10-01-2021, 03:39 PM
(10-01-2021, 01:44 PM)cherrypark Wrote:(10-01-2021, 07:39 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: Yes, the raised crossing at Patricia. I agree, that I'm glad the city is moving forward, but I find the execution so problematic, as to make the crossing worse than nothing---especially at that location. The ride for cyclists is so harsh I spend more attention ON maintaining balance than I do on the crossing, which is obviously a bad thing. I'm very happy that city staff took critical feedback on that crossing and decided to implement the (much more expensive) level raised crossings. I'm told they even have budget to redo the Patricia crossing properly.
That being said, I'm REALLY impressed they are doing a raised crossing on Glasgow. Initially, they did not put a raised crossing at West because "There's too much traffic" which is like...no, that's where you NEED the raised crossing BECAUSE of the traffic (I rarely ever even encounter a car on Patricia). So I'm very happy to see a reversal on this thinking as well. FWIW, I'd rather see them raise the West crossing than fix the Patricia crossing, but honestly, I'm just nitpicking, staff have really exceeded my expectations here.
As for the Victoria crossing, yeah, it really is poor. It's certainly a challenging one, the region isn't willing to actually make the right choices there, but there are also alignment challenges. I'd say the implementation is quite poor, even outside of the scope of the region, but I don't expect to see it improve in the short term, and I don't think it will change in the medium or long term without staffing changes at the region or a direct instruction from council.
Yeah I really wish both the city and the region could better integrate the grade for cycling infra at road crossings generally. The fact its the same here somehow while being raised was a head scratcher. That or someone setting the design standards has an invested interest in wrist injury therapy. It is bad enough getting from sidewalk to road in a wheelchair or stroller let alone rolling at any appreciable rate of speed on a bike.
The poor design of the raised crossing at Patricia is because of drainage/cost. If they raise the whole roadway, they need to install new storm drains on both sides of the raised section. This is exactly what they will do on future raised crossings but it significantly increases the cost.
I think staff now appreciate that the old cheaper design is so bad as to be worth doing it right.