09-24-2018, 10:49 AM
(09-24-2018, 10:15 AM)tomh009 Wrote: A front-page story in today's Record. Residents think building a separated bike trail is overkill and a waste of money. (If the traffic volume of 95 cars per day in the article is correct they may have a point.) I didn't spot any parking complaints in the article.
https://www.therecord.com/news-story/892...dents-say/
Would a painted bicycle lane be sufficient for a street such as Bedford? Would either two lanes or a single two-way lane fit on the existing street without major reconstruction (while keeping two-way car traffic but not on-street parking)?
My general inclination would be to make Bedford explicitly shared infrastructure. That doesn't work well in places with heavy car traffic, but in a situation like this is seems a reasonable compromise: the residents still get full access to the street and bikes can ride on the street with minimal concern about traffic, and following the train becomes fairly easy. It's one of the few good circumstances I can think of where a bunch of paint on the road could make a difference.
However, in discussing this article with a friend of mine, I came to a personal realization: a MUT or other mechanism to formally include this segment of Bedford into the trail network is also a commitment to maintenance, especially snow-clearing in the winter. It would be quite unpleasant to navigate this section of the trail infrastructure without that commitment, as the very probable outcome is that the street wouldn't get plowed with any degree of priority and it would end up being an icy or slushy mess most of the time, and probably have piles of old snow blocking reasonable trail access anyway.
But with it being explicitly connected to the trail network, there's also an obligation to keep it passable. Whether or not the city does a good job of that is definitely an open question but at least it's explicitly in the books as a trail. Also, a MUT seems like it would be good for the residents since they're going to get sidewalks at some point, and a MUT might be something the city clears for them.
I'm sympathetic to the impact that changing the nature of a neighbourhood has, but given the kinds of changes that are going to come in regardless, being explicitly on the trail network seems like it would have some benefits above and beyond simply getting a sidewalk.