Not that is has been confirmed that the trolley tracks caused Dennis McKinney to fall in front of a car. what can be done to improve the intersection?

I wouldn’t even say that getting over the tracks right at that spot is the worst part about the intersection… Getting from eastbound or northbound to 4th ave northbound legally and safely is extremely difficult.
But that section is very odd… Why did they make it so the bike lane ends randomly for 50 feet between southbound toole and the turn off to 4th ave? The lanes right there are barely recognizable and I get confused as to what lane the car is in as they approach the intersection.

I am a fan of narrowing roads and slowing traffic. I think it is one of the best ways to ensure safety. But I think that maybe one of the biggest issues is the transition from broadway into congress as well as broadway out of downtown. From euclid through the underpass on broadway it feels like a superhighway. Then suddenly out of no where everything gets jammed into this little narrow downtown street area. A 25mph sign doesn’t help when the road feels like you should be going 55. I find it very hard to transition my brain into downtown driving. I guess that’s why they put all of those lights up there at the entrance to congress, but I still don’t think it helps. It actually just muds things up. I don’t have a solution right now, but those are my cents.

Now that is has been confirmed that the trolley tracks caused Dennis McKinney to fall in front of a car. what can be done to improve the intersection?

My sister in Tx posted this on my FB wall;

I was at the library a little while ago looking at the latest issue of Bicycling magazine – there's an article about a group of Tucson riders that took in a homeless kid and now he's a world class cyclist.

Not sure if you shared this with us or I overlooked 🙂

Mike,

On the WB approach to Congress/Toole/4th Ave, drivers should be traveling no faster than 15 as they're crossing the first traffic signal at Toole. The design speed for turning leftward onto Congress would be no greater than 15 (although at the time it was designed they didn't consider design speed, especially given the constraints there). The design speed for making a thru-right onto Toole NB would also be about 15 because of the curb extension (the curb extension should also be a raised crosswalk). The design speed turning onto NB 4th Ave is probably about 20 at most. At that location, because of the large curb radius (probably 60 + feet), drivers can turn at a pretty high speed onto 4th. Plus for some bizarre reason often when the light is red drivers will sweep right through there at speed as if it's a free right condition.

For each of these conditions, though, many drivers are pushing the speed through there. Although 25 to 30 mph seems low, it's actually quite fast in conditions like this. Driver reaction time and stopping distance is increased, which can make all the difference in the world when someone suddenly becomes tripped up in the tracks and falls to the side.

An elevated speed table before the tracks, and another at the curb extension, will bring drivers down to civilized speeds.

As James noted, when ADOT rebuilt the underpass in the early '90s, because of their use of concrete and wide sweeping lanes people get the feel that they can (and indeed should) drive at 35 to 40 or more mph both approaching and departing the downtown. A completely inappropriate design that the head of City planning has expressed was disastrous. He had tried to get the design modified, unsuccessfully.

Thanks for your continued attention to this issue Mike.