07-11-2019, 11:51 PM
(07-11-2019, 11:34 AM)plam Wrote: So I met with region staff at Willis Way. They pointed out the design challenges there: putting in the crosswalk at the north end of the platform wouldn't work great because the cars will bunch up from Erb and Caroline. My recollection of that conversation is that their predicted car behaviour is that the cars would just block the crosswalk. The PXO at the south end of Willis Way is there for accessibility reasons, but they expect that most able-bodied people would jaywalk midblock on Caroline to get to/leave the station, which is the behaviour that I've observed.
That explanation makes no sense. The north end of the platform (supposedly too close to Erb and Caroline, would have problems with bunching) is much further from Erb and Caroline than the perfectly OK crossing immediately north of Father David Bauer Drive; and it’s also much further from Erb and Caroline than the perfectly OK crossing at the south end of the platform is from William St.
Also the crossings at both ends of the platform could have had pedestrian refuges if the street had been designed slightly differently. Indeed, even with the exact same right-of-way as existing, if the LRT had been put in the middle the platform itself could serve as the refuge — then crossing to the east would be a matter of crossing one lane of traffic, while crossing to the west would involve crossing one LRT track and one lane of traffic.
I wish I could cross-examine some of these people (not at all the same thing as having a meeting with them, as you did). I bet that out of all the times I’ve declared professionals’ work to be wrong, in about 10% of the cases I would realize that there really was a good reason that was hard to see, and in the other 90% of the cases they would be reduced to blubbering messes by the end. For intersection/traffic design, 3%/97%.