Posted on 10/02/2012 3:05:35 AM PDT by Lonely Bull
Despite lingering controversy, a busy stretch of Arastradero Road in Palo Alto will remain three lanes of traffic indefinitely, the city council decided Monday night.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
"I had one neighbor who commented that it takes her about 10 minutes extra to get out of Barron Park by car onto Arastradero," resident Kathryn Latour, a former bicycle safety chair at Terman Middle School and Gunn High School, told the city council.
"And I thought, 'Ten minutes extra commute for a car? That's worth it. That's worth it to have it be safer for our biking children.'"
Does it really come down to one or the other? (Remember, Liberals Appreciate Nuance.) At least it's nice to know that "will someone please think of the children?" has found itself a welcoming home.
Back in the late ‘70s, when I took drivers’ ed, the instructor had warned us that Massachusetts still had some three lane roads ... with stretches of DASHED LINES ON BOTH SIDES of the middle lane. He called that the suicide lane. I think they are long gone, now.
“Back in the late ‘70s, when I took drivers’ ed, the instructor had warned us that Massachusetts still had some three lane roads ... with stretches of DASHED LINES ON BOTH SIDES of the middle lane. He called that the suicide lane. I think they are long gone, now.”
No kidding - I saw a couple of those a while ago. I don’t think this is the case there - more likely it was built as a 4 lane road (maybe with a center left turn lane), but without room for bike lanes. Easy solution, for them, is to make it 3 lanes, with two bike lanes, and a center lane only for left turns. You wind up with 3 wider lanes - of course half the capacity, but who’s counting.
Just looked at Google Maps - yep, I was right, but it’s even worse, as the middle lane has islands all through it. The bike lanes are pretty narrow, so I suspect the road was simply 4 lanes and the bicycles had to ride in a traffic lane. Poor babies. How much did they pay in gas taxes last year?
Sure, 10 minutes isn’t too long. But if you’re one of the lucky ones in CA still with a job, that’s 10 minutes each way from work, or 100 minutes a week, or at least 70 hours per year that was just STOLEN from every driver with a similar route.
So who compensates them?
(Rhetorical question. I realize you’re not supporting those leftists)
Southern California had a number of roads like that in the 1950's, including Whittier Boulevard as it went through Whittier, but they have long since vanished.
That whole exchange about the crowded road being “safe for our biking children” doesn’t make any sense at all. How is a road full of too many cars, and drivers who are frustrated (and maybe making rash moves they wouldn’t normally make to try to get around the traffic) add up to increased child safety?
It seems to me that widening the road so that traffic would flow more easily would be safer for everyone.
But... this *is* California, and it has not been my experience that a lot of thought goes into planning. (Yep, despite my current address, I am a Californian.)
WISCONSON should have been Wisconsin!
In present-day France they call those Route Nationale. Ah, the irony...
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