Does anyone enjoy navigating through Civic lately? It’s kind of exciting at times, but for all the wrong reasons. Not enough places for pedestrians to cross safely, zebra-crossings at intersections causing the cars to grid-lock. The drivers get cranky and yell at each other and are distracted so they don’t see the idiot running across right in front of them. Chuck in a couple of those rogue cyclists who want free reign over both sides of the road and both footpaths (oh yeah, and right-of-way on the zebra’s of course) and you have a total nightmare.
Now I know that our answer to every traffic problem is normally to build a roundabout or just stop the cars getting access but there must be some innovative approaches that would work
I’d be interested in views / comments about the idea of setting some streets in the city centre as ‘shared zones’…cars can go at say 10 kph and pedestrians can cross at any point. Add some cobble-stone type street surface to keep the cars going slowly.
For example, a couple of 50-metre long sections along Bunda St between the two shopping centres, or the whole length of Bunda St from Mort St to Akuna St.
Pros: keeps the cars moving, even when relatively busy; pedestrians can cross more easily and safely(?); less noise from cars creeping along rather than racing full-bore from one zebra crossing to the next; keeps the street available to cars.
Cons: a bit painful if you drive through on a quiet Sunday morning; will the tools in their Nissan Sylvia’s, etc, really slow down? Might still need one or two zebra’s for less able pedestrians.
Loading ...
