What is the logic ?

[george~]

The fancy new improvements in downtown Penticton are all fine and dandy, but does anyone know the logic behind the intersection at Westminster and Main being raised higher than the rest of the road ? I have never in my life experienced this anywhere in the province there must some extremely good reason behind it, is this some sort of integrated speed bump safety freak idea ? seriously stupid ! please stop making them !

[southy]

The fancy new improvements in downtown Penticton are all fine and dandy, but does anyone know the logic behind the intersection at Westminster and Main being raised higher than the rest of the road ? I have never in my life experienced this anywhere in the province there must some extremely good reason behind it, is this some sort of integrated speed bump safety freak idea ? seriously stupid ! please stop making them !

George old boy - no, no, absolutely not speed bumps. What you have here and is one of the first concepts in North America and something we should all be proud of : REVITIALIZATION VIEWPOINTS. How these work is the light turns red and you if you are really, really lucky get to stop on the raised section of the road and you then can get a birds eye view of the wonderful work that has gone into this revite project. It is actually quite creative, in that if you are stopped at Nanaimo you can look west and east - something most people have never been able to do until the raised sections were put in and then obviously you can look north at the beautiful new sidewalks and streetlamps. As you enter Westminster there is the added attraction of the bollards. Being raised up as high as you are you can see the design features that actually went into this intersection. Beautifully amazing. Feel proud there George - you are witnessing progress like no other city has seen before.

[twobits]

Oh George old boy, Southy has his tongue so firmly and deeply planted in his cheek. He is just jerking your chain. The real reason is because our Mayor is an avid cyclist and is having the roadways downtown elevated so that he continues to have a path, as well as his customers, to his downtown business when global warming raises the level of Okanagan Lake and floods downtown Penticton.

[fluffy]

I was in city hall today and quizzed the receptionist on the reasoning behind the raised intersections. She said a lot of people are asking, and that it's a combination of traffic calming and pedestrian convenience.

[XT225]

I was in city hall today and quizzed the receptionist on the reason ing behind the raised intersections. She said a lot of people are asking, and that it's a combiantion of traffic calming and pedestrian convenience.

No question that its a traffic calming (polite term for speed bumps) method. However, it (the bricks) may not stand up to heavy truck traffic (and they DO use that route) such as gravel trucks, big trucks hauling fruit bins, cement trucks, etc. Perhaps the street should be deemed off limits to heavy commercial vehicles.

[southy]

.... and delivery trucks

[XT225]

.... and delivery trucks

Actually, Southy, I've not seen one single delivery truck stop in the 200 block and double park since the new street work. I HAVE seen several park around back or on the side streets and wheel their goods on hand dollies to the various stores. Good for them. These trucks aren't the ones that I was meaning that might cause damage to the pavers, due to their weight; its the BIG trucks that I would be concerned about. I don't recall seeing any "truck route" signs on Westminster/Front street/Vancouver Hill; perhaps its time to install NO truck signs.

ETA: I HAVE still seen some large semis (with 40' or so trailers) going down Main Street, right though the narrower section of the 200 block and then turning right onto Front Street. This may actually not be a totally bad thing as sooner or later, one of them is going to take out those bollards..lol.

[fluffy]

The success of any road material is the preparation of the base. Comparatively speaking, pavers are much harder than asphalt, more similar to poured concrete in compressive strength but less prone to cracking as there is a degree of flexibility in the road surface due to the large number of individual units. Their main drawback is cost, they will cost roughly four times as much as asphalt but that cost is recouped in increased longevity and lower maintenance.

[XT225]

The success of any road material is the preparation of the base. Comparatively speaking, pavers are much harder than asphalt, more similar to poured concrete in compressive strength but less prone to cracking as there is a degree of flexibility in the road surface due to the large number of individual units. Their main drawback is cost, they will cost roughly four times as much as asphalt but that cost is recouped in increased longevity and lower maintenance.

I doubt that it has anything to do with saving money in the long run. If that were the case, they would have done the entire block that way. They should have just paved it like the rest of the 200 block and put in a smoother raised gradual bump if they wanted to slow traffic down and put the savings into the rest of the city streets. Government St is a prime example of a bloomin mess of patches and cracks and holes. Going to be interesting when they hold the Challenge race in August on that street; I can envision lots of bike crashes. It would be cheaper to repair underground services with having bricks above, however if things are done properly, you shouldn't have problems for decades to come.

[fluffy]

Perhaps "partly recouped" would have been a better choice of words, I'm just going on past experience and a little internet research. Things like the actual cost of the stones used downtown and what the contractor made for installing them aren't at my fingertips here. Plus as a decorative feature too many could have been visual overkill. I have just driven through the area so far, maybe a slower reconnoiter would be in order, maybe a five dollar coffee and a sitdown at Starbucks, but so far I don't see anything I don't like.

[Rosemary1]

And don't forget when the lucky drivers stop on the incline at red light in winter they may even get extra time to view the improvements once light turns green and their wheels are spinning on ice to get past the incline across the intersection.

[fluffy]

And don't forget when the lucky drivers stop on the incline at red light in winter they may even get extra time to view the improvements once light turns green and their wheels are spinning on ice to get past the incline across the intersection.

So now it's a point against the city that some nimrods don't have decent winter tires? That's a bit of a stretch isn't it?

[Bunnyhop]

I agree Fluffy. The incline is so slight that anyone having trouble getting over it in winter, even from a standstill, has no business being on the road.

[twobits]

You both fail to acknowledge that intersections are the areas that ice up the worst because of cars stopped and idling. Salt is good to about minus 4c. Short of studded tires, the best winter tread on a rear drive vehicle will have trouble starting to move. The studded ones will be chewing the incline to get moving. What kind of damage is gonna happen? I don't blame the city, I blame the engineers that thought this would be ok.

[george~]

What about the totally unnecessary noise pollution created when larger delivery trucks go banging their way through the intersection, I heard one that made a hell of bang descending back onto the flat road, whoever signed off on this incredibly stupid idea should have to pay the bill for turning it back to the way it should've been built in the first place.