Note that many MUPs are designed by landscape architects, not transportation engineers, and a popular design principle in the landscape architecture profession is the "meandering" path. The principle is to add intrigue and variation to the path by intentionally curving it around natural obstructions like hills and trees to reduce sight distances. They often add such sight obstructions to straight, open areas as part of the construction to achieve their objective. Their design user is recreational pedestrians, who get bored on very long straight stretches of pavement.
Clearly, they are using the opposite set of design criteria from what is appropriate for vehicular facility design. There are some MUPS that lend themselves well to travel at high cycling speeds, such as some rail trails, but only if the most aesthetics-oriented landscape designers haven't had their way. To be fair, some of the landscape architects have become aware of design requirements for vehicular use, but others have not.
Last edited by sggoodri; 07-30-09 at 07:49 AM.