Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
They're not used much in the inner cities, true. But this isn't the inner city, it's a development which is only accessible by car. The roundabouts used here are also on the edges of the developments.
As for pedestrian/cyclist friendliness - that is usually solved, in the UK at least, by underpasses and ideally completely separate pathway systems.
Milton Keynes
I've noticed under/overpasses are very unpopular on this board, however. |
So effectively the walkability aspect in this development is the part where people go from the parking lot to their activity location. Walkability, connectivity, sustainability, more pretty words with diminishing meaning.
It looks to me like at least 2 of those multilane roundabouts are actually fairly central, separating res from commercial.
Underpasses are ok in limited circumstance for cycling when most of the trips are through trips. You'd generally only have it under one, possibly two legs of the roundabout. Here, given you have adjacent land uses, you'd prefer to uphold access and underpasses are not overly conducive to that. They also require a lot of space and extra cash. You're not about to see something akin to the Hovenring to mitigate the inconveniences of a multilane roundabout in Calgary or the monstrosity you just posted above. I wouldn't exactly call that pedestrian friendly although at least it makes some effort. It also misses the actual meaning of pedestrian friendliness. I see little reason for most people to be walking there. In any case, I have a feeling that a developer is not about to destroy that much useful land of their own volition.
I'd be hesitant to use cities in the UK as good models for cycling in the first place. Most of them have very low mode shares and really don't do better than our cycling cities, save for a couple.