u/Apathetizer

This will be a niche rant about the new bike and pedestrian infrastructure round the Navy Yard. Major overhauls were made to roads around the Navy Yard in the past year, including the Cosgrove Ave extension, all at a cost of $59 million. We absolutely need better bike/pedestrian infrastructure, but what was actually delivered falls short of what we should be getting.

The cornerstone of the project was the Cosgrove Ave extension bridge, which included a safe, comfortable walkway on the side of the bridge for cyclists and pedestrians. However, the landing at the end of the bridge makes no sense at all. Where the bridge ends at the Cosgrove/Noisette intersection, right where cyclists get off the bridge, the engineers decided to cut out a huge chunk of the curb for cars, so now the stop sign is located in the middle of the street:

Of course, they had to put up a traffic cone because people kept crashing into the stop sign.

Of course, this makes no sense from the perspective of drivers, and now pedestrians have to cross a much wider road for no reason.

For anyone walking across the bridge, this is the first thing they get to deal with. Because of the how crosswalk is placed, pedestrians now have to cross a wider-than-necessary road, then double back to get to the bridge pathway:

https://preview.redd.it/g77m8z2a0j4h1.png?width=1350&format=png&auto=webp&s=26cc1f81c2cd3edae81bb42fe580655f9dd44d8c

The other cornerstone of the project is a set of bike lanes on N Hobson Ave. This is a fantastic idea in concept but badly implemented in practice. For one, the paint used for the bike lanes is less than a year old, yet it is already crumbling off of the road. This is happening along the entire stretch:

Why is this happening to brand new infrastructure?

N Hobson Ave stretches on for over a mile, but the bike lanes only cover two city blocks. In fact, the engineers made the curb stick out in front of the bike lanes where they end, forcing cyclists onto the sidewalk:

Also, notice the chipped paint and debris in this picture.

Curbs are quite expensive to move around or alter, so by sticking the curb in front of the bike lanes, the engineers have basically guaranteed these bike lanes will never be extended down the full length of N Hobson Ave.

Why is this what we're getting for new infrastructure? Why are we making such basic and obvious mistakes on bike/pedestrian infrastructure, especially when this infrastructure is badly needed around Charleston? We need better streets and we can do so much better than this.

I've seen a lot of people support pedestrianizing King Street when the topic is brought up. However, I've never seen a detailed proposal of what the pedestrianized street would actually look like. This is my attempt to create that proposal. I was particularly inspired by this paper which also explores pedestrianization.

First of all, pedestrianization is absolutely viable. King Street is the single busiest pedestrian corridor in all of Charleston, and there's usually far more pedestrians than cars. Most (reasonable) drivers take Meeting or East Bay instead. We already pedestrianize King Street once a month for Second Sunday, and it ends up being the busiest day of the month for businesses along the corridor. Second Sunday is a wildly successful event and pedestrianizing the street would make that success permanent.

My proposal only pedestrianizes King Street from Calhoun–Queen (the same corridor that is closed on Second Sundays). My full concept is too big to be uploaded, but you can view it here. Here is a snippet of the larger proposal:

https://preview.redd.it/qjtljlx6okzg1.png?width=806&format=png&auto=webp&s=fd81033c9e7a98115597d72b822cf170e5c7c8ad

There are several things I really tried to accomplish:

• King Street is turned into a promenade, but cross-streets are still drive-able. For example, drivers can still drive all the way through Wentworth Street, even at its intersection with King. They will just no longer be able to drive down King St. (See Lincoln Road in Miami Beach as a precedent)
• A two-way bike lane runs down the middle of King Street to provide a reasonable cycling route for the lower peninsula. Right now, there is no good two-way route for cyclists on the lower peninsula, especially because Lower King only allows one-way traffic. This cycletrack would solve the problem. This would also complement the Lowline which will serve the upper peninsula.
• The cycletrack is offset from the center of the street for two reasons: first, because the offset position works better with the street's tight geometry at intersections (Liberty & Society; Hasell & Beaufain); second, so that there is a 'wide' section of the promenade which can be used for events and programming (e.g. food trucks, street vendors, the kind of things you would expect to see on Second Sunday).
• The cycletrack will also serve important secondary functions as a route for emergency vehicles and as a parade route (for the many parades and events which happen on King Street). To this end, the cycletrack will be wide enough to fit a firetruck down it. This will be a godsend for emergency vehicles trying to navigate the peninsula when there's traffic on other roads.