So, on my walk yesterday, I wandered from Bloor and Jane down the very nice Riverside Drive along route to Parkdale, ultimately, via a stop at the Cheese Boutique on Ripley and in High Park.
The new streetscape on Riverside is nice and shows some attention to Vision Zero principles in having a relatively narrow road, bump outs (chicanes), interlocking brick at intersections, and a tree-lined boulevard.
In a previously anomalously wide section, there is also a median.
But there' still some work to be done.... LOL....
But the good stuff first.
Intersection Treatment:
Bump out/Chicane:
Intersection next to a small park, interlock treatment extends entirely along the one side.
Median/Island w/narrow travel lanes in interlock:
For most of Riverside, there is only sidewalk on one side of the road (east side); but on the slope down to South Kingsway, where there are some great views to the west to be had, they sensibly added a sidewalk on that side as well; they also sprung
for a nicer than average railing; but......I know I'm quibbling here, would it have killed them to get it in colour?
So here's the thing that really gets to me..... LOL...........so I'm walking down the nice new sidewalk on the west side, taking pics of the Humber River, the Humber Marshes, the Humber Bay Shores skyline......and I get to the bottom:
Umm.....really? Another 40M of sidewalk to get me to South Kingsway is too much to ask? Its all public land, there's clearly enough room........sigh.
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I didn't take pictures of the next couple bits, so I'll add some Streetview here.
At the bottom of hill, I wanted to cross the road, so I could get to Cheese Boutique over on Ripley:
Notice that there is sidewalk at South Kingsway, making this gap seem even weirder; also they preserved a slip lane, always dangerous to do!
But facing the other way............we see that there is no traffic light or crosswalk to get across the road here, and traffic here can be reasonably heavy and fast:
But I made it across, needless to say (with camera in the bag, hence using Streetview here)...............
And I get to Ripley......and this is what I find:
No sidewalk on either side of the street, cars parked here/there and everywhere, so there is no clear walking path except in the middle of the road.....and w/cars positioned the way they are, sightlines are poor for drivers and pedestrians too ( car stuck out a bit further than another blocks your view of reverse lights/headlights, while it blocks the driver's view of any oncoming traffic pedestrian or otherwise.
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On balance, some progress out here......but much more to be done!
