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Time to define the spork intersection, why it matters, and how it gets built in the first place.
In transportation and walkability circles we often talk about sidewalk bulb-outs or bump-outs, which shorten crossing distance at cross walks for pedestrians. This is a bulb-out:
a 'spork' is the opposite. A spork flares out vehicular lanes in order to make room for dedicated left and/or right turn lanes. The first that came to mind was Main Street in Deep Ellum.
brief break to watch the Brexit vote.
Spork.
The spork lengthens pedestrian crossing distance, in this case by 30 feet from 24' to 54'. This matters again because of this data point:
"Evidence in Mexico City shows that every additional meter of width in a crossing, the frequency of pedestrian crashes increases by up to 6%"
"Evidence in Mexico City shows that every additional meter of width in a crossing, the frequency of pedestrian crashes increases by up to 6%"
if that data point applies to this intersection, that's a 50-60% increase in pedestrian crashes.
why would we design and build something that potentially increases the chance of injury?
the answer is that cities may be complex but in reality they are the realization of near infinite replicated decisions, which get based on often simple priorities.
Policies are made and interpreted by elected city council people and planning commissioners who are often not experts and therefore they often need simple (seemingly) objective metrics in order to make (believably) objective decisions.
Vehicular Level of Service as measured by theoretical, modeled vehicular delay at intersections is used to fill the void of 'objective metrics.'
Everybody has sat in a car and everybody hates waiting at all in traffic. Therefore, electeds and appointeds feel as though they are doing the right thing by saying "F bad. A good."
Unfortunately, the metric is terribly faulty, often inflating projected vehicular traffic growth while externalizing the impact on pedestrian activity and safety.
Vehicular delay (and seeming to reduce it) is the only priority and it gets repeated over and over again on street design, intersection design, land use decisions, etc.
The result is the only advantage is gained by drivers and thus car-dependence is virtually guaranteed. At the expense of everything else: pedestrian activity, public safety, retail sales, land value, etc.
Like I said, traffic models and level of service often inflate traffic counts. 6,000 cars per day in no way justifies dedicated left AND right turning lanes let alone one of either. Also, six lanes N-S only carrying 9,000 vpd.
This, of course, is not the only bad thing about this intersection.
Pedestrian refuge island? Nope. Median that instead interrupts the crosswalk.
What about if we create a median between the right turn and the crossing so as to foreshorten the increased crossing distance?
The first problem is that primacy is still given to the right-turn movement at the expense of the pedestrian. The curb radius suggests accelerating the right turn movement rather than decelerating to reasonable sight lines and stopping distance.
There is also no traffic control device to stop the right turn movement to allow for the pedestrian movement. The pedestrian is on their own. At least they're given a ramped curb...
Once you start crossing however, you better not be in a wheelchair. This island is not for you.
If you miraculously make it across the street to the other side, maybe that corner will be more welcoming. Nope.
Tangent: revisiting the traffic counts. This section of Good Latimer, the N-S arterial that runs parallel-ish to I-345, is built to handle more like 40k vehicles per day than less than 10k. If 345 were removed, where would the traffic go?
