April 28, 2014

The New Point Grey Road – 16: All Inclusive

A street for everyone:

.

Wheelchair

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  1. Pictured here is Point Grey Road West of Macdonald, closed to commuter motorists as through traffic: now the Shared Road, which includes those with and without disabilities. This is also the block of Point Grey Road (just East of Alma) that Nelson Skalbania opposes as closed (with the separated bikelane preventing Westbound car traffic); able-bodied Nelson wants to deny access to the road for the disabled person pictured above so that Nelson can drive from his home only 2 blocks rather than 4 to his tennis club. I guess Nelson, and the other naysayers, expect to be able-bodied forever, and never-mind those in the city who are not so fortunate.

  2. I think the wheelchair person is only on the road because of the all the ups and downs caused by the driveways along the sidewalk of Point Grey Road.

  3. “Guest”: and now that the commuter motorist traffic has been removed from Point Grey Road, this person in a mobile chair does not have to contend with “all the ups and downs caused by the driveways along the sidewalk.” I could not be happier for this person. How about you?

  4. Susan, you’re right about the aggravating cross slope of driveways but shared space is dangerous. There is too little study on the dynamics of “shared space” and how it impacts people of varying disabilities. As person with a disability and someone who has studied active transportation networks, I worry that this could become another trendy idea that fails to embed the needs and preferences of people with disabilities from the outset.

    1. If I understood you correctly: Your objection is in fact that there is “too little” studies because those ones overwhelmingly conclude that shared space are safe and solutions exist for shared space to safely include people with disability?

      First generation shared spaces(not the trend of the day, but the use of the street as have been for millenias) were effectively hostile to visual impaired people, but nowadays solution exists (such as delineator, sloppy surface… ) and are deployed in the later shared space generation to safely include them.

      I guess you were mainly speaking of visual impaired people…. Susan demonstrated, shared space improve the life of people with mobility issues: there is good reasons why shared space are very popular…

  5. As a regular bike commuter on Pt. Grey Road for the past two months I’ve seen other disabled people in motorized wheelchairs and scooters. I see no problem accommodating them within the shared roadway. They take up less space and are more predictable in their trajectory than the many young children and parents riding side by side along the route.

    The sheer width of the roadway is of great benefit. Last week I recall a moment when vehicles on Pt. Grey were 6 abreast: a parked SUV at the curb, a 4 year old passing by on a little bike, father by his side on a mountain bike pulling a trailer, me on my commuter bike passing both of them and two members of the Lycra crowd heading the other way deep in conversation.

    I see moving cars every time I use Pt. Grey but there are rarely any conflicts over the space. The section pictured above is a notable exception. Bikes usually stick to the eastbound lane and so cars are occasionally obliged to travel under the speed limit for a whole block. Oh the horror!

    Where I see the most car/bike conflict is Pt. Grey between Alma and Wallace. The number of cars is relatively high as are the number making turns and the number of drivers so focused on finding a parking spot that they don’t pay enough attention to the road. At Highbury a designated bike route meets a separated bike path in an intersection that also features the entrance to a parking lot. It’s all a bit messy and people often seem confused as to who should have the right of way. On Tuesday I had a frustrated BMW driver gun it out of the RVYC parking lot right in front of me. The day before that I saw another BMW driver almost get a new blood red paint job when he turned across the Hornby Street bike lane without looking. Fortunately such incidents are so rare that I can recall each one.

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