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The new Douglas Street plan (2015) - Hillside through downtown divided lanes


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#21 Mixed365

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Posted 29 April 2015 - 10:43 AM

My first thought was, wait, Douglas? A main arterial? Why not Government st or Fort st. 

Perhaps that was an ill advised thought as I haven't been privy to the previous Douglas st. plans. 

Anyways, I like and respect the creativity and ability to be forward thinkers. 


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#22 Bingo

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Posted 29 April 2015 - 04:56 PM

First of all, if you were to close off Douglas, to just two lanes of traffic, how would that look during rush?  I'm sure not good.

 

 

And wait until the McKenzie Interchange gets built and all of the traffic that comes in the TCH to a bottleneck of two lane traffic on Douglas Street..

So now the question is how to you get all of that TCH traffic over to the inbound lanes on Blanshard...they sure didn't think of that when Uptown was designed.



#23 Jason-L

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Posted 29 April 2015 - 05:14 PM

More evidence to support my theory that the city of Victoria just wants to make it as inconvenient as possible for people to get through downtown.

But lots of places for the homeless to sleep, from the looks of it!



#24 Intercontinental

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Posted 29 April 2015 - 05:21 PM

First of all, if you were to close off Douglas, to just two lanes of traffic, how would that look during rush?  I'm sure not good.

 

And how does the transition work at Hillside?  You've got the busiest and most complex intersection in all of town, and that's the point where you are going to find a way to get buses over to one side of the road, cars to the other, and bikes into the centre?  That seems near impossible to me.

 

 

I have no idea about the transition at Hillside, or about the centre bike lanes, but I will say that during evening rush hour the nearest-to-curb lane is already almost  solid full of buses heading northbound on Douglas.

 I recently noticed one I hadn't seen before  - a #58 Goldstream Meadows - looking pretty full. It certainly gave me pause since my mental image of Langford people has always included severe autophilia, but I guess a lot of the newer residents are people from in-town who are a different generation and culture that is more open minded about transit.

Personally, between the cost of parking and time waste of driving in from Langford, I'd shoot myself but at least bussing they can snooze or read or catch up on email.  I have a car, and I drive a lot of places, but I'm too cheap to pay for parking in downtown and almost exclusively walk or cycle there.   



#25 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 29 April 2015 - 05:27 PM

I have no idea about the transition at Hillside, or about the centre bike lanes, but I will say that during evening rush hour the nearest-to-curb lane is already almost  solid full of buses heading northbound on Douglas.

 

Right, so that's a given, that's the northbound bus lane full.  But now you need a northbound car lane, a pair of bike lanes and also cars, buses (I suppose you could can the one route there now, have it turn nearer Burnside, but this problem also goes to Bay St, for the #14) and bikes turning left onto Gorge Rd.  How you gonna pull all that off?

 

Like I said, you are deciding to run this thing right up to, and not even across, the trickiest intersection in town.  Any option you remove at that interesection (ie. no turns northbound onto Gorge) will have repercussions all around.


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#26 Intercontinental

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Posted 29 April 2015 - 05:31 PM

Without any plan to bring residential density to the core, this is a stupid plan.  The money is much better spent elsewhere.  Tidying up what we already have would be a good start. 

 

There are plans for that - the City's OCP and Downtown Plan already set up a few years back - the  whole band between Douglas or Blanshard and Vancouver or Cook from Caledonia to Broughton  allow for rezoning for waay higher density. The development can't happen overnight though because the market will only absorb so much at a time.  



#27 Mark2

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 07:34 AM

I think VHF has identified a really important problem that I don't see addressed in the PDF.

Where are the cyclists going to go once their centre lane ends at Hillside?



#28 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 07:43 AM

I think VHF has identified a really important problem that I don't see addressed in the PDF.

Where are the cyclists going to go once their centre lane ends at Hillside?

 

It simply can't work.  Without asking bikes to dismount or take odd turns, contrary to what they like, or to making the signalling at that intersection for all types of modes that it would just be a huge bottleneck.


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<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#29 Mike K.

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 07:47 AM

I would assume that the entire length of the street would incorporate the centre bike lane, but the report only drew up plans up to Hillside.


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#30 Baro

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 07:49 AM

I showed this to some of my traffic engineering friends, they had a good laugh at it.  This was done up by some well meaning architects and planners but clearly a traffic engineer didn't touch this.  The cycle infrastructure is all wrong, the obsessive focus on novelty lighting just scream high-concept architecture rather than serious civil engineering.  There's a LOT of problems with this.  I like the very very general idea of the plan, but the implementation and the way they have the lanes drawn out would be a disaster.


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#31 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 07:51 AM

I would assume that the entire length of the street would incorporate the centre bike lane, but the report only drew up plans up to Hillside.

 

All the way to Uptown?  The problem with the bike lanes where they are, is how the hell do you get off them, for both right and left turns, esp. at non-main intersections?  They have you stuck between two-way buses and two-way cars.


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#32 VicHockeyFan

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 08:00 AM

ed9.png

 

OK, traffic engineers, tell us how you will signal this movement.  And keep in mind you also have Gorge and Government coming in here too.

 

 


<p><span style="font-size:12px;"><em><span style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"I don’t need a middle person in my pizza slice transaction" <strong>- zoomer, April 17, 2018</strong></span></em></span>

#33 SamCB

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 10:50 AM

^why not just one of these? 

WarmLegitimateFlyingfox.gif


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#34 amor de cosmos

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 11:52 AM

regent st over the holidays

article-2527468-1A3BD57700000578-654_964
http://www.dailymail...kyscrapers.html

RegentStreetNarniaChristmasLights1.jpg
http://www.taraberne...-for-christmas/

100051932.jpg
http://www.panoramio...photo/100051932
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#35 sebberry

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 12:07 PM

I'm glad you posted the second picture.  I thought it was "attack of the crabs" for a second there.


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#36 aastra

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 12:24 PM

This is a PG forum so I decided to edit my post.


Edited by aastra, 30 April 2015 - 12:27 PM.


#37 aastra

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 12:29 PM

So how about stringing up that sort of lighting on a grid of streets, and then animating a Pac-Man effect?


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#38 nagel

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 12:50 PM

ed9.png

 

OK, traffic engineers, tell us how you will signal this movement.  And keep in mind you also have Gorge and Government coming in here too.

massive traffic circle that puts McTavish to shame



#39 gjbroom

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Posted 30 April 2015 - 08:37 PM

massive traffic circle that puts McTavish to shame

What's old is new again....


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#40 rjag

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Posted 01 May 2015 - 03:54 PM

Apparently John Luton who was on the advisory group regarding Douglas takes a dim view to other peoples opinion regarding reduction of car space. This was in response to the letter in todays TC from a concerned business owner that runs a courier company where he indicates that it does nothing to solve the volume and will push the traffic to other streets and create more congestion.......

 

John Lutons Facebook post:

He is entitled to his own opinion, just not his own roads. The inference of the letter is that we should preserve those dysfunctional designs that pervert a public right of way to service an industry that relies on an economic model that promotes, by design, higher speeds, potentially dangerous driving and an unimpeded right of way that also by design dismisses the interests of other members of the community and the traveling public. Roads are community assets and the public has a right to decide, collectively, how and what interests they service. The logic is totally backwards - self serving economic interests dismissive of the public interest.



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