Here’s an incredible video I found on el Feis last night. You better check it out before it disappears.
In the video, Martin Bartlett explains that the trolley tracks run down the middle of Stanton Street instead of on one side because Stanton Street is changing. Instead of two lanes north and two lanes south, like it is now, Stanton Street will have one lane each direction, with the trolley tracks between them. They’re also converting one of the existing lanes to a two-lane bike path.
What?
They’re going to choke Stanton Street down to half its current capacity? To accommodate a trolley that effectively duplicates the routes of four existing bus routes?
If the trolley’s running between two lanes of traffic, how are people going to get on and off? If there are no stops, where will all that (dubious) collateral development they promised come from?
I can’t help but think that this is Public Relations spin to cover up someone’s booboo. But, like that million dollars that disappeared, this will be no one’s fault.
Of course, I’m cynical, mostly because I’ve been paying attention. But I can’t believe that someone thought this was a good idea, so I have to conclude that someone screwed up.
And this is why we can’t have nice things.
I’m all for the Bike Path but having a two way bike path with one direction placed head-on against vehicular traffic on one side, and head-on with bicycle traffic on the other. The aforementioned situation is the coupled with pedestrian interactions with cars and bicycles at various points along the route. This sounds quite dangerous to me. My best guess is, whoever designed this has never ridden a bike amongst other cyclists, much less amongst other vehicles. “Ignorance is bliss”. This is quite a dissapointment.
someone figured out (too late) that there are utility lines running under the north bound lane where the trolly tracks were supposed to go and there wasn’t money (or time) in the budget to relocate those. Like you, I wonder how the suicide loading and unloading will work. Most of the time cars will be able to travel in the track lane.
My guess is that it will only stop at intersections and there will be some kind of platform or median for people to wait on until they can cross the street. That’s how I’ve seen it in other places that have a bus or train in a middle lane. It’s not ideal but also not as bad as it might initially seem.
You need to run for City Council or Mayor Rich. This construction is is dangerous for cars, trolley, and bike riders. The trolley is cool but putting all three forms of transportation on one road in downtown El Paso is unbelievable. I use to live with the family that owned the old trolley that ran from El Paso to Juarez and it has a rich history in El Paso history. Austin has built bike trails on roads that have no bike traffic and screwing car traffic. This is poor planning.