Kerb Your Enthusiasm: Flush – The Ranty Highwayman
The other day, I posted a photo of a dropped kerb at a brand new toucan crossing which had been left sticking up about 25mm above the road surface. I thought it was obviously poor, but some disagreed.
Having a flush dropped kerb at crossing points really shouldn’t be a point for debate and frankly, it’s not. If you disagree with flush kerbs then you are purely and simply wrong.
The photograph above shows the offending kerb and before I talk about why kerbs should be flush in these situations, it’s worth exploring a couple of other points. Notwithstanding drawings and scheme specifications, the actual type of kerbs we have available make kerb upstands more likely simply because the units are not designed to be laid flush.
However, this is the situation during a downpour with water running along the road channel and so in both cases, if the rain is that heavy, pedestrians are still going to have to deal with water. A well-designed crossing will have involved the designer looking upstream (hydraulically speaking) to see what the drainage is like. Having a gully just upstream of the crossing will help reduce the amount of water passing the crossing point.
