Existing above, proposed below: Note buffer, wider sidewalk, narrower auto travel lanes |
Commercial Street and Buffered Bike Lanes - Alternative 1
Commercial Street by Fred Meyer |
- Reduces most auto travel lanes from 14 feet to 11 feet. Thumbs up!
- Expands sidewalk width and adds room for street trees. Thumbs up!
- Add buffer to bike lane, total width from 7 to 9 feet. A little meh, actually.
More than this, though, because of the vastness of Commercial here, I'm not sure that buffers without barriers will help infrequent, young, or inexperienced people on bike. The buffers will help those of us who already bike on Commercial, but I don't think the treatment will be strong enough to attract "interested and concerned" people on bike. This would be a marginal, incremental improvement, not a game-changer.
It's important because family-friendly bike boulevard concepts skirt the area, largely paralleling Commercial, and don't help so much if you want to shop or run errands on Commercial.
Alternative 2 through Commercial leaves the bike lanes intact and instead just widens the sidewalk. This seems like it's missing the point.
The sidewalks relate to setbacks: empty grass and parking lots |
The sidewalks are empty here.
Making them wider, with room for "furniture," is just making bigger ornamental nothingnesses. Wider sidewalks would only make sense if there were buildings and businesses adjacent to them. The problem is zooming traffic and creating separation from it, not that the sidewalks aren't wide enough to serve a latent demand for more walking space. Without moving buildings to the sidewalk, wider sidewalks by themselves aren't helpful.
The AARP on Sidewalks (via NACTO) |
The most interesting and surprising element in the draft recommendations? An alternative to shift the northbound Liberty-Commercial junction from Vista to Ratcliff/Salem Heights.
This might solve two problems! Missing bike lanes on part of Liberty and a signalized crosswalk at Ratcliff |
- It would clear one northbound lane on Liberty between Salem Heights and Vista
- But this apparently gains only 5-foot bike lanes, which is narrower than our 6-foot standard.
- It leaves four auto travel lanes south of Salem Height to Browning, so the bike lanes would get dropped, and this wouldn't actually complete a gap.
- A different alternative shows sidewalks on this part of Liberty widened to a multi-use path standard.
- It's also hard to see how just a stop sign works at Vista and Commercial. The crosswalk needs to be retained, so it seems like that intersection still needs to be signalized.
(The intersection at Alice/Fairview itself will probably deserve a post of its own. Link added 4/10.)
Flashing Beacons and more Crosswalks
A flashing beacon and crosswalk between Ventis and Lifesource at Waldo |
All the reasons for the beacons and crosswalks in a nutshell These should be a no-brainer |
There will be an Open House on Thursday, April 23rd as well as a prior Stakeholder Advisory Committee meeting on Wednesday the 15th.
For all notes on the Commercial Vista Corridor Study see here.
1 comment:
Inserted an additional bit on sidewalk widening and why it may not be very functional here.
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