Trails

[danbrotherston]

The east side of Lawrence seems to have a large enough boulevard for the sidewalk to be 'trailized'.

There definitely is enough space, but the region would definitely refuse to do this. I haven't measured it, but just a cursory look shows that would likely exceed the allowed driveway density for a MUT. And given that they are commercial driveways rather than residential single family home driveways, I'd probably even agree with regional staff that there is some risk here (even though I still think their metric is utter shit). I do think a MUT would still be better than what is there now, but regional staff seem to feel that "doing nothing" absolves them of liability for the more dangerous situation they allow to persist.

Of course, the region would never consider mitigations like narrowing the driveway and making it right in right out (which would eliminate the need for four lanes on Lawrence). The driveway to the parking lot at my daughters school (which is shared with the shopping plaza) is only 5.5 m wide at the neck. It is also right in right out. And I'm sure someone will question this, a large tractor trailer delivery vehicle navigated the entrance during school drop off this morning, so it is not actually a real problem.

By comparison the driveway on Lawrence is almost 12 meters wide, and isn't actually used by large delivery vehicles (they access in the back, where there are two more driveways).

Of course, narrowing it like this requires that drivers actually co-operate to allow larger vehicles (*cough* too many vehicles in NA) to actually enter and exit the driveway, and if it's one thing that our car culture is known for, it's polite co-operation between drivers..../s