On crosswalks and road paint
The crosswalk on North Road in front of Folklife Village is getting painted, which has reminded me to point out an article from wired.com: Roads Gone Wild. The article summary says:
No street signs. No crosswalks. No accidents. Surprise: Making driving seem more dangerous could make it safer.
It’s fascinating, and just the thing to read as you sip your brandy this evening.
But back to painting lines on Gabriola roads: does the painting of this crosswalk perhaps indicate that more lines-on-road painting might happen this summer? It’d be cool to have a yellow line again on parts of North Road where the line has been worn away.
Filed in Gabriola Island 8 Comments so far
8 Responses to “On crosswalks and road paint”
Stetler on 22 Jun 2012 at 8:38 am #
Perhaps if people could manage to drive on only one side of the road at a time, the yellow line would last longer.
Island Blog on 22 Jun 2012 at 12:46 pm #
At the meeting with MOTI officials this week we were told that there would be 3 weeks of road patching to come followed by a repaint of some of the lines. Hopefully that will include the white shoulder-markings as well as the yellow line?
rick on 24 Jun 2012 at 3:06 pm #
That crosswalk was located for commercial convenience – not safety. Giving pedestrians the sense that that is a safe place to cross – the first form of traffic control for many kilometers along a rural road – is dangerous. At the very least it should be at the nearest intersection – a few meters away. It may eventually have a flashing light. (after several years of protest)
As far as painting the lines on the road: a little quality control would be in order. The way that paint lasted, I think it may have been some mis-tint interior semi-gloss they got on sale. Maybe they could plan to NOT try and do it all on one (rainy) day this time, and keep the line-painting truck under 40kph. All that prematurely-washed-off paint ends up in our watershed.
cheryl on 25 Jun 2012 at 7:39 am #
Driving on one side of the road at a time makes me laugh. Should one just plow over the bike riders who insist on riding two or three abreast which is a constant in the tunnel, or how about just hitting the deer which are always on the road, then there are the occasional walker who finds it necessary to walk to far onto the road, and please lets not forget those gaping pot holes that plague ALL of our roads. Ha! Ha! driving on one side of the road at a time on this Island, you’re kidding right.
Another Dave on 26 Jun 2012 at 5:04 pm #
God forbid the common sense approach to traffic safety catch on. I argued for the removal of many signs in West Vancouver 30 years ago and the city planners looked at me like I was crazy. I *am* crazy, but they didn’t need to look at me like I was on that occasion :)
Stetler on 26 Jun 2012 at 11:26 pm #
How typical of this island for someone to criticize another for suggesting that it isn’t right to drive on the wrong side of the road. Passing a bike rider is one thing. Roaring around every bend with your car halfway across the road is a different thing altogether.
cheryl on 27 Jun 2012 at 6:28 pm #
Wow! I apologize if I sounded like I was criticizing anyone. You had mentioned driving on the wrong side of the road not driving dangerously. I was just saying how one had to avoid obstacles on our roads. Driving dangerously like on the wrong side of the road is a given, a no brainier. I don’t think I once said it was ok to DRIVE on the wrong side of the road. If I could reword my post to sound less criticizing I’d say “You’re right driving on the wrong side of the road is dangerous but there are the occasions when you have to avoid, bikers, deer, people and potholes. Ha!Ha! what a joke avoiding those things on this Island.”
Gabriolan on 30 Jun 2012 at 10:02 pm #
Quite right, Another Dave. :-)
Years ago I spent a lot of time with big city traffic engineers and planners, and they often looked at me as if I were crazy, too. Can you imagine?!