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Looking along the continuation of the Rail Trail toward Orleans, September, 2003. The neighborhood to the right backs up against Route 6 and so there is no through traffic crossing the Rail Trail here. All three streets that come in from the right make T intersections with the road at the left and serve only a few residences. Still, we have another "walk bikes" sign -- and a stop sign on the Rail Ttrail -- at each of the three very lightly-traveled streets. As the crosswalks also serve pedestrians, traffic in the street is required to yield here anyway. Is there a stop sign for the traffic in the street, then? No, only a warning sign. Still, it would be difficult to require drivers entering from the left to stop before the Rail Trail, as there is not room to wait. Such problems are inherent with sidepaths -- and in this segment which crosses three roadways, the Rail Trai has become a sidepath for a few hundred feet.
What could have been done to avoid or mitigate the problems? Moving bicycle traffic onto the road at the left would not make much sense here, because northbound bicyclists would have to cross the road twice within a few hundred feet. A reasonable approach could be to combine the three intersections with the Rail Trail into one or two, move the Rail Trail farther from the parallel road at the left, make the crosswalk(s) right-angled rather than diagonal. These improvements might have required a small land taking.
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