Roads scholar
I went driving around town these past few days, and I'm intrigued by the amount of work that's happening on the main north/south roads on the edges of town. I was aware of work on Randall; they've finally put in some sort of sidewalk near all the bus stops. We've had a bus route there for years. Why it's taken that long to put in any sort of sidewalk, I'm not sure, but they had to put in culverts as well so perhaps that was part of the delay. The sides of the roads all go down into detention ponds or at least deep ditches. The weird thing is that the sidewalks don't really go anywhere. I mean, they're definitely better than having to stand right on the edge of the road, but it's not like you can walk the sidewalk all the way down the road. One part of the sidewalk comes off the side streets, like a normal sidewalk does, but it goes about 20 feet, then turns 90 degrees toward Randall, where presumably the bus would stop, and that's it. Then it's another eighth of a mile or whatever until the next little sidewalk stand. The lay of the land must prevent full-on sidewalks, and a person could easily go into a parking lot if they absolutely had to walk for a while, but it's still kind of weird.
The other thing I noticed has to do with Kirk. On one side is Fermilab; the other side has houses backing up to it. South of Pine there are a few side streets that end at Kirk but there aren't any turn lanes or anything there, and that portion of the road is notorious for accidents, including a number that have been fatal. There's a reason its nickname is Killer Kirk. Somebody finally got tired of it after all these years and they're now putting in a raised median to prevent people from making left-hand turns from northbound Kirk onto both these side streets. I don't see why they didn't just put in turn lanes, because at least that way the lanes would be protected but people would still have access to them, but that would probably cost millions of dollars between the construction and securing of rights-of-way, since in order for that to work they'd have to acquire land from Fermi. So, raised median. That kind of stinks for the people who live there, because now they'll either have to go through a winding subdivision in order to get up to their houses, or else they'll have to drive past there to Pine and come back down, but oh well. At least there is still right-in, right-out access if you're heading southbound. What's funny is that those are the only two streets that connect to Kirk in that area that don't have stoplights, so obviously whoever built those subdivisions did want the people who live there to have access to Kirk, but at this point they might as well have been culs-de-sac like every other street that backs to there. Oh well. It doesn't affect me at all save for knowing I'll never have to stop behind somebody turning left there, but I don't doubt it'll be frustrating for some people.
The other thing I noticed has to do with Kirk. On one side is Fermilab; the other side has houses backing up to it. South of Pine there are a few side streets that end at Kirk but there aren't any turn lanes or anything there, and that portion of the road is notorious for accidents, including a number that have been fatal. There's a reason its nickname is Killer Kirk. Somebody finally got tired of it after all these years and they're now putting in a raised median to prevent people from making left-hand turns from northbound Kirk onto both these side streets. I don't see why they didn't just put in turn lanes, because at least that way the lanes would be protected but people would still have access to them, but that would probably cost millions of dollars between the construction and securing of rights-of-way, since in order for that to work they'd have to acquire land from Fermi. So, raised median. That kind of stinks for the people who live there, because now they'll either have to go through a winding subdivision in order to get up to their houses, or else they'll have to drive past there to Pine and come back down, but oh well. At least there is still right-in, right-out access if you're heading southbound. What's funny is that those are the only two streets that connect to Kirk in that area that don't have stoplights, so obviously whoever built those subdivisions did want the people who live there to have access to Kirk, but at this point they might as well have been culs-de-sac like every other street that backs to there. Oh well. It doesn't affect me at all save for knowing I'll never have to stop behind somebody turning left there, but I don't doubt it'll be frustrating for some people.