So Thursday afternoon I went to St. Mary's Episcopal Church at LO and Tudor to see what was going on.
I talked to a traffic engineer about the conflict when pedestrians "walk" signs and cars turning right both had a green light at the same time. It seemed to me this was a design problem. First he said he didn't think that happened, but he would look. Then he got rather agitated and said a problem for traffic engineers was that people didn't do what they were supposed to do. He said there was a sign saying to give pedestrians the right of way. Well, yes, but when you are driving to an intersection and you have a green light, you might not happen to see such a sign any more than you might not see a pedestrian. Especially when there are two right turn lanes and the pedestrians
can be hidden by the car in the far right lane. He went back to saying that you can't account for human behavior. I did suggest again it was a design flaw to give two conflicting users a green light at the same time. Why not a red right turn arrow when the "Walk" sign is lit? Or a pedestrian overpass?
This picture from the Project website doesn't show it, but the new design will have pedestrian islands which should help a little bit. Also, this turns out to be DOWL's site and Mr. Kim (below) isn't even mentioned.
Mr. Chong Kim, the project manager from the State was much better at listening and responding without complaining about human behavior. He seemed much more responsive and less defensive.
As I drove past the corner on the way to another meeting, I watched someone with a bike who had a "Walk" sign, repeatedly have cars turn right in front of him and not letting him cross the street. I also saw the construction equipment already there, ready to start work tomorrow.
Here are the contact numbers if people have any questions or concerns.
Source:- whatdoino-steve
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