Comment 116477

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted February 09, 2016 at 11:13:35

It's not clear if they even considered reallocating some of the street allowance to sidewalk from the vehicle lanes. There is certainly lots of space available with four lanes and a turning lane at the intersection. And this wouldn't impact Auchmar at all.

According to google maps the vehicle lanes total about 17.2 m. That would allow for two 3m lanes and two 3.5m lanes at the curb (to allow for snow to be plowed to the side) and still leave 4.2 m for a sidewalk (say a 2 m sidewalk and 2.2m buffer)! In fact you might even be able to keep a 3m turning lane at the intersection where the road is a bit wider.

The street is narrower, about 12.4m, near west 2nd, but that would still allow for one 1.5m sidewalk and three 3.6m lanes. Or the sidewalk could just be put where the desire paths are now except in front of Auchmar.

It shouldn't be a problem to put the sidewalk on part of what is now vehicle lanes ... and it would cost nowhere near $2 million dollars! (Barrie quotes the cost of a 1.5m concrete sidewalk at $144 per metre on both sides of a new road ... or about $72 per metre

http://www.barrie.ca/assets/engineering/...

$2 million is about 28km of sidewalk! This 250m stretch should cost something like $18000 if it were new construction. It might indeed be more expensive on an existing road, but not that much more.)

But even if we had to lose the lane, shouldn't the response be: "there is not enough space for four or five lanes of traffic here", not "there is not enough space for a sidewalk".

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2016-02-09 11:46:08

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