Pork Chops and Refuge Islands

I got quite a few question asking "what is a Pork Chop?" after I'd mentioned that feature in my last blog post regarding the new cycle path along the Alaska Highway.

Pork Chop
A "pork chop" it a term to describe a triangular shaped "island" or piece of alienated land created by a right-hand "slip lane" or right-hand merge/diverge lane.  They are kind of an antiquate roadway design for convenience of drivers, but are quite problematic for pedestrians and cyclists.

Unfortunately, Whitehorse is rife with them.  Here are some examples:
 

Here are the pork chops at the infamous 4th and 2nd Ave intersection.  The kids that presented to City Council spoke extensively about how dangerous this intersection for them biking home from school. Good news is we heard that the City has started planning for re-design of this intersection!

Here is the 2nd and Quartz Rd. intersection.  Look at the convoluted path (sorry about my crude drawing) that a pedestrian has to follow to cross Quartz Rd.  What a pain in the a; not good for making your walk convenient.  Also, those right-hand turning cars are moving fast across those uncontrolled pedestrian crossings.

Here is Alaska Highway and 2-Mile Hill.  Imagine if you are an on-road cyclists trying to go northbound.  You have to first cross the high-speed right-turning traffic, then move through the intersection, then again change lanes across the northbound traffic coming from 2-mile Hill.  Scary for even the most bold of cyclists, never mind pulling children in a Chariot!  Anyone who has ridden through the recently re-built Lewes Blvd and Hospital Road intersection can attest to these hazards.

Here is are examples of pork-chops from the highway through Kelowna.  At YG's recent public seminar on road safety,  highway-safety expert Paul LaFleur cited the highway through Kelowna as a bad example and not what you want to do for a highway through a City.

Some years ago we did an an-hoc survey of all the "problematic" intersections for cyclists in Whitehorse.  Interestingly, all of the "problem" intersections correlated 1:1 to intersections with pork-chops.  

Also, cities are actively removing "pork chops" because of the barriers they create for non-motorists; here is an example from London Ontario: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/pork-chop-islands-getting-axed-1.4366890


 Refuge Islands

So how do we make intersection safer for pedestrian and cyclists?  The contemporary solution is a "refuge island."  This is a protected space (created by a median) between the two different directions of travel, see an example below:

Refuge island between the two directions of road travel (from left-to-right).  This is a Dutch example, they have so much bike traffic they provide separate spaces for pedestrians and cyclists!

The refuge island makes the crossing distance shorter for vulnerable road users.  I've seen at least two examples of why this is important:

1. Children cognitively have a difficult time both keeping track of traffic from two directions AND the relative speed of the vehicles.  Thus crossing two different directions at the same time is dangerous for them as they can't judge the space/distances well.  A refuge island allows them to cross one-direction at at time.
2. I have a personal example when travelling in Mexico with my aging father last year.  The community we were in divided the roadways and in doing so created refuge islands at the crosswalks.  My father is getting increasingly stiff and so walks slowly.  The refuge island allowed him to cross the roadways, one direction/lane at a time.

In signalized intersections refuge islands are also needed because we allow cars to turn right on red lights and thus cars traverse the cross-walk even when the walk signal is illuminated.

Here is a schematic of a refuge island from busy roads in city of Amsterdam.  Notice the refuge space created between in the two directions of travel.  Again, because of their bike volumes the pedestrians and cyclists have separate spaces.  This is also a good example of a Protected Intersection.