I had lots of fun with my last post, so I'm thinking of doing a running series showing examples of bad transportation design in Calgary. There are so many examples that it's hard to know what to pick, but for this second installment, I only had to step out the door of Fast Forward's office in Ramsay.
The building on the left is the Ramsay Design Centre, where Fast Forward has its office. Red Point Media is also in our building, along with a bunch of other employers. Another building to the east houses iStockphoto. So between these two buildings, there's a lot of employees using that gravel road shown at the end of the sidewalk in the photo. Most of these employees use cars, even though the building's inner-city location makes it ideal for cycling.
You'll notice there's no crosswalk anywhere in sight. So here are your choices if you're a pedestrian and you want to cross 11 Street S.E. Either you've got to jaywalk, sprinting across four lanes of traffic — traffic that often includes concrete trucks and other large vehicles. Or you can walk a block and a half south to the nearest stoplight, cross there, and walk a block and a half north again.
In other words, you can walk three blocks just to cross the street. Or you can illegally run across the street without the protection of a crosswalk. I choose the latter every day.
But it gets better! If I want to walk home from work, I quickly run out of sidewalk. It just ends. Look:
You can't see it super clearly in this photo (another cellphone shot — my apologies), but the sidewalk ends and leaves pedestrians stranded. There's a sidewalk on the other side of the street, but since there's no crosswalk, you have to gamble in traffic again. At 5 p.m. when all four lanes are humming with vehicles, it's not exactly easy to cross safely.
And what about cycling? Is that a choice here? I bike here almost every day, and it's terrible. Because there are four lanes many people drive faster than 50 kilometres per hour. And there's no shoulder. It's dangerous. I ride it anyway, but it's dangerous.
11 Street S.E. was built for vehicles and excludes everyone else. This is what traditional developers call "choice."
Comments: 6
critninja wrote:
i ride along this road to get to the crossroads market (from the river) and it is not very bike-friendly. the problem is that there is no other good option going north/south through this area.
on this road, i find that it is safer to take as much lane as you can so that cars can see you and it also forces them to either change lanes or slow down. if you hug the curb motorists think they can squeeze by you, and they will. i know it seems counter-intuitive but you are better off riding 2-3 feet away from the curb than hugging it.
remember, you are legally entitled to a full lane when on your bike. dont be afraid to take as much space as you need to feel safe.
on Jun 11th, 2009 at 9:24am Report Abuse
Jeremy Klaszus wrote:
I often joke that I'll probably die on that road, but I'm only partly joking...
on Jun 11th, 2009 at 2pm Report Abuse
James_H wrote:
I think it's quite entertaing to walk/run down the side of the road whenever the sidewalk stops, which is not unsual when I go for a walk. Nobody ever seems pissed off at me for it, and I've never felt in more danger in doing that than any other dealings with the road.
on Jun 13th, 2009 at 8:57pm Report Abuse
DollFurious wrote:
on Jun 16th, 2009 at 11:50am Report Abuse
mouthy wrote:
on Jun 17th, 2009 at 2:19pm Report Abuse
appleman wrote:
At the same time, greater awareness of these issues is important & we need to let city hall know that it is not too late for Calgary to move towards a greener design!
on Jun 18th, 2009 at 10:18am Report Abuse
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