As I understand it, this is the continuous center turn lane option (rather than the center lane median with left turns allowed only at intesections). It is also the option that takes the street width for bicycles and puts it into wider sidewalks instead.

I'm pretty disappointed on both counts, although happy to see us get rid of the 4 lane option. IMO we had an opportunity to do something REALLY good, and we're settling for good enough instead.

I like the decision to widen the sidewalks. More space for sidewalk cafe's, maybe sidewalk sales? The street will be safer for cyclists with a designated turn lane, but they may prefer alternate routes on White or Lake avenues.

What we need is more narrow streets in Knoxville!?

What this will do is just push more traffic on other roads that are even less able to deal with traffic than Cumberland Ave. is.

Dealing with traffic is like squeezing a balloon. Squeeze it tight one place, and it will expand in another place.

I have to say I am more disappointed about the decision not to include the median than I am about the less than optimal bike access (and BTW, the "they can ride on another street" argument doesn't really go down that well with cyclists. Try telling a vehiclean he can just drive on another street).

Allowing unrestricted left turns the length of Cumberland affects EVERYBODY's safety. I see no one who benefits from it. I'm sure the merchants think they do, but if the long term intent of the upcoming code is to migrate parking to the rear (and if it isn't, then it's not much of a code improvement), then even they don't get much benefit.

So I guess I would like for Bill to explain how the the full length turn lane is better than a median with left turns restricted to intersections.

Lest I do nothing but gripe, let me say again that the "road diet" and wider sidewalks are good things. I'm very happy to see the City tackle this, and I know a lot of hard work has gone into it.

Like I said, I just think we settled for good enough when we could have gotten really, really good.

Bill,

Thanks for the explanation.

The original vision did not have a median. We thought it well worth working through with all the stakeholders but the judgement we came to was that the benefits of the median did not outweigh the its costs.

No, but the original vision got rid of a bunch of the curb cuts. Once it was determined that all 36 of 'em had to stay, then the median seemed to me like the most creative solution for keeping cars from turning across the pedestrian walkway all over the place (we'd still have right turns in, but no more left turns in).

Obviously, we'll just have to agree to disagree. I guess I'll just have to hope that somewhere down the line we get creative and brave enough to turn that center turn lane into a median.

I have posted this before. And it looks to have some similarities with Cumberland plan.

Anyway, Cumberland seems a natural for this approach. From Wired Magazine 2004 ...

page 2 is particularly informative

(link...)

The key problem with this selection is the issue of intelligent distribution of space. The wide outside lanes alternative would still have provided 12' sidewalks. The current plan provides like 14.5' sidewalks. On a practical level, the utility of a sidewalk changes very little from 12' to 14.5'. Both are plenty wide (your average sidewalk is like 5-8 ft) to for pedestrians to travel and/or mingle, and benches can be installed in both.

But the difference between a 12' and a 15' travel lane is tremendous in terms of what it does for cyclists. For a 12' lane, sharing with cars can be done safely without either leaving the lane, but not with busses or trucks. A 15' lane is a specialized bike facility, and can be shared with everything without either mode leaving the lane, which translates to more traffic capacity that's already at a premium. The current plan basically spends $10+ million on much wider sidewalks and a purely beauty makeover. Street trees are nice, but frankly are just another "beautiful" item with little practical use.

People are already looking at the current plans, and checking to see how feasible they are, and whether it conforms with the complete streets policy, and so forth. Hopefully these and other concerns have been merely overlooked, and changes will be made.

Good point about the extra width - but I have to argue that street trees have a huge practical use. They pay for themselves many times over with reduced air conditioning costs. Pedestrians will walk farther on a nice tree shaded sidewalk - spend more money - too.

Trees provide ecological services that include 1) reduced air pollution, 2) storm-water control, 3) carbon storage, 4) improved water quality, and 5) reduced energy consumption.

Virginia Tech article
(link...)

Good point. It didn't really sink in that a bike lane would add such a small amount of width. Do you think someone is trying to discourage biking on Cumberland for safety reasons?