Every morning I have breakfast by the window of my living room. It looks out over Mario Capecchi Drive, which is a four lane road (two going in either direction) with a wide meridian and an extra lane on the southbound side for turning right. Every morning at about the same time, excepting Friday, traffic will start to pile up in the same place. This is because just down the road (north of my building) there is a left turn lane to a street into campus. The traffic almost always exceeds the boundary of the left turn lane itself, and instead spills backward into the left lane of the road. I've often noticed that the traffic is pre-sorted. What I mean by this is that those continuing on the road stay in the right lane, while about 95% of the traffic in the left lane utilizes the left turn lane when they finally reach it.
It is also fun to watch the street on a very rainy day. When it heavily rains for more than 10 minutes, an area of grass across the street from my window starts to vomit up water. Presumably it's a storm drain, but I haven't really checked it out. Since the terrain on the other side of the street is sloped steeply downward toward the street, the torrent of water quickly finds it's way to the storm drain there. However this drain quickly fills up, and before long a very large puddle collects. Once we estimated it was about 3 or 4 feet deep. This puddle also collects on the road, not on the side of it. It makes driving on the road very dangerous, although I haven't seen anyone crash yet. It is funny to see a street that looks so functional and utilitarian be reduced to half capacity just because of a rain storm. The road is slightly slanted in race-track fashion, so that the innermost lane is lowest to the ground and the outermost lanes are at a higher elevation. It is because the road is so adapted for fast traffic that it has the problem of the giant puddle.
Another important feature of this road is the Fort Douglas TRAX station next to the seldom used extra right turn lane I mentioned above. Every day excepting Friday a man gets off the northbound train at the same time. He is always dressed in army clothes and usually carries a tan duffel bag that looks very full, as well as his military backpack. He always jay-walks across the street toward Fort Douglas, which is really not all that surprising considering his dress. Sometimes, other people jaywalk across the street too, but he does it every day. His predicament brings into light many issues with the street. First and foremost, it is an area for cars. People are not welcome; there are not even sidewalks on the side of this street. TRAX deposits people, either walking or riding their bikes at the top of lower campus. Anyone who wishes to go to upper campus needs to either walk along the length of the TRAX station, up the stairs to legacy bridge, and across, or they need to make their way in the other direction to the intersection south of the TRAX station. Unsurprisingly, almost nobody chooses the intersection. It takes up to 3 minutes before the signals let pedestrians cross in the desired direction, and there is no clear path between the TRAX station and the intersection because of the lack of sidewalks. There was never any consideration on the part of the planners to make foot transportation between the TRAX station and the intersection possible, and the only way to do it is to walk along a sidewalk that suddenly dissappears, walk across the entrance to a parking lot, walk across another parking lot (all the while losing elevation), and then walk up a steep, large set of hidden stairs. Yes, I do mean they are hidden. At first glance, they would look like part of a 25 foot retaining wall made of concrete. So, all in all, I perfectly understand why army dude jay-walks across a very busy street every morning: because it's much easier.
Other than army dude, there aren't really faces associated with the street. There are people in their cars, and there are people who get off TRAX, and there are students who cross Legacy Bridge, but nobody interacts with the street on a fundamental level. It is a place for people who don't want to be where they are.
It is also fun to watch the street on a very rainy day. When it heavily rains for more than 10 minutes, an area of grass across the street from my window starts to vomit up water. Presumably it's a storm drain, but I haven't really checked it out. Since the terrain on the other side of the street is sloped steeply downward toward the street, the torrent of water quickly finds it's way to the storm drain there. However this drain quickly fills up, and before long a very large puddle collects. Once we estimated it was about 3 or 4 feet deep. This puddle also collects on the road, not on the side of it. It makes driving on the road very dangerous, although I haven't seen anyone crash yet. It is funny to see a street that looks so functional and utilitarian be reduced to half capacity just because of a rain storm. The road is slightly slanted in race-track fashion, so that the innermost lane is lowest to the ground and the outermost lanes are at a higher elevation. It is because the road is so adapted for fast traffic that it has the problem of the giant puddle.
Another important feature of this road is the Fort Douglas TRAX station next to the seldom used extra right turn lane I mentioned above. Every day excepting Friday a man gets off the northbound train at the same time. He is always dressed in army clothes and usually carries a tan duffel bag that looks very full, as well as his military backpack. He always jay-walks across the street toward Fort Douglas, which is really not all that surprising considering his dress. Sometimes, other people jaywalk across the street too, but he does it every day. His predicament brings into light many issues with the street. First and foremost, it is an area for cars. People are not welcome; there are not even sidewalks on the side of this street. TRAX deposits people, either walking or riding their bikes at the top of lower campus. Anyone who wishes to go to upper campus needs to either walk along the length of the TRAX station, up the stairs to legacy bridge, and across, or they need to make their way in the other direction to the intersection south of the TRAX station. Unsurprisingly, almost nobody chooses the intersection. It takes up to 3 minutes before the signals let pedestrians cross in the desired direction, and there is no clear path between the TRAX station and the intersection because of the lack of sidewalks. There was never any consideration on the part of the planners to make foot transportation between the TRAX station and the intersection possible, and the only way to do it is to walk along a sidewalk that suddenly dissappears, walk across the entrance to a parking lot, walk across another parking lot (all the while losing elevation), and then walk up a steep, large set of hidden stairs. Yes, I do mean they are hidden. At first glance, they would look like part of a 25 foot retaining wall made of concrete. So, all in all, I perfectly understand why army dude jay-walks across a very busy street every morning: because it's much easier.
Other than army dude, there aren't really faces associated with the street. There are people in their cars, and there are people who get off TRAX, and there are students who cross Legacy Bridge, but nobody interacts with the street on a fundamental level. It is a place for people who don't want to be where they are.
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