06-02-2016, 09:01 AM
(06-02-2016, 07:47 AM).jamincan. Wrote: What about an alternative that sees Erb become a 4-lane arterial with no bike lanes, but then Bridgeport becomes a 2 lane local collector with fully protected bike facilities? People wouldn't like their front yards becoming smaller, but that didn't stop them from expanding Columbia. I personally would favour the 2+1 + bike lane configuration for both roads, but this might be a solution that motorists might be able to live with.
This is a reasonable alternative as is two-lanes eastbound one-lane westbound on Erb St. E. Another one is two-lanes eastbound on Erb a tree line and then a nice and generous MUT on Erb.
Anybody who has been paying attention here knows that I'm a strong proponent of pedestrian oriented streets. I supported open streets on King, I've favoured making (Up|Down)town King a pedestrian zone, I support LRT, I suggested turning Gaukel into a park long ago (which CoK has recently suggested too), etc. So the fact that I'm so strongly against this one cannot be dismissed as simply a motorist complaining.
Lastly while it is true that a better configured merge from two lanes into one would speed up things somewhat, even an unrealistic factor of two improvement would still leave us with a significantly slower connection to the highway.