06-22-2021, 09:45 PM
(06-22-2021, 09:16 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:(06-22-2021, 02:12 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: If the region considered people, not cars, the intersection of University and the Laurel Trail would get an F for its LOS and would be the most congested intersection in the city.
If you can find the right way to say this at a delegation you will make heads explode.
Not saying anybody will actually change, but definitely some cognitive dissonance will ensue.
Excellent framing though regardless. My solution is actually to extend the twinned paths all the way up to and across University and even past that up to the next crossing, with the bike path turning across the tracks and ending at Ring Road. That would mean that at University you would have a path, LRT tracks, bike path, and pedestrian path, in that order from west to east, crossing the road. Add in some slight redesign of what is existing (note to engineers, who should not need this pointed out if they really learned anything in school: paths need to get wider at intersections for reasons that are similar although not identical to the reasons why roads have to be at least a bit wider at intersections), and it should be possible to deal with the crowds effectively.
I'm not sure exactly that has been said, it is definitely a unique framing.
The frustrating thing is most of it has already been rebuilt, with no planning to meet current capacity, let along future capacity. I don't think necessarily twinned infra is needed, that worked really well through the park because the one pathway is filled with strolling park users, who stop to look at the animals, while the other functions as a through route. That was the justification used to get the twinning supported by council. The other sections are merely seeing a capacity issue which could be solved simply by separating users.
Many bike paths in the Netherlands have a 3 meter bi-directional bike path with a 1.8m sidewalk separated by material, that is plenty. Frustratingly, we even had this in the city on Westmount north of Northfield (where it wasn't really needed) but for some reason, they removed it. I think this is optimal, it makes a trail for all users, but separates them enough that all can be comfortable, and peds can use the cycling space as needed when passing other groups.