Stroads but good
Part 3: A case study
Forward
Today I’m going to present a design proposal for a stroad to service street+road combination conversion in Kitchener, Ontario. Kitchener is a typical North American sprawling mid-size suburb. I chose it because I’m familiar with it, having lived there, but it’s applicable to essentially any city in Canada or the US.
I chose Fairway Rd. because I feel it is the best example of a stroad in the city. It is a commercial street, with significant fronting retail, anchored by a major mall at one end. It is also an extremely busy road leading to a highway interchange. This makes it the best case for a stroad, where we have intensive destinations and intensive through traffic combined in one place.
I’ll also note, I have not done any traffic studies or engineering studies here. I am highly suspicious of those types of studies from engineers and consultants because they often are self fulfilling prophecies, to say nothing of their establishment-reinforcing nature. So presenting this to any city engineer would likely result in barely contained derision. But given what they’ve built in our cities, I don’t really care, they have little credibility to me. Instead I think we should build for what we want our city to look like.
Current Conditions
Fairway Rd between Traynor Park and Wilson Ave is currently a four and five lane road straddled on both sides by retail, most of which have their own driveway access to the road. Left turns are permitted from and onto Fairway from all of these driveways.
In this one kilometre section of road there are 23 separate commercial driveways including two fully signalized intersections. The road does not have an exceptionally high rate of collisions, but most of the intersections we are studying here appear in the top 100 collision location report from the Region of Waterloo and at least one location appears in the top 20 pedestrian collision locations[1] . Multiple serious [2] [3] [4] and fatal injuries have occurred in the past decade or so on this section including the death of at least one cyclist [5].
It suffices to say I feel this road is quite dangerous. It is also extremely oppressive. I have visited shops on this street many times, and it is an unpleasant experience being outside on this street. But, it should not be; aside from the extensive commercial district, the road is also flanked by a park at one end, which is accessible to extensive mid-density housing. The other end is anchored by the aforementioned mall and a ION LRT station–the current southern terminus of the region’s rapid transit network and a major bus hub.
Making this road safer and friendlier would not only enable a significant improvement in safety, it would significantly increase the access of these businesses to customers who might use the ION trains or who might walk from the nearby housing. But as is, nobody who has the choice to drive would choose to walk here.
The Proposal
I propose converting this stroad into a four lane road with a central median, and two intermittent service streets at the side providing access to the commercial properties. Cycleways will link the service streets thereby providing bicycle access along the street as well.
The service streets and cycleways can be constructed in the existing roadway width using the existing boulevard with only minor property acquisitions from the surrounding commercial parking lots. The former central turn lanes of the street can be converted into a median to prevent drivers from attempting to turn left and to improve safety. Some of that space can also be used for improved greenery and street trees to enrich the pedestrian realm along the service street and provide additional separation and noise mitigation from the roadway.
I will focus on the section between Wilson Ave. and Manitou Dr. for this, but the bike infrastructure at least should be continued to the mall, retail, and ION station to the east. An additional safe bicycle crossing under the highway would also be a major community benefit. And there is an argument for continuing the system of service streets past the mall as well, with another U-turn point at the highway interchange.
While in earlier sections I discussed how the elimination of traffic signals can improve throughput reducing the need for multiple lanes, in consideration of how contentious a reduction in lanes on a major arterial road is in North America, to me it makes sense to keep four lanes to improve the viability of this idea. However, alternatives where two of the lanes at Manitou Dr. become the service street, and the remaining two lanes are the only through lanes could be considered. I believe this would be more controversial, but in a public consultation, it makes sense to present the idea as an alternative. If nothing, to present this proposal as a more moderate option, and of course being open to the possibility of being pleasantly surprised by a more progressive public response.
Since there is a limited street grid behind the the stroad (since it is cut off from the residential area by both the ION LRT corridor and a CN freight rail corridor) access to the service streets should be via slip roads from Fairway Rd. As discussed in the previous article, these should be tight, with a very clear transition to a low speed zone.
Zoning should also be adjusted to reduce parking requirements and also reorient businesses towards the service street. This won’t happen overnight, but these large big box stores will eventually be redeveloped. When they are, they should focus activity towards the service street with storefronts on the street and parking in behind. New developments can be permitted to create a small amount of parallel parking space along the service street, by donating the land to widen the service street. Additionally redevelopments should include a requirement to increase connectivity across the ION LRT corridor to improve access to the residential areas behind.
By eliminating the left turn access to these businesses we would be closing 23 individual conflict points which would drastically improve the safety of the road. Further, this would eliminate two entire traffic signals which would significantly increase the capacity of the road. Together, these actions would significantly improve traffic flow on the road.
On the other hand, this would increase the time to access any of these retail locations by a certain amount. U-turns would be permitted at the intersections of Wilson Ave. and Manitou Dr. which are 900 meters apart. At 60km/h this distance would take only 54 seconds to traverse, so in the worst case a driver may take an extra 2 minutes to traverse this distance and in the average case the delay would be under 1 minute. Some time will be taken to complete a U-turn at one end, but that time would be comparable to the time taken to make a left turn into a business. This delay would only apply for drivers who are turning left. Right turning drivers will not experience any delay.
In order to facilitate pedestrian access across the corridor, pedestrian connections must be provided to replace the previous signalized crossings. 900 meters is far too distant to expect pedestrians to walk to a crossing. Surface crosswalks with pedestrian activated signals could be provided but would increase the delay on the street. Pedestrian underpasses, created by raising the roadway above the street, would be an expensive but convenient alternative. Buses on Fairway would continue to use the general traffic lanes (another reason that four lanes is desirable) and bus stops should be co-located with the pedestrian crossings.
At the west end, since there is no cycling infrastructure along Fairway Rd, the cycleway can connect to Traynor Park which eventually provides access to the bike lanes present in the residential area behind on Vanier Dr. as well as the trail along the LRT corridor. On the other side of the road, the cycleway will connect to Manitou Dr. which also has painted bike lanes.
Conclusion
I think it is clear that this conversion would significantly improve the traffic conditions on this road, as well as the pedestrian experience. The effect on businesses is less clear. While pedestrian access would improve wildly, driving access would be impeded slightly. Some drivers would object to the extra 1-2 minutes and choose to go elsewhere. However, this is not terribly long and during congested times (which are always increasing due to increasing citywide VMT) travel times also increase by 1-2 minutes.
Most of the businesses along this stretch are also destination businesses, not opportunity businesses. This means that greater pedestrian traffic wouldn’t be a significant benefit for most of the businesses, but on the other hand, it also would mean that the additional travel time would not affect drivers' decision to visit these businesses either.
Ultimately I feel this kind of design is a clear win for the city. But I also see it facing near insurmountable obstacles.