Comment 52862

By Pxtl (registered) - website | Posted December 09, 2010 at 10:42:44

@Kate

They could put in a push-button that gives a no-left-turn window for the pedestrians to cross, or converts the left arrow into a flashing yellow, or put up a warning for drivers, or something rather than simply shirking the problem with a dead crossing. Again, I've said it before: if the city wants to run expressways through the heart of town, it has a responsibility not to cheap out on it. If the one-way network has created an unsafe crossing, then the solution is not simply to remove the crossing but to secure it. If Locke or King were 2-way, that left-turn wouldn't be blind. Notice how the LRT will fix the problem, since it sounds like they're going to run it on the South side... this means that Lock St. drivers will have to pull into the intersection (and thus not be blind) before they can turn left.

We can always see the logic here... the frustrating fact though is that this city is filled with incredibly creative solutions for vehicular traffic, but when it comes to pedestrian traffic their solution is simply "don't cross here".

I can totally understand why there's no crossing at the West side of King and Dundurn. It makes perfect sense - you have drivers filtering onto the bridge from 3 directions all the time, including the painfully overcrowded Dundurn. Fine. I disagree with some of the logic, but I can see where they're coming from. But the city shouldn't throw up their hands and say "screw you, pedestrians". The city should be coming up with a solution, like adding a push-button signalized crossing at Bredalbane (taking pedestrians directly to the pedestrian-friendly part of the Fortinos plaza, rather than across the parking lot) or at the 403 Eastbound ramp (so you could protect pedestrians necessarily crossing the ramp where drivers are going at highway speeds and you have to play a game of "guess which lane the oncoming driver is going to be in"). Hell, we're talking about creative solutions to traffic and uncreative solutions to pedestrians: here's a creative one: 3 crosswalks, 1 red light. Make use of this 1-way mayhem in a positive way. Put a crosswalk across the King St. bridge at the Eastbound ramp, a crosswalk across the ramp itself, and a push-button at each end of those. Any of those buttons gives you a red over the Breadalbane crossing. Boom. Ainsliewood and Bredalbane pedestrians get access to the Cricket park on the overflow tank, Fortinos plaza, etc. with one red light.

To me, the problem with the crossings is self-perpetuating. The city doesn't bother with crossings because it's not worth the time to slow a hundred or a thousand drivers for one hypothetical occasional pedestrian... but at the same time, that means that pedestrians will avoid the crossing (or even the area) and so there will never be more than one occasional pedestrian rather than it being a normal pedestrian pathway.

If the city wants to create these high-speed corridors for drivers... well, that's their decision, and we obviously seem outvoted on stopping them. However, that means the city can't just tell pedestrians "go somewhere else".

Comment edited by Pxtl on 2010-12-09 09:53:53

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