In article <
[email protected]>,
[email protected] wrote:
> On Jun 12, 3:05 pm, "Graham Harrison"
>
> > I second *all* of that. The Warrington site is a gem. I would go so far
> > as to say I am also a definite "anti" of cycle facilities. I particularly
> > abhor facilities shared with pedestrians because I believe that (a) it puts
> > them at significant risk and (b) it means I have to slow down.
>
> That's pretty short-sighted. A well-designed MUP can drastically
> reduce or eliminate street intersections. This means a
> transportational cyclist can shorten travel times using the MUP
> instead of adjacent streets, even if the MUP is well-used by
> pedestrians and even if the peds have the right-of-way.
Thinking of the MUPs I know of in this region, this seems a bit of a
fantasy.
On occasion, geography allows for a nice MUP that has fewer intersection
crossings than the main road, but at some point you might as well just
do what Vancouver has done for lots of its bike routes: mark a quiet
street that parallels a major thoroughfare as a bike route, and then put
up "only bikes may pass" access barriers at a few intersections, add
priority cyclist walk-buttons at the lit intersections, and generally
make it easy for cyclists and meandering for cars.
Thinking about my own commute, I actually do use a single MUP, though in
fairness I'm not quite sure it's designated as such. It's a wide paved
path through a park that doesn't have any "no bikes" signage, but is
mostly used by pedestrians.
It saves me a bit of time by being part of a diagonal shortcut through
the park, which also cuts a small hill and a tedious right turn (as in
wait for a lot of traffic on the road I'm turning onto) out of my route.
The MUP part is 200m, I'd guess.
I'm also aware of one recreational MUP that works quite well for
cyclists. It's a virtual road to nowhere about 10 km long. The reason it
works is because the walkers virtually disappear after the first
kilometre or two, leaving the last 8 km of this out-and-back to the
cyclists and a very occasional rollerblader.
Seymour Valley Trailway:
http://www.gvrd.bc.ca/water/recreational.htm
But as transportation, I would merely say that while a good MUP is
conceivable, the majority are so unsuitable that any route intended for
bike travel (as opposed to mere recreation, and that only at rather slow
speeds) should probably not be a MUP. There will be exceptions, but they
are, ahem, exceptional.
--
Ryan Cousineau
[email protected] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos