Safety lies in infrastructure and nobody ever needs to learn anything.
 

I was looking at a magnified view of a tricky intersection on my route
home from Fort Wayen next Tuesday, and noticed that the median of the
crossing was labeled "Dupont Road Trail".

So I opened the sidebar and clicked on "bicycling". Sure enough, the
median lit up green. Having already established that all I will be
able to do is to grit my teeth and pray that I take the correct left
exit to stay on Dupont Road, I followed the trail to the end, which
was in the middle of a five-lane road.

Noticing that the "trail" on the south side of Dupont continued, I
backtracked and followed that one to its end -- at the intersection of
two five-lane roads.

Then I traced back to its beginning at Woodland Plaza Parkway.
Appropriately, there is a funeral home on the corner.

There's a weaving term for what Dupont does at the intersection, where
the westbound lanes have been lifted up and crossed over the eastbound
lanes for a short distance.

Ah! I think it's "leno".

Nope. The Wikipedia article says leno is worked on weft threads, and
what I'm thinking of can be worked only on warp threads. The picture
looks similar, but the threads are twisted, not bootlaced.

And the picture looks a lot like "twining". Is, perhaps, the Wikip a
teeny bit off?

Just took another look at Google Maps. The trail on the south side of
Dupont does not connect to the trail on the north side. But the one
on the north side begins on the south side and crosses over at the
tricky intersection.

It's rather a pity that I won't be able to spare any attention to look
at the MUP.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at comcast dot net
http://wlweather.net/PAGEJOY/

Safety lies in infrastructure and nobody ever needs to learnanything.
 

On 5/23/2020 10:39 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:

I was looking at a magnified view of a tricky intersection on my route
home from Fort Wayen next Tuesday, and noticed that the median of the
crossing was labeled "Dupont Road Trail".

So I opened the sidebar and clicked on "bicycling". Sure enough, the
median lit up green. Having already established that all I will be
able to do is to grit my teeth and pray that I take the correct left
exit to stay on Dupont Road, I followed the trail to the end, which
was in the middle of a five-lane road.

Noticing that the "trail" on the south side of Dupont continued, I
backtracked and followed that one to its end -- at the intersection of
two five-lane roads.

Then I traced back to its beginning at Woodland Plaza Parkway.
Appropriately, there is a funeral home on the corner.

There's a weaving term for what Dupont does at the intersection, where
the westbound lanes have been lifted up and crossed over the eastbound
lanes for a short distance.

Ah! I think it's "leno".

Nope. The Wikipedia article says leno is worked on weft threads, and
what I'm thinking of can be worked only on warp threads. The picture
looks similar, but the threads are twisted, not bootlaced.

And the picture looks a lot like "twining". Is, perhaps, the Wikip a
teeny bit off?

Just took another look at Google Maps. The trail on the south side of
Dupont does not connect to the trail on the north side. But the one
on the north side begins on the south side and crosses over at the
tricky intersection.

It's rather a pity that I won't be able to spare any attention to look
at the MUP.

I took a look at Google Maps. Seems you're dealing with a "Diverging
Diamond" interchange. We'll be getting our first about 20 miles from
here in a year or two.

I guess it is safer and faster for motorists. One cyclist I correspond
with has bicycled through one using the oddball paths they provide. She
says it works OK. But it's an aesthetically ugly environment for anyone
not inside a car.

Here's City Lab and/or Strong Towns' tour of one. The video is instructive.
https://www.citylab.com/design/2011/...omination/453/

Thing is, we've built a society where motor vehicle travel is (almost)
all that's expected, and has become (almost) mandatory. So MV traffic
now demands infrastructure that's hostile to anyone not in a MV.

I hate this situation; but it's hard to see a way out of it, barring
real upheavals in society.

For myself, I carefully chose to live in a place that is still quite
walkable and bikeable. And I learned routes that usually avoid the truly
ugly places, plus riding techniques that allow me to deal with the ugly
places when I must.

--
- Frank Krygowski