Quote:
Originally Posted by officedweller
When I walk across Granville bridge from the office I take Howe (because the TD Tower is closer to Howe) and I don't really like the current pedestrian atmosphere on Granville St.,
plus taking Granville means you have to cross the full volume of the Howe St. ramp. (at present).
I find the one lane off-ramp from Howe to Pacific (in front of 1335 Howe) easy to cross to get to the sidewalk on the Howe St. ramp.
Pedestrian traffic is low and I've only ever passed a couple people on that ramp stretch and it has a full jersey barrier (maybe the cost of removing it is the impediment).
At the 4th Ave ramp on the south side there isn't much protection (but pedestrians are on the inside of the curve, so out-of-control cars are more likely to hit the other side).
The improvements to Granville will be better for crossing the full Howe ramp volume (ie there'll be a light to stop traffic), so in future, I might cut from Howe to Granville at Drake to access the wider sidewalk.
|
I've found Granville north to Seymour St ramp and Granville south ramp to Fir St/4th Ave are worse than the other two crossings (eg the Granville heading south from Howe that you mention) as the cars have gotten up to a good speed crossing the bridge and then come to the crossing. Well they're all pretty bad - cars just don't stop and enforcement is zero.
Sometimes it is a quite a volume of cars. So one might think the thing to do is wait for a gap... maybe, but sometimes one driver stops and then other geniuses go around that driver waiting. Huge potential for auto or pedestrian accident.
While I'm not a big supporter of some "improvements" like going down to one car thru lane on some sections of Richards St, imho, an inordinately high number of pedestrian crossings on this stretch of Granville were with people risking their lives.