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| Re: ''World Class Bus Rapid Transit'' for Woodhaven Blvd... lol (299524) | |||
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Re: ''World Class Bus Rapid Transit'' for Woodhaven Blvd... lol |
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Posted by RIPTA42HopeTunnel on Wed Nov 5 14:17:56 2014, in response to Re: ''World Class Bus Rapid Transit'' for Woodhaven Blvd... lol, posted by BrooklynBus on Wed Nov 5 11:29:50 2014. You really don't see Cooper backing up if all the Metroplitan left turners used Cooper to access Metropolitan? When I used Woodhaven daily for 9 years, I used at least a dozen alternates and reroutes for different parts of Woodhaven when traffic was heavy. There were big variances from day to day. Some days you could take Woodhaven all the way, and on others I would use three or four different reroutes each time getting back to Woodhaven to save time on days traffic was extra heavy. I remember days when Cooper westbound was also backed up. To add more traffic on Cooper would not be wise.I don't know if it will or not; I don't have traffic counts at my disposal. I'm saying it's a possibility. It would probably operate better than the existing single left at Woodhaven and Metropolitan. And what about the angle of the streets? That is certainly not an easy turn for big trucks to negotiate, if they could do it at all. Woodhaven is the only truck route in the area. We can't just make believe that trucks don't exist. Woodhaven, Metropolitan, and Cooper are all Local Truck Routes. The left from Cooper to Metropolitan is tight but doable; I would stripe a stop line on westbound Metropolitan and shave the sidewalk on the south side of Metropolitan back a foot or two to be on the safe side.  Or trucks going to that neighborhood could use Queens Boulevard to Union Turnpike. With all due respect, you may be a traffic engineer, but I actually used Woodhaven daily for nine years and still use it today. You can guess and say 88 St didn't save me time, but I can assuredly say it saved me five minutes and this is how I know. When the bridge was at a standstill, it could take at least three or four green cycles to get through Union Turnpike. I've timed those trips over the bridge as taking 10 minutes. I'm not guessing; I'm applying your logic that forcing cars onto divergent routes would add "ten minutes to their trip." Whether it saved you time or not, I don't see how it couldn't stills save you time after the turn restriction from the service road. Union Turnpike, 81st Road, and Myrtle Avenue all get you back to Woodhaven without being forced to go west on Union Turnpike. Also, I can tell you that a mid-block slip would definitely work north of 103 St. First of all traffic on the service road is much lighter at that point than on the main roadway. Of course, cars would have to momentarily pause when switching to the service road, but that is still better than being stuck for over five minutes at a single traffic signal as is presently happening at Rockaway Blvd. "Momentarily pausing" would create a ripple effect. Maybe it could be aligned so through traffic on the service road has a stop sign and the merging traffic had the right of way. Also, myself and many other savvy drivers would illegally switch to the service road at 95th Avenue when traffic permitted. On some days we would sail down the service road between 103 Street and Rockaway Blvd making the green signals at Rockaway Blvd and Liberty Avenue while the right two lanes in the main roadway were standing still. Also, for many years that switch was legal because there either was no sign to prohibit it or it had fallen off and wasn't replaced for several years. I've done that, too (on Woodhaven, Queens Boulevard, and Kings Highway). How else are you supposed to make a right turn? Fortunately, two of the three SBS concepts eliminate that problem. It is one thing to plan using what you learned in school and looking at data, and another to actually know what is going on from day to day because you actually experience it and live it. When I went to school, we called planners who planned from their desks "ivory tower" planners. That is exactly what DOT and you are doing today. And we have an expression - "everyone who has a driver's license thinks they're a traffic engineer." The problem with designing from your personal experience is that you're only speaking from your personal experience. There are over 63,000 other drivers passing through the Woodhaven Boulevard & Rockaway Boulevard intersection every day, not to mention transit riders, pedestrians, cyclists, residents, and business owners. Their ideal solutions might not be the same as the one that saves you a couple minutes on your particular commute. The "ivory tower planners" have meetings (like the one tonight) to hear from everyone who actually experiences and lives it. |
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