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I hate Chicago's traffic and traffic engineering, it's destroying the city's GDP. The public transportation system is amazing, but the traffic lights and flow of traffic is schizophrenic. I really wish fluid dynamics, energy transfer, neurology, computational biology, and blood circulatory systems were the cornerstones of traffic engineering in this city. Chicago's traffic would be lowered by magnitudes if traffic lights allowed cars to move fluidly as groups through areas, rather than fixed 24/7 timers that raise the frequency of heart disease in the city while increasing fuel consumption. Left turn lights are often non-existent, and one or two cars run the red light to make left turns causing the intersection to lock up after any light cycle. Seriously gently caress this city when driving in a car. The roads and lights are like a vascular system full of plaque, riddled with thrombosis, while suffering ventricular fibrillation during morning and evening work commutes. The public transportation system is already at capacity during rush hours, and the biggest way I see to lower commute times involves flushing the current rule-set on the grid and implementing traffic signals that take advantage of all the Orwellian city security cameras to dynamically plan the flow of traffic with adaptive light timing and harsh enforcement of not using your phone for anything if you are driving. It drives me nuts seeing a row of cars flow like dominoes rather than a water value. I loathe Chicago drivers, they don't give a crap except for when they want something. Warpigeon fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Dec 5, 2012 |
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Dec 5, 2012 08:29
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Munin posted:Could you just clarify the status of the currently green bridge in New Sanctum? There was talk of roadifying it. I'd love to know this too. We've got a perfectly good bridge that's basically unused right now. Even if making it a road is too much, turning it into a trolley bridge might be worthwhile.
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Dec 5, 2012 14:45
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Munin posted:Could you just clarify the status of the currently green bridge in New Sanctum? There was talk of roadifying it. The tracks were pretty much paved over (but can be dug up at any time, honest!), so it's now usable as a road bridge. A narrow, frightening road bridge with no rails. That is a pretty clear design: it's meant for future expansion to the northeast. Either they have something in the books now, or they did when it was the project was designed, and has fallen through since. Happens all the time. Now as for this one, I don't know why they would've intentionally introduced a weaving section. That'll only end in tears if the volumes grow. It would've been simple enough to swap those ramps. We've got a few of those, too, even on newly-designed freeways carrying over 100,000 ADT. It's just something you learn to live with, I guess. And incomplete freeway-freeway interchanges are a bane on humanity! It ends up costing ten times as much to complete them decades later as it did to build them in the first place. Hedera Helix posted:I'm curious as to how the street-running mainline in Fairport is doing. Specifically, whether it will need to be grade-separated in the next decade. It's nasty, horrible, and accident-prone. The City's considering just walling off the tracks and forcing trains to go through the city and reverse onto the western trackway. Warpigeon posted:I hate Chicago's traffic and traffic engineering, it's destroying the city's GDP. The public transportation system is amazing, but the traffic lights and flow of traffic is schizophrenic. These systems exist, and have been happily used for decades. Unfortunately, you've got that familiar catch-22 of civil engineering: I won't build it, because I can't afford the initial investment. I'll never be able to afford the initial investment, because I'm spending too much maintaining the current system. Hell, Hartford is a small city (~120,000 people) and still uses a signal system from the mid-80s, which is software from the 70s running on hardware from the 60s. They've got maybe a few hundred signals. When you're in a city like Chicago, which has probably ~10 thousand, how do you foot that initial cost? The only thing worse than having a dysfunctional signal network is having two partial dysfunctional signal networks because you ran out of money. Warpigeon posted:I loathe Chicago drivers, they don't give a crap except for when they want something. Isn't that everyone?
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Dec 5, 2012 23:00
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Cichlidae posted:That is a pretty clear design: it's meant for future expansion to the northeast. Either they have something in the books now, or they did when it was the project was designed, and has fallen through since. Happens all the time. That's what I thought but the ramps are still somewhat far from the bridge - kinda unusual, at least around here with our older highways.
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Dec 6, 2012 01:30
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Warpigeon posted:I hate Chicago's traffic and traffic engineering, it's destroying the city's GDP. The public transportation system is amazing, but the traffic lights and flow of traffic is schizophrenic. 
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Dec 6, 2012 12:39
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grover posted:It would be great if traffic flowed more like fluid dynamics... Why don't people understand that when you decrease the number of lanes, you need to increase speed to maintain an equal flow rate! 3 lanes in a 60 zone merging down to 2 wouldn't congest if traffic increased velocity to 90mph Traffic flow, fluid dynamics, and electricity really are analogous. It was pretty cool when I figured that out, and it's a great way to explain them to laymen. Pipes = roads = wires. They carry water molecules/cars/positive charge at a certain energy, which can be represented by hydraulic head/speed/voltage. The amount they're carrying is the flow/flow/amperage. Each of the three has losses, which can be accounted for as friction losses/reduction of freeflow speed/resistance. They each have bottlenecks, as well, which are pipe fittings/geometry/resistors. Pipes/roads/wires in parallel carry additive traffic at the same head/speed/voltage. You can store water/cars/charge in a reservoir/parking garage/battery. The analogies really do go on and on; it's applicable to nearly everything. The biggest difference is that cars are capable of increasing their speed. If you start looking into things like traffic signals or hills, the comparisons with electricity get wonky (though I suppose you might be able to use a self-shorting capacitor for a signal.)
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Dec 6, 2012 13:19
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Cichlidae posted:Traffic flow, fluid dynamics, and electricity really are analogous. It was pretty cool when I figured that out, and it's a great way to explain them to laymen. Since speed is like voltage or water pressure, you can pass more cars by widening the road or speeding them up, but then you'll get accidents / burst pipes / overloaded wires?
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Dec 6, 2012 17:33
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NightGyr posted:Since speed is like voltage or water pressure, you can pass more cars by widening the road or speeding them up, but then you'll get accidents / burst pipes / overloaded wires? Burst pipes or overloaded wires are more closely analogous to roads at LOS F. Dielectric breakdown, cavitation, whatever you'd like to call it. Remember, higher speed roads tend to have much lower accident rates!
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Dec 6, 2012 22:49
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Cichlidae posted:Burst pipes or overloaded wires are more closely analogous to roads at LOS F. Dielectric breakdown, cavitation, whatever you'd like to call it. Remember, higher speed roads tend to have much lower accident rates!
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Dec 6, 2012 23:49
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Modelling complex systems with fluid dynamics. Anyway, glad to know that we're slowly building up stupidities from street running to badly designed bridges. 
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Dec 7, 2012 00:26
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So 1920 will arrive tonight, and I have the maps ready, but I'm about to head off to dinner and I'd like to give you guys some advance time to check out the road map:  Since this is the 1920s, NutDOT has chosen to label its roads! Whether you use letters, numbers, colors, or any other combination is up to you. Be creative! Once you number them once, you'll probably never get to do it again! And yes, the route numbers will be shown on subsequent maps.
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Dec 10, 2012 01:05
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I think we should assign each major city a two letter code and then each of those cities gets to assign numbers to the roads passing through them. Sure, it would mean that some roads had to change code in the middle, that shouldn't become any kind of real problem.
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Dec 10, 2012 01:28
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I assume as part of this we're going to have to determine what are "priority" roads (which will probably go on to become highways etc.)? If so, can we get some more hints about which are the busiest and most important? If not, are we just aiming to have a comprehensive numbering scheme which we'll update later as roads are upgraded?
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Dec 10, 2012 01:41
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We could have a semi grid based scheme, where we have two sets of two numbers that denote x,y position to label start and end. We'll have to give the state a 10x10 grid for this. Or we can have a scheme where north/south and east/west get even/odd numbers. Or we could combine the two! Or, we can just start counting from one and give roads numbers randomly.
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Dec 10, 2012 01:48
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I want colours and names so we can have wonderful stylised maps like the public transport ones. 
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Dec 10, 2012 02:49
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We should use letters to label our routes. When we inevitably run out of Latin characters for things, we'll move on to Greek, then Hebrew. 
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Dec 10, 2012 02:53
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Let's have a look at 1920 Nutmeg:  https://docs.google.com/open?id=0ByQzqtNM0WuFMU93VTdwRmwxYUE A few cities, in their expansion, are starting to grow together. Bus and tram service between cities has helped this trend. Orangewich and Manbury are experiencing heavy growth, primarily due to their excellent connectivity with New Cork State. Meanwhile, we've got a couple new cities - Shalom, a mostly agricultural town at a major crossroads in the West, and Southshire, in a similar situation to the East. They've been experiencing steady growth, and now have achieved the threshold to be shown on the map. The Great War has helped out Nutmeg, to be sure, and every city dealing in arms has prospered. With the coming of the 1920s and worldwide peace, though, things are calming down. Heck, after a war that big, we'd be stupid to get embroiled in any others. Disease is a big issue, and every major town is scrambling to set up some decent sanitation. We won't be dealing with that in this thread; just keep it in mind. Both air travel and automobiles are increasing, the latter quite explosively. Most downtown roads are heavily congested, even now, and the larger cities are thinking about building bypass roads. Specifically, we will want to build a bypass of the coastal roads, about 10 miles (16 km) from the coast. Meanwhile, the increase in vehicles has really hurt the train market. The only lines turning a profit currently are the coastal line between New Sanctum and New Cork, and between East Hartshire and New Sanctum - the only electrified lines, incidentally. But the first task this decade is designating a route system. To that end, I'll be producing a map showing (roughly) the volume on each road. As always, don't sperg out about the numbers; it's just meant to give you some more data to chew on. With that, let me know your thoughts!
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Dec 10, 2012 02:57
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"Bridge freezes before road" is ubiquitous through much of the US, we all know it happens, yet lots of people still wreck/die when they go from wet roads to icy bridges. Why couldn't we embed bridges with heating elements designed to raise road temperatures a few degrees during times of increased danger? Seems like it would be a fairly minor addition when compared to the cost of bridge construction.
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Dec 10, 2012 04:02
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grover posted:"Bridge freezes before road" is ubiquitous through much of the US, we all know it happens, yet lots of people still wreck/die when they go from wet roads to icy bridges. Why couldn't we embed bridges with heating elements designed to raise road temperatures a few degrees during times of increased danger? Seems like it would be a fairly minor addition when compared to the cost of bridge construction. One system that was tried out not too long ago was deicing sprayers built into the bridge, along with temperature sensors in the pavement. A somewhat less automated system just has the sensors, but is networked with the central Maintenance office, and brine trucks are dispatched to bridges which have frozen. Here, we're more proactive (and lower-tech): we just spray brine on every bridge before the frost season, and re-apply as necessary.
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Dec 10, 2012 04:08
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I could've sworn we requested that the rail line between Deep Bend and New Dublin, as well as the industrial stub in the south of West Sanctum be put back into service. Was that not feasible?
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Dec 10, 2012 04:10
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Hedera Helix posted:I could've sworn we requested that the rail line between Deep Bend and New Dublin, as well as the industrial stub in the south of West Sanctum be put back into service. Was that not feasible? The file got wiped and I had to download the old version from the web, so I may have missed some stuff. The important part is that the line is still there, because as of this decade, nearly all the rail lines are in the red. They're starting to consolidate (even moreso than before).
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Dec 10, 2012 04:32
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Ron Pauls Friend posted:
quoting this again Heres a very rough sample of how it would work 
Ron Pauls Friend fucked around with this message at 05:13 on Dec 10, 2012 |
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Dec 10, 2012 04:52
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I propose gridding up the state map, into 5 mile major gridlines, and numbering as such: Then, apply the following rules (subject to discussion): Start at A0, and going down columns (so A0, A1,...A7, B0, B1, etc) find any roads that terminate there. The "most major" road (also subject to discussion) gets the letter/number combo of the grid square. Subsequent roads, in order of majority, get numbered with a suffix, choosing first 0, 5, 9, and then the rest of the numbers. So roads in the "A0" square, in order of majority, would be labeled A0, A00*, A05, A09, A01, A02, A03, A04, A06, A07, A08. Further minor roads start at A001 and get numbered up through A099. Once numbered, a route label continues until the road's other terminus. Where necessary, concurrencies may occur, but are preferably avoided. Where roads merge, Grid-level (2 character) route labels are continued in preference to lesser (3 or 4 character) labels. *May want to start the numbering at 1 instead of 0 to avoid "double 0" roads. Roughly applying these to our grid gives the following:  With the following notes: 1) I attempted to follow continuous routes as far as possible, but in some cases the exact nature of merges wasn't entirely clear from looking at the map. (C5/G4 in particular was tough to decide.) 2) I measured the '5 miles' scale at 400 pixels but that wasn't quite right, so the grid will need to be adjusted to fit the proper scale. 3) I didn't quite label all the minor roads, but they're doable with this system. 4) The labeling isn't entirely consistent with the rules since I was basically making them up as I went along, so the sample numbering above isn't final under this system. I will probably have to adjust some of the other roads after volumes get posted. 5) There's no specific suffix for north-south or east-west roads, but so many of the major routes seem to do both (if you follow them through cities) that it probably wouldn't be too feasible to apply this with any consistency, and also it would mean all routes would have at minimum a 3-character label to still fit in with the grid system. An alternate possibility for smaller roads would be to apply the same rules, but have a second grid system of 1/2 mile blocks within each major grid square, numbered 0 to 9 both directions, and simply imply the suffix from that. quote:To that end, I'll be producing a map showing (roughly) the volume on each road. As always, don't sperg out about the numbers; it's just meant to give you some more data to chew on. Can you give a better idea of the capacity when you do this, a simple "how wide is this road" key would suffice. Or is it basically by the thickness of the lines? Also, do you have a vector version (.svg or .ai) of the road system? I could fiddle more with this if I did. edit: Made up a prototype road sign to go along with whatever numbering system is chosen. 
Xerol fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Dec 10, 2012 |
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Dec 10, 2012 07:34
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You all had better appreciate how long this took me to do:  Roflex posted:Can you give a better idea of the capacity when you do this, a simple "how wide is this road" key would suffice. Or is it basically by the thickness of the lines? Volume = thickness. You can approximate these same results with the gravity model! What's the gravity model? Well, remember that gravitational attraction a = G * m1 * m2 / r^2. Now, we take that same equation and apply it (for no good reason) to traffic engineering: v = G * p1 * p2 / d^2, where v = the volume, G = some constant, p1 and p2 are the populations of each of the towns/cities in your network, and d is the distance along the road between p1 and p2. Thing get hairy when you have to start doing integration of every portion of a city, or developing multiple routes. Roflex posted:Also, do you have a vector version (.svg or .ai) of the road system? I could fiddle more with this if I did. Vector? I hardly know 'er! (Even though I do everything with vectors, it's still all saved as a raster. Vectormagic could do an excellent job of converting, though. Roflex posted:edit: Made up a prototype road sign to go along with whatever numbering system is chosen. That's pretty rad!
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Dec 11, 2012 00:39
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Is there a national / US network we're plugging into here?
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Dec 11, 2012 00:59
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Mandalay posted:Is there a national / US network we're plugging into here? Not for another few years! There will be a regional "interstate" system designated mid-20s, and then the national network comes about in the mid-30s.
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Dec 11, 2012 01:00
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Cichlidae posted:Volume = thickness. You can approximate these same results with the gravity model! Was mainly asking about capacity, although I guess we can infer capacity from the volumes. Yeah I did a trace on the latest map you put up to make the road labels and the state contour for the route marker sign, I was mainly hoping to get an idea of which roads were through routes and which road merged into which. [If you can't tell, I like working with vectors. Road Sign svg]
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Dec 11, 2012 01:05
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As yet another alternative we could label the major cities from A to whatever and then label the major routes AB, DF, etc. Minor routes could be numbered trunks AD1 etc. We could ensure Nutmeg a place in all future US basic maths textbooks! Also less complicated and more intuitive than the grid idea. vv If we do that they have to be numbered on maps and named on signs. I hated when that happened when I was navigating for someone in the US... Munin fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Dec 11, 2012 |
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Dec 11, 2012 01:09
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Why number these things when we can name them for 
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Dec 11, 2012 01:15
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Ugh, all these alphanumerical schemes reek of Roman popery and probably come from Vladimir Lenin himself. But seriously, I surprised there is so little traffic between Hartshire and Salvation. Also New Sanctum should have immediate priority for a bypass. Oliver would probably demand one as well as truck traffic has probably increased on that route.
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Dec 11, 2012 01:41
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Ron Pauls Friend posted:But seriously, I surprised there is so little traffic between Hartshire and Salvation. Also New Sanctum should have immediate priority for a bypass. Oliver would probably demand one as well as truck traffic has probably increased on that route. Most traffic between Hartshire and Salvation takes the southern route, through Opiantic. It avoids those pesky mountain roads.
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Dec 11, 2012 02:56
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That reminds me of an odd road we ran into driving back from DC: Route 15 in Pennsylvania. One section was divided but had no traffic lights or overpasses, just roads that intersected. If you wanted to cross the highway, good luck, hope there's not too much traffic and wait in the middle until its clear. After that there was a section that did have overpasses and proper exits... But no exit numbers. Everything was just described by the road names. Very odd.
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Dec 11, 2012 02:57
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smackfu posted:That reminds me of an odd road we ran into driving back from DC: Route 15 in Pennsylvania. The sections you're describing will eventually be upgraded to a full freeway and become part of I-99 over the next 15-20 years. It's something that they've been slowly doing over the past decade or so in preparation.
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Dec 11, 2012 03:01
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Install Gentoo posted:The sections you're describing will eventually be upgraded to a full freeway and become part of I-99 over the next 15-20 years. It's something that they've been slowly doing over the past decade or so in preparation.
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Dec 11, 2012 11:37
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RAGE
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Dec 11, 2012 20:12
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Mandalay posted:RAGE Honestly I-97 is way more egregious. That poo poo is 18 miles long, is never meant to be extended, and should frankly just be a 3 digit spur of 95. Name it I-995 or something. Heck, it links (unsigned) I-595, I-695 and I-895, and its mainline is a direct continuation of one of the branches of I-895.
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Dec 11, 2012 20:21
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I-49 signs are up all along US 71 from KC to Harrisonville, at least. If only Rep. Cleaver would stop blocking attempts to remove the traffic signals & replace with over/underpasses, we could have I-49 all the way up, which would mean that we'd have I-49, I-29, I-35, and I-70 all running through KC. What drives me nuts in KC Metro is that we have a sign on I-35 S for the exit to Metcalf Avenue & US-69 S. Problem is, US-69 S continues along I-35 until it separates at about 87th St, so the sign SHOULD read US-169 S, as it is the continuation of US-169 S where it joins I-35 at Rainbow (or is it Roeland). drat thing has improperly read US-69 S for more than 15 years, sending countless drivers down loving Metcalf Avenue, adding 45m to their trip (depending on traffic) when they could have just stayed on I-35(/US-69) which links back up to US-169 at 119th St. gently caress! Just change the sign, guys! Chaos Motor fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Dec 11, 2012 |
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Dec 11, 2012 22:15
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Install Gentoo posted:Honestly I-97 is way more egregious. That poo poo is 18 miles long, is never meant to be extended, and should frankly just be a 3 digit spur of 95. Name it I-995 or something. Heck, it links (unsigned) I-595, I-695 and I-895, and its mainline is a direct continuation of one of the branches of I-895. I suppose I-238 is appropriate to mention right now.
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Dec 12, 2012 01:01
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Dominus Vobiscum posted:I suppose I-238 is appropriate to mention right now. California legitimately ran out of usable numbers in that area. Maryland still has room in the route log for 97 to have been a proper spur numbering. 
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Dec 12, 2012 01:10
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Chaos Motor posted:I-49 signs are up all along US 71 from KC to Harrisonville, at least. If only Rep. Cleaver would stop blocking attempts to remove the traffic signals & replace with over/underpasses, we could have I-49 all the way up, which would mean that we'd have I-49, I-29, I-35, and I-70 all running through KC. If Google Maps is correct, US 69 does split off at Metcalf Ave… only to rejoin I-35 three miles later. Technically the sign is correct. Though that's bizarre and stupid to have US 69 do that. US 69 should be realigned to be concurrent with I-35 for that three mile stretch.
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Dec 12, 2012 02:04
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