10-15-2018, 04:14 PM
(10-15-2018, 03:46 PM)KevinL Wrote: Sorry, Xiaoming, but I must disagree harshly. Overpasses and underpasses are a concession to traffic, to give up the road to the use of cars only. They place an undue burden on the pedestrian to climb the grade difference to simply get across a street, and are very unfair to anyone using wheels (whether disabled, pushing a stroller, or managing a shopping trolley).
One need only look at the abject failure of Portage and Main in Winnipeg to see how unsuccessful such a design can be.
Done right overpasses can help pedestrians. If using them is easier than staying on the surface (and not just because the surface has massive fences blocking access), they are helpful and people will use them. But that requires long ramps as somebody else pointed out, and the ramps can’t switch back and forth; they have to be part of approaching the intersection. In other locations, they can connect directly into buildings. So I don’t think it’s appropriate to characterize overpasses as always being bad for pedestrians, but clearly in many situations they are. In particular, I don’t see how it could be done at University and King without building an enormous structure. It would have to be something like a flat “ramp” from Hazel and University, then long actual ramps leading down away from the intersection on both sides of every approach — a total of 8 substantial approach structures, together with a large square, “X”, or circular structure over the intersection itself. Not feasible.