SLIP LANES

While passing through a Sebastopol intersection on my bike recently, I realized what a horrible place it is for pedestrians and bikes. This is an intersection I don’t often pass through other than in my car, so I haven’t thought much about the pedestrian experience. This is the intersection of Pleasant Hill and Bodega.

The roads do not intersect at 90 degrees, which may be why they have added the slip lanes for right turns on the movements from Pleasant Hill onto Bodega. The SE quadrant of the intersection is a cemetery. The SW quadrant is multi- and single-family homes. The NW quadrant is commercial and residential. The NE quadrant is commercial and mostly higher density residential with some single-family as well. There could be a good deal of pedestrian/bike traffic through this intersection. But the slip lanes allow for cars to make quick right-hand turns without having to wait for the light. This puts people on foot and bikes at a disadvantage as cars barely need to slow down to make the turn.

The slip lane from Pleasant Hill west onto Bodega does have a crosswalk, but still, cars can move through this quickly and if they are not looking for pedestrians, it’s not good. They are likely looking to their left looking for an opening in traffic along Bodega.

Slip lane to head west on Bodega

 

Pedestrian refuge island after crossing the slip lane.

The slip lane going east on Bodega is even worse. There is no crosswalk across the slip lane or across the street. One could argue that might be because the residents of the cemetery aren’t likely big walkers, but living people do like to walk in cemeteries. I was doing just that when I came to the intersection after walking across the cemetery from the east when I first realized there was no way for me to cross the streets along the edge of the cemetary in either direction. If you were to try to cross TO the cemetary from the opposite corners you get one of those handy signs telling you you’re not allowed to cross there. But what if you want to walk to the cemetary? If that’s the case, you technically would need to walk 1,775′ to the east, cross Bodega Ave. then walk back up the hill 775′ to the cemetery entrance. Oh, and by the way, there isn’t a sidewalk on the south side of Bodega after the first 300′.

After walking through the cemetery, you get to this intersection.

Which, after you cross the slip lane, there is no way for you to cross either street.

The intersection could be reconfigured to remove the slip lanes, still allow drivers to make right-hand turns, but more slowly, and at the same time, allow crosswalks to be added.

CURB RADII

Large curb radii, which allow cars to keep relatively high speeds as they turn, are a modern phenomena. The older neighborhoods in town have very tight corners.

In the photo above, the vertical street on the left and the homes on that half of the image were built in the late 1970’s. The homes and streets on the left were built in the 1920’s. The horizontal street, Palm Ave., did not continue through until the newer development happened. Compare the new street corner radii with the older vertically oriented streets on the right side of the image. If you are approaching Palm on the streets to the right, you pretty much have to come to a complete stop (stop signs do encourage this) before turning right. You cannot make that turn quickly. You can take those right hand turns much faster at the intersection on the left. And face it, most people do not come to a complete stop when approaching intersections like this. Which do you think is better for the pedestrian? The tighter curb radii also make the crossing distance for the pedestrian shorter, which is better for them as well.

This is a particularly egregious example.

The top right portion of the photo is a city park. The transition between these two streets is ridiculous. I’m not even sure what to call it. It’s more than a slip lane since both lanes just continue around the corner. This could have been a conventional T-intersection, but in the interest of moving cars around this corner faster, that T-intersection was short-circuited. This is a horrible intersection to cross as a pedstrian. There is a mid-block crossing to the east, but no way to cross at the intersection. I would walk through the park with my dog, ending up at this corner and then have to walk quickly with my geriatric dog across the street to the landscaped island, which has no sidewalk, just landscaping, and then cross the next street. I understand that they don’t stripe any crosswalks here because the city doesn’t want anyone to cross, but I see people do it all the time.

So fortunate to have someone actually crossing when I took the photo!

It’s even strange to drive through. If you’re heading south on Jewell and a car is heading north, you hope they stop as you have the right-of-way to continue around the corner heading east. It’s just not good for drivers either. You could even get quite a bit more space for the park if you were to convert this back to a T-intersection and let cars take their time and give pedestrians a fighting chance as they cross to/from the park. If you didn’t want more park space, you could also make this a roundabout which would be safer for cars and pedestrians. There is certainly enough space for that.

The intersection of Jewel with Bodega is also strange. It was made to be super wide with a landscaped island between opposing travel lanes. There is enough width heading northwest for 3 full lanes, but it does not see a traffic volume that would merit so many lanes. It would be easy to reduce the amount of pavement in these two intersections and allow for more space for people.

Why is there so much asphalt at this intersection?

To the upper left in the aerial photo above is a school. It takes up most of the block. The intersection at the NE corner of the block has one of the largest curb radii in town.

That must be at least a 30′ radius corner. Travelling along this street from the right, you can make this right hand turn at 25 mph, easy. The building you’re looking at is a pre-school! And the elementary school is beyond it. Kids cross this intersection every day. Dutton, the street on the left, is 32′ wide. The crosswalk is about 70′ long! More than twice the width of the actual street!

Here’s the opposite corner. Pretty reasonable corner radius. You actually have to slow dow to make this right turn. Plus there is a stop sign. With the adjacent school, this should be an all-way stop situation, but Huntley has no stop signs.

Here’s another elementary school location. Totally reasonable, tight, corner radii.

Beautifully small corner radii at this intersection!

It would be better if there were stop signs on Hayden, at least in the downhill direction, and maybe cars parked on one side of the street. This would keep speeds low. I’ve seen cars pick up excessive speed, particularly heading downhill.

A simple, inexpensive fix to all of these car-priority intersections would be to install flexible bollards, and paint the street to tighten the corners and make cars slow down and be more aware of pedestrians.

You could even make it a fun feature like this example in Seattle.

While it would be great to rebuild curb, gutter and sidewalk at these intersections, this simple, low-cost solution could make our streets safer for pedestrians in the interim. Making streets safer for pedestrians should be a priority.