A raised crosswalk on Holland Street?

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

Just got an email from the city about street closing on Holland Street due to construction (contents below).

Is this "raised crosswalk" like a bridge across Holland Street?? I'm having trouble picturing such a thing. Has anyone seen a city proposal or other documentation online?

On the other hand, I have imagined a sort of "skyway" bridge to connect the bike path from behind the RIX to behind the T station at Holland street. That would be awesome.

This is Carlene Campbell-Hegarty from the City of Somerville, with important information about construction in Davis Square. Weather permitting, on Sunday, August 19th beginning at approximately 2:00 a.m. and continuing through Wednesday, August 22nd, MassDOT will be installing a raised crosswalk on Holland Street at the MBTA station. During this period of time, Buena Vista Parking Lot will remain open. However, no vehicular traffic will be allowed on Holland Street from Winter Street to Dover Street.

Comments

[thespian.livejournal.com]

yeah, I just got the email and came here looking for answers. Because uhm, the hell? who on earth would use a raised crosswalk there? but that was what it sounded like to me.

[serious-noir.livejournal.com]

After posting it occurred to me that maybe a "raised crosswalk" is some sort of ultra wide speed bump like on Rindge Ave. Probably.

My first mental image of it though was more of a giant 'n' shaped structure with ladders (and slides or firemen's poles) on each leg. Wheee...

[unferth.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what a raised crosswalk is. I'd guess they'll be raising the one that connects the T exit to the plaza near Taipei Tokyo.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

>>After posting it occurred to me that maybe a "raised crosswalk" is some sort of ultra wide speed bump like on Rindge Ave. Probably.<<

that was my guess too, mostly because i can't figure out what else it could be that would only take three-four days to install. a skyway kind of thing would be super cool, tho.

[mytheria.livejournal.com]

You are correct. That is the term for the intersections on Rindge.
Putting one on Holland has pluses and minuses. It will make drivers slow down. It will make the crossing from the T station to the plaza easier to navigate when in a wheelchair (no down one ramp and up another). However, it means that we'll have to keep an eye out for some of the kamakazi cyclists when they become even more aggressive in crossing there (one almost mowed me down this week).

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

Also, no more puddles for pedestrians, but it might make city snow removal interesting.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

It will make it much less pleasant for people in wheelchair vans, cyclists riding on Holland Street, and people in cars and buses who have neck and back problems.

[nomacmac.livejournal.com]

It seems strange to me that they are doing this now, instead of incorporating it into the bigger 'Davis Streetscape' project.

[miss-chance.livejournal.com]

but it might make city snow removal interesting.

And how is this night different from any other night?

The city is pretty poor about removing snow in Davis anyway.

[blacktigr.livejournal.com]

Can't please everyone. I have to go quite slow to not feel like I'm hopping my car over a raised crossing, but I'm sure there are benefits to this way of doing things.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_meej_/]

Technically, the raised intersections on Rindge are "raised intersections" or "tabled intersections." I expect this one at the bike path will be 8'-12' wide, maybe. It's the width of a crosswalk, just up at curb height, with shallow asphalt slopes on each side making it a fairly soft speedbump for the cars. Cambridge seems to prefer doing whole intersections to just crosswalks, not that there's an intersection on Holland in that area to table up anyway...

[ron_newman]

Yes, exactly. Rindge Avenue in front of the elementary school and library is a good example of this. It makes the street much safer to cross.

[ron_newman]

Cyclists should be riding reasonably slowly through this area anyway, because of all the pedestrians crossing.

[ron_newman]

This is actually the last stage of the state project which built the sidewalk around the Rite Aid parking lot, widened the sidewalk next to the busway, and built an asphalt bypass around the Holland Street T headhouse.

[cden4.livejournal.com]

This will be very similar to the Community Path crossing on Willow Ave.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

I used to live on Oxford which had at least 2 raised sidewalks (plus use the one on ringe a lot)--I always found biking over them rather smooth and fun.

[boblothrope.livejournal.com]

The problem is that while some vehicles and their occupants have no trouble crossing a raised crosswalk at 20 mph, others still have issues even if they go so slowly they can barely make it up the rise (less than 5 mph).

I also don't see why it's necessary to begin with. In question 6 of the ResiStat survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=OY7PGEScpTXKUX95D1o4cq11H4VFSBKRcALsUBer8Fg_3d), "Traffic speed (too fast)" was *last* in the list of people's concerns.

[barry-rafkind.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the explanation, Ron. Guess it's too much to ask for the City and/or the MBTA to tell us why we're being inconvenienced and why our tax-payer dollars are being spent in this way, even when asked directly (https://twitter.com/BarryRafkind/status/236455013692620800).

[ron_newman]

Although I have no official connection to the project at all, I'd say its purpose is to improve pedestrian safety (and maybe secondarily, bicycle safety) at this busy crosswalk.