What happened? The planners forgot what they were doing. They forgot the purpose of the road. To "bypass" Langley.
Often there will be a visionary who will present a great idea like a "bypass road" if it remains true to its vision it works well. BUT somebody always wants to make plans work for their own interests. The land owners won't make as much money selling farmland as they would selling land with potential for "retail development"... so they lobby government to change the zoning. If the city / municipality doesn't have a zoning plan (or doesn't stick to the plan) "good luck". If we could stay "on vision" we would have roads that performed their designed function well, instead of doing a mediocre job of many contradictory functions.
Freeways work so very well because they are "limited access" (You can only get on or off at certain points), because they have no "at level" intersections (meaning the traffic can carry on at speed despite the presence of other roads crossing), and they are built to a very consistent standard (meaning the road is predictable in signage and design). Can you imagine if Freeways started having pedestrian crosswalks installed? or if a business was forced to have their driveway onto the freeway? It's the wrong road for those purposes.
We need to classify our roads, and we need to build them to meet their function, and protect them from those who would dilute their function.
From my limited experience I'm familiear with the following types of roads;
- Residential
- Collectors
- Non-Commercial Arterial
- Commercial Arterial
- Limited Access
- Highways
- Service
You look for a Residential street when you are ready to buy your first house and you are ready to settle down and have children, you want to avoid a "busy street". You are essentially choosing to avoid living on a "collector" or "arterial" road. A road fit for the purpose of living on.
Collector roads have more traffic and bring folks in from residential areas to the higher speed roads that actually go someplace.
Non-commercial Arterial roads are urban roads that act as the main routes for carrying traffic through a city. Their focus is on the efficient flow of traffic through a city. If you want to go somewhere quickly get on a non-commercial arterial road.
Commercial arterial roads provide easy access to businesses, with mini malls, mom and pop shops, big box stores and any number of opportunities to stop your car and spend your money. The flow of traffic is less efficient because of the abundant access to businesses. If you want to buy something get on a commercial arterial road.
Limited access roads such as free-ways, seriously limit where traffic can get on or off, which makes for very efficient travel on these roads. This is why the freeway moves so well, there is little turbulence from new traffic entering, and in this case, no interference to the flow of traffic caused by traffic lights. I remember a number of years ago, the embarassment that was expressed in North Vancouver, that they had the only traffic light on the transcanada highway. (It isn't true, there are traffic lights along the highway in towns like Golden BC or Revelstoke BC, but perhaps North Van was the last in a developed urban area.
Highways allow for travelling further, without significant business or residential access, but they often do allow more access to collector roads.
Service roads provide a unique function with highways. Where highways come into town (like in Rocky Mountain House AB) "service roads" are employed to provide access to businesses such that the function of the highway isn't impaired by the business access. Its a smart idea.
Understanding why Business Frontage is only of benefit sometimes
When a motorist wants to get from point A to point B in a timely manner, Business frontage or access on the streets the motorist drives on, has no advantage for the motorist or the business owner. For the business owner, he is NOT a potential customer. For the motorist, the buesiness access just slows things down by congesting traffic and introducing more traffic lights where he needs to wait on his trip. So a word of wisdom to the cities and municipalities that consider introducing commercial development on non-commercial arterial roads. Don't. The old fashioned idea that business frontage is good for property value and taxes does not hold on these roads. It is a compromise of the road's primary purpose which is to move traffic efficiently. That thinking only holds when you are considering a commercial arterial road. In Abbotsford, there is an commercial arterial road called "South Fraser Way" which has shopping malls and auto centres, and strip malls, and car dealerships, and it is a place where people go to buy things. Maclure is a non-commercial arterial road in Abbotsford which stretches almost the entire length of the city, with almost no commercial at all. It is limited access (every 1/2 mile or so, rather than every block) and it is 2 lanes with a median. It is the most efficient road in Abbotsford for travelling across town and a testament to the prior city leaders who had the vision for a road with no drive-ways.
The different types of roads above look different. residential and collector are likely to have sidewalks, arterial might, but limited access, highways and service are unlikely to have sidewalks. Speed limits are different too. A commercial arterial road should have lower speed limits than a non-commercial arterial road that is limited access.
I see anomolies. Perhaps someone is working on our behalf to keep things simple, but in our cities, a standard speed limit of 50 Km/h applies unless it is otherwise posted. South Fraser way is a major 2-3 laned commercial road with a speed limit of 50, and my small dead end residential road full of young families with children has no posted limit meaning that it's limit is also 50. This does not make sense. Perhaps there should be a sliding scale based on road classification;
- Residential 40 KM/H
- Collector 50 KM/H
- Non-Commercial Arterial 60 KM/H
- Limited Access 70-100 KM/H
Now I'll introduce you to a radical idea of which I am quite an advocate... Ready? Roads are for driving on. They exist only to move people from place to place. They are not for parking or any other purpose. They are to provide space for people to move from one location to the next. With the context of this truly revolutionary idea the next points will fall into line.
The idea of allowing car parking on roads is silly. Regardless of what has happened in the past, why do we need to build roads 4 lanes wide just because somebody decided to leave their car "out" on the street? We see car parking on some commercial. arterial and collector roads as well as residential. The idea that people view this as a right rather than a privilege, that people don’t consider whether they have space to park a car before they buy one is bizarre. Since the roads are built with your tax dollars, and you are forced to go work to earn that money I think this should be a point that is dear to you. In progressive countries like Japan, you need to prove that you have room to park your vehicle before you are allowed to purchase one. (Smart)
In Canada we have very wide lanes. Our lanes are much wider than our vehicles. Most vehicles will have an extra 1-2 meters of space beside them in their lane. Its hard to estimate exact distances while driving on the freeway, and no I'm not walking out there with a tape measure. We also (at least in the lower mainland of BC) have this annoying habit of making roads wide enough for 2 lanes and then not putting lane markings on them. So where you could safely have people passing each other allowing for a smoother flow of traffic, you have this ambiguity.
Or there might be times where you want to restrict people from passing to make a safer stretch of road, or where you could have a bike lane that is then swept clean where bikes would be safe to travel with less interference from cars. Often there is just a single lane and then there are 2 lanes, with no sign or warning. the dotted lines come out of nowhere, making the road and the traffic on the road unpredictable and therefore less safe. Plus if you need to increase the capacity of a road, a can of paint is a pretty cheap way to improve your road’s carrying capacity.
So this post feels like a plane circling in the air looking for a place to land, and I think it will have to be a work in progress. It holds some examples of the need for design, but isn't really a comprehensive treatment... yet.
Share your ideas in the comments below.
Greg.
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