Sir Ridesalot wrote:
Went for a ride the other day and passed through Cambridge Ontario on the
way to another city. We went to stop at a favourite restaurant in
Cambridge and discovered that this city has a weird way of doing the
areas near some of the roundabouts. The weird thing is a concrete road
divider that runs from roundabout to roundabout. In the case of the
restaurant we wanted to go to, the distance from the road we were on to
the restaurant after turning right onto the road it's on was @110 meters.
They have put a roundabout in instead of the stoplights that used to be
there plus they've added this concrete barrier to the road the restaurant
is on. This means that instead of driving/cycling @110 meters to get to
the restaurant you have to drive all the way to the next roundabout, go
through that roundabout and then drive back up to the entrance to the
restaurant. That is a distance of just about 1..5 KILOMETERS.

If there are sidewalks, they expect up to 85% and more of cyclists will.
instead of riding the extra last mile, just (ab)use 110m of sidewalk to
reach their destination on the wrong way of the street?

The road above the first roundabout (if you turn left instead of right)
continues to another roundabout and this road to that roundabout is also
divided by a concrete barrier. This again forces people to drive/cycle
quite a bit further (+1 kilometer) to get to a driveway to another
plaza.

So much for conserving energy or getting more people to use bicycles
instead of cars.

I really do wonder what the road planners were thinking when they
approved those concrete road barriers.

Anti-turrarizm? Or about the (purely ficticious!) Head of road-safety
directorate's newest piece of real estate that, in two years, will change
hands at about double the purchasing price which, of course, has nothing to
do with a developer remotely connected to the concrete-barrier company?