07-24-2016, 01:37 PM
(07-24-2016, 09:46 AM)Canard Wrote: Whoah whoa! Sorry - I certainly didn't mean to sound like I was criticizing your idea. I guess I was, though - I was just saying that I don't think it's a good idea (and the rail safety folks I'm sure would agree) to have a pedestrian path between two lanes of train tracks, with trains going by at 80 km/h. At the very least, you'll need 1.5 m fences on both sides (so you'll be walking in a "tunnel" of fences - imagine the safety concerns there at night? Would you feel safe?) and if it's running from either side of the bridge that's like a half a kilometre span with no breaks. And you can't just put a pedestrian crosswalk anywhere on Northfield - it'll have to run as a narrow fenced path from the railway crossing at the Northfield station (a pedestrian crosswalk is going here) probably over to Colby Drive.
As for it being "more safe" than walking on a sidewalk on an overpass on a posted 60 km/h road... I don't buy that either. I've never felt unsafe walking on the wide sidewalks on Frederick where it crosses the Conestoga Parkway and that's about the same thing.
...unless I'm totally misunderstanding your proposal?
From your diagram it appears you understand it just fine, with the slight caveat that Kumpf is supposed to be right-in/right-out so the end of the setup would actually be at the Spur Line crossing, although I haven’t worked out the exact details where the LRT line turns the corner. Presumably the centre-of-road path would cross the southbound LRT track where it curves. It might also branch to also continue between the two LRT tracks across the eastbound traffic on Northfield and down to the LRT platform.
I don’t see why you think substantial fences would be needed. If a railing is enough at the edge of the bridge then it should be sufficient to separate from an LRT lane, especially given the total absence of any desire lines crossing the tracks.
I have to give you points though — you’ve already thought about my idea way more than any Regional staff ever did (apparently).