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Frinkahedron
Jul 26, 2006

Gobble Gobble
Did you study Civil Engineering?


And to kick off a suggested topic, I would like one of these:

- Highway oddities: Spupclos, stop signs on on-ramps, horrible designs that nearly came to be…


I seem to remember a topic here or in GBS where you posted some of those and they were pretty freaking neat.



fake edit: If you could start the traffic network around the DC area from scratch, how would you do it?

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Frinkahedron
Jul 26, 2006

Gobble Gobble

Brice posted:

I read the first and last few pages of the thread and didn't see this brought up. I'm not sure if you are the correct person to answer this but I figured your probably the best qualified.

When I see a sign that says "speed monitored by (laser, radar, aircraft)" are they serious? When i speed down a road that says that do you see me on one of the screens?

I live in Virginia, land of no radar detectors allowed and SPEED ENFORCED BY AIRCRAFT signs. I know a guy who actually got clocked by an aircraft and ticketed. He was going 100 on I-64 and saw a state cruiser coming up way in the distance behind him with his lights on and flashing. Pulled over and the cop said that an aircraft tracked him going 100 and called him in.

His license was obviously suspended.

Frinkahedron fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Aug 18, 2009

Frinkahedron
Jul 26, 2006

Gobble Gobble
I thought this article was interesting. It's about how a suburb of DC has a totally computer controlled traffic light system that can be changed on the fly to help when a crash occurs during rush hour.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/04/AR2010010402807.html?sub=AR

Frinkahedron
Jul 26, 2006

Gobble Gobble
With the entire mid-atlantic buried under feet of snow now, I'm curious: Are there any special precautions you have to take when accounting for traffic in snowy conditions? What about designing for stuff like plows or salting.

Frinkahedron
Jul 26, 2006

Gobble Gobble
Is there a reason that for short tunnels (like on an on-ramp or off-ramp that travels under another freeway or something) they line both sides with tons and tons of lights spaced probably a foot apart but only have every 10th on turned on?

Frinkahedron
Jul 26, 2006

Gobble Gobble

Roflex posted:

In Maryland you can only be ticketed for speeding if the sign says "checked by radar". It's printed directly on nearly every speed limit sign now, though. Similar rules are in place for photo tickets.

In a few of the more rural places they say "checked by aircraft" or some other aerial method. This may be apocryphal but a friend also said he once saw a "checked by watercraft" on a lakeside stretch of road.

All of Virginia is subject to be checked by aircraft, they have signs at every major road entering the state saying so.

And they do actually have aircraft that check. On all the interstates there's sometimes a set of white lines that go across the road at something like 300 foot intervals. They time you between them and if you're speeding they'll radio to a squad car down below who races to catch up to you.

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Frinkahedron
Jul 26, 2006

Gobble Gobble
Concrete is probably harder to fix when they freeze and crack every year during winter.

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