Here is a rendering from the city showing what the refuge crossing at 5th Street and Euclid could look like if it was upgraded for bikes. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)
Below is what it looks like today.
Lastly, if you missed the presentation about upgrading the Third Street and University Bicycle Boulevard, you can learn more about it and download the draft plans here.
No carz allowed. I wish.
zz worries that Euclid will be a problem because of the added bicycle traffic. Perhaps but how would that problem manifest itself? Backed up cars on Euclid during peak hours? Not a whole lot different than what we already experience on 6th St because of the not so cleverly placed HAWK crossing at 2nd Avenue.
In general traffic control in this particular corner of WUNA is hodge podge and lacks integration. The blocked off entrances at 1st and 2nd Avenues combined with the 5th St right out only and the speed humps makes this a tough place to be in a car or on a bike twice a day during the TUSD school year. The sublimated traffic squeezing north up 1st Avenue to zoom across University poses a problem for bicyclists on the boulevard and within the neighbourhood. Factor in some lumbering busses and it really gets bad. Personally I would welcome some additional input and funding to try and deal with this twice daily hour long problem. An alternate 5th St bike route might well provide some of those resources.
It’s hard to know what people will do but the addition of 700 plus residents at 5th St and 5th Avenue in the currently under construction District at UA building might well warrant additional bicycle infrastructure. I don’t see these new residents paying for parking twice, once at the District and again on Campus. I think more than a few of them will use bicycles.
I really think the traffic conflicts will be at 4th Avenue and 5th St. Cars searching for parking and Brooklyn Pizza makes this corner a meandery mess. It’s the hardest street in West U for me to cross on a bike.
Over the past five years, the residents in the area and WUNA have sought solutions for the traffic situation on 5th St. The bollards (skinny black & white poles) on 1st and 2nd Aves. to block cars from 6th St. turning up those streets were installed. And although that installation brought on problems elsewhere, that was it. Nothing more has been done. I’m not very hopeful about the resources the city might bring with it for creating the bike route on 5th. It seems maybe creating congestion is their best answer for a bad traffic situation.
The city is aware of the pros and cons associated with whatever projects it wants to do. It powerpoints the pros and sets the residents and users up to be the eternal doom-sayers and curmudgeons. I’m not the professional. It might be good to hear from the bike/ped coordinator how he thinks the problems associated with several dozen to a few hundred bikes crossing Euclid at 5th St. daily in an uncontrolled setting might manifest themselves.
Me too, Straw. Cars and peds seem to have the hardest time with each other at the 5th St. intersection. Could be a sight problem for cars coming up from 6th.