they can (with the sudden and dangerous changes in velocity associated with this sort of maneuver).

As to your final comment, suggesting that we not build turn lanes so as to slow traffic down to a complete mess with even moderate traffic levels is the exact kind of thing that legitimately makes people think there is a war on the car. It’s not a war on the car to want cars to stay off the sidewalk or to want 2-lane roads instead of 4-lane roads or good separate bicycle infrastructure; but at the point where the goal is just to make using a car as inconvenient as possible whether or not it helps anyone else, you’ve gone beyond bicycle/active transportation/safety advocacy and into just vindictively opposing anything that helps motor vehicle traffic.

Please remember that I am the guy who thinks almost all our 4-lane roads should be 2-lane roads, almost no freeway construction or expansion should be done, freeways should be 100% paid for by tolls, and all our transit routes should run on a 5 minute schedule most of the day. So I’m not a big booster of private vehicle transportation. If I’m saying that a superficially anti-car/pro-bike policy is problematic, you would be well advised to take what I’m saying seriously.

It definitely limits the throughput of the road which discourages more travel, but it will never limit it to zero (or there would no longer be any disincentive). I wouldn't say this "destroys" the value, it changes the value, towards access and away from throughput.

There is zero reason to give drivers the opportunity to "squeeze" through, that type of road design is dangerous, the lanes should simply be 3 meters wide providing no opportunity for squeezing, traffic just waits for a turn. Turn lanes do not provide traffic calming beyond the fact that they may make cars deviate from a straight line, the value of tighter roads with smaller intersections is a far higher traffic calming effect.

I am not being vindictive here, I think you vastly overestimate the "complete mess" that would occur allowing the occasional left turn. Just look at how Westmount Rd. is operating right now between Erb and Glasgow, no right turn lanes, but moderate traffic flows with substantial turns are flowing well...even I'm surprised. The point is that in some cases, I'm arguing turn lanes would only speed a vehicles journey, not make it more convenient, safer, speeding up vehicle travel is not a goal I want prioritized. Turn lanes should only be needed if their lack would actually cause untolerable congestion. I simply don't believe that they do in most cases.

I am actually quite surprised at how well traffic is flowing on Westmount and I have adjusted by beliefs based on that.  I am not accusing you of being pro-car, do not take that opinion, but do not advise me to take you seriously, I do, we are allowed to disagree.