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Tool Maker posted:I've seen one of those before, in Lynn, near North Shore Community College. It never fails to baffle me. Yeah, you can find those in Portland and Seattle too. I wouldn't be surprised to see them in any major city. There's really nothing better than pulling up behind a car waiting for a light only to realize that A) There's no one in it, and B) Good luck getting anyone to let you in the remaining traffic lane.
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Sep 1, 2009 06:11
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Tool Maker posted:I've seen one of those before, in Lynn, near North Shore Community College. It never fails to baffle me. There's some in downtown San Diego and they work pretty well. Parking in them is a pretty significant fine so they're normally open for a decent amount of time before and after the period specified on the sign.
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Sep 1, 2009 07:26
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Socket Ryanist posted:Does anyone besides california have the magic "Sometimes I'm a lane and sometimes I'm parking!" lanes that we do? Do these actually help? Those do exist around here in New England, but Connecticut doesn't generally allow on-street parking on state roads. These part-time parking lanes are useful when turn lanes are needed during the peak hours, and parking is needed in the middle of a day, which is often the case in a downtown area. I imagine they produce a good amount of revenue from parking tickets! I've seen a similar thing in France, but instead of changing daily, they change twice a month. For the first "quinzaine" (15 days of the month), parking is on one side of the street, and it flips over to the other side for the remainder. Honestly, I'm not sure why this is done. Perhaps it keeps pavement wear level on the old streets, or acts as a compromise between homeowners on both sides of the road.
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Sep 1, 2009 17:25
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crest45 posted:As a Traffic Engineer, would you design facilities such as park and rides, bus loops, or ferry terminals? As far as ferry terminals or any other facility that has large volumes of traffic for short times only (stadiums etc) do you design to the peak traffic flow or only a partial bump? There are only 2 ferries in my state, both very low-volume. We are, however, designing a busway, and that includes the bus stations along it. A general rule for traffic engineering is that everything is designed for the 30th-highest hour in the year. That means that there are 29 hours of the year when we expect the system to break down. If we tried to design for all of them, the roads would be so wide that we'd spend a lot more in maintenance than we'd otherwise lose to congestion. Bridge designers have a similar philosophy, only designing for certain large storms, but not the biggest, because a bridge might not live long enough to see that much water. So for beach traffic on summer weekends, football stadiums that have a couple dozen big games a year, or university access roads that see heavy traffic four times a year at move in/move out times, there's going to be congestion by design. quote:Do you prefer one way streets to two way streets in a downtown area? Not really, when two-way streets will do. I see one-way roads as a solution to a congestion problem. They have their advantages, but they're super confusing to out-of-towners and can cause some pretty nasty head-on collisions. quote:I didn't recall seeing it in the pages before. But besides licensing changes, would you like to see anything done in France introduced to the US or vice-versa? The urban-suburban balance is different between the two countries, but for something to make our (or their) traffic system better. I'd love to see TGV lines introduced here. The TGV has so many technologies that could be put to use here, but the United States just don't want to lay down the cash. The relatively slow Acela already has taken over a good portion of traffic going between NYC and DC, can you imagine how much more it would get if that train went 200 mph instead of 100? I'd like to see more roundabouts here, especially at ramp termini in low-volume areas. They really do provide an excellent transition, as well as a gateway potential for the town. I love the way many European cities are laid out, but it's not well suited to the modern American way of life. Their city layout is a product of their cultural heritage, and it would just seem like a cheap imitation to try to reproduce it here. There are some other minor, very traffic engineer-specific things that I liked over there, and many of them are slowly appearing here. Arrows to designate a lane drop are one example. I think Lignes de Dissuasion are pretty cool, too, and would help reduce weaving problems if our drivers could figure out what they meant.
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Sep 1, 2009 17:47
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I'm sure everyone here would get a kick out of this story:BBC News posted:Paris mayoral feud blocks street
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Sep 1, 2009 18:13
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Solkanar512 posted:I'm sure everyone here would get a kick out of this story: Haha, there's something I don't miss about French infrastructure. Whether it was from strikes, protests, or feuding mayors, there was always some interruption to the road network. I bet Gilles Catoire was smiling like the Cheshire Cat when he came up with that solution. Next step: putting up a toll booth and charging 50 euro to pass. Edit: Good news for you guys complaining about slurry coating. I chatted with a pavement management guy today, and he said that we're using more and more Novachip these days instead. Novachip acts a lot more like normal asphalt, just applied in a thin layer. The problem with this, from a traffic engineer's perspective, is that we embed the 10' freeway lane marking skips in the fresh asphalt, and they melt in, bonding with it. Novachip is so thin that it cools down before we can lay down the stripes. 
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Sep 1, 2009 21:57
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I was wondering what your opinion of this large intersection in Worcester, MA is: It's called Kelly Square but it's not so much of a square as it is some sort of trapezoid. I have conflicting opinions about it myself. On the one hand, it's a godawful mess to drive through when busy. Literally you just sort of inch out in the way of oncomming traffic a lot until you see someone hesitate. Then you know they won't hit and kill you so you make a mad dash for whichever street you wanted to exit on. To note, there are no stop signs, traffic lights, yield signs, or any other traffic directions signs at all in that main mess in the center there where 122 and 122a meet. On the other hand, I've heard that while accident rates here are quite high, injuries are quite low, mostly because everyone is doing 10 mph or so trying to look 7 different ways to see where they are most likely to get hit from. Here's also a timelapse video on youtube of a light traffic day to give you some idea. Note the cars from the smaller side streets inching into the main area as their only means of getting anywhere. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cC6PlBEepaE Also, great thread, this stuff is fun to learn about. I'm a programmer, so whenever Im in traffic I often wonder about the nature of traffic as a system, nice to find a bunch of insights on it. toadee fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Sep 4, 2009 |
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Sep 4, 2009 03:30
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toadee posted:I was wondering what your opinion of this large intersection in Worcester, MA is: Watching that video gave me a very strange feeling, because I usually play my traffic simulations (VISSIM and Synchro) at 8X or faster speed, and they look just like that. There are quite a few squares in this part of the country, but Worcester, having grown into a large city, has what's probably the most infamous one in New England. They're notoriously difficult to fix for a few reasons. There are generally historical buildings around squares, due to their age. So many streets intersect in one place that some major reconstruction would need to happen, but they're also right in the middle of dense urban areas. Er, I could go on, but it's time for work. I'm not particularly fond of that intersection, but there's very little that could be done about it short of uprooting a swath of buildings or closing it to vehicular traffic altogether. The latter, by the way, works quite well in Europe, albeit in much smaller cities.
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Sep 4, 2009 12:21
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What would you do in an intersection like this: In case its not clear from the birds eye view, the road going onto the highway is up a rather steep mountain and there is a river on the other side of the highway. This intersection gets a ton of traffic, enough that I've seen it backed up 5 kilometers or more, which is a lot for a town of 5000 people. Recently they added a merging lane in the middle, that you can kind of see under the yellow line (Or maybe only I can see because I know its there) and it helped a lot, but it still has the highest accident rate in a couple hundred kilometers. Mostly what I'm wondering is what you do when you are extremely limited in space? Also, you mention the cost tunnels earlier in the thread, is that for tunnels under a city? What would be the cost of a tunnel in the middle of the mountains that doesn't have anything above it? Thanks for the thread, its very interesting!
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Sep 6, 2009 05:00
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Dooey posted:What would you do in an intersection like this: The design they've got there is actually quite good, considering the limited space available. The only thing that could make it better would be to add more lanes, which would be extremely difficult if it's on the side of a mountain. Any additional widening would involve some massive rock cuts, which wouldn't be too good, environmentally speaking, since there's a river right next to it. What sometimes works even better is building a new road to handle some of the traffic. I'm not familiar with the site, so I can't point out where it could go, but I'm sure you can imagine how much something like that would help. quote:Also, you mention the cost tunnels earlier in the thread, is that for tunnels under a city? What would be the cost of a tunnel in the middle of the mountains that doesn't have anything above it? The cost of tunnels is very much dependent on the subsurface conditions. When I was in France, there were tunnels everywhere. Lots of nice, soft rock and very few faults make the terrain excellent for building them. Europe is the pioneer in tunnel-digging equipment, and they have some amazing techniques that we can only dream of over here. When drilling a tunnel under a river, for example, they freeze the river bed to make it more stable and prevent leakage during construction! And then we come to North America. Here in New England, there's a ton of granite with some basalt shoved in for good measure. These aren't easy rocks to tunnel through. On top of that, there are little faults all over the place. The technology's not nearly as advanced here. Anyway, there are two basic ways to make a tunnel: boring and cut-and-cover. Their names should be pretty self-explanatory. In a city, you pretty much have to drill, because otherwise you'd have to demolish everything above the tunnel. Hit some tough rock or an aquifer or something? Tough luck, your project cost just doubled. Cut and cover is a bit easier, because you can get lots of equipment down into the hole if you hit a tough spot. Now obviously, you can't use cut-and-cover under a mountain, but you can use some tools not available to you underneath a city: explosives. Those can cut costs quite a bit if used properly, and bore wider tunnels than boring machines. Just make sure the rock is stable! Now take into account the cost of all the safety regulations, having special evacuation plans, ventilation, keeping the walls stable, transporting the rock out of the freshly dug tunnel, hazardous duty pay, spare parts when your boring machines inevitably break, some really intensive subsurface exploration, dewatering... tunneling's not cheap.
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Sep 6, 2009 16:26
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Hey, Cichlidae! I've really enjoyed this thread so far. A whole lot I didn't know. To be brief I'm a police officer in a relatively small urban municipality. I'm not a big traffic guy as they say, as I don't run a lot of traffic, (I'm mostly concerned with traffic violations as a reason to investigate other crimes ie. drugs/guns/license violations.) but one thing that really interests me is speed and how so much importance is placed on it. You answered a lot of this in one of your first few posts on the first pages so I'll try not to be redundant. Working in the department, we hear all the usual traffic/speeding complaints in the areas in which we work that people want us running RADAR or what have you. And as you said before, I'm sure Granny McGee and her bridge pals have a lot more input on the posted speed limit in an area. We have a traffic enforcement team that does, well runs traffic, but they also do traffic surveys in relation to volume as well as speed surveys. I have a buddy in the traffic team and he says their process is basically this: Get complaint Have an officer watch the area Maybe setup a speed trap of sorts ie. run LIDAR with a few chase cars. If it's still a problem they put out a traffic trailer that is basically those trailers on the side of the road that show the speed limit and show your actual speed, flashing the numbers in red if you are over. Sometimes they'll put up stealth boxes to survey speed/volume if it presents a real problem, in order to show data as to why the speed limit needs to be changed. Also they field the usual complaints of people in the suburbs bitching about "those drat drivers in their fancy fast cars speedin' through my neighborhood." These complaints are usually rooted in people wanting speed bumps installed in their neighborhood but want the city to pay for it. Unfortunately for them they have to meet certain criteria and a certain volume of traffic to qualify. I say all this because I've heard some intresting studies stating something similar to: "Traffic enforcement of speed does not cut down on the number of accidents" Which to me is the primary reason to enforce speed ie. Safetey. Personally I've always thought it was bullshit. Drivers who squeeze redlights, pull out in front of someone (fail to yield), or who are otherwise distracted cause about 90% of the accidents I work. With a cool 90% of them being rear-end fender-bender types and the other 10% being failure to yield style T-Bones where people either pull out in front of someone, or they turn left in an intersection assuming the oncoming car is going to stop for the light that just turned yellow and is close to red. What are you thoughts on this? We spend so much time and effort on accident reports for what seems to be statistical information. In fact I can maybe scan you a copy but I'm sure it's similar to most states' our accident form the TR-310 is ALL statistical information. Only a few lines are important in terms of liability. The diagram of how the accident happened or who and how someone was injured down to the airbag deployment are all used for statistical purposes and have no bearing on how the insurance companies weigh liability (these all appear on the backside of the form.) Here are my thoughts and lets see if you agree. Problem roads are your lower speed limit roads in general. They see more accidents due to distracted drivers/complacency. A driver, moving at a higher rate of speed is forced to pay more attention, especially when that course requires some sort of navigation as opposed to just going in a straight line. I see more accidents on roads where they have ludicrously lowered speed limits from what used to be 50 to 40 and now 35 on a road that will handle 50mph traffic easily. Again I think this ties back to your speed disparity solution you gave before. It drives me crazy to see the traffic teams/highway patrol hammering an area where they recently lowered the speed limit because "Everybody is speeding." It blows my mind that no one takes the fact that maybe traffic flow here is just fast and that this lowered speed limit is ludicrous. Do you think RADAR enforcement has any positive impact on the relative 'safeness' of a road? Why are transportation authorities, as well as just about any other government organization (law enforcement included), so deeply buried in the business of reading so many false positives in statistics. I'm not looking for some answer or excuse....I'm just hoping that I'm not crazy. If you have anything you'd like to see answered about traffic from my point of view feel free. Also, is the movie 'Pie in the Sky' your favorite movie ever? Shachi fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Sep 6, 2009 |
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Sep 6, 2009 17:53
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Shachi posted:Hey, Cichlidae! I've really enjoyed this thread so far. A whole lot I didn't know. Do you have any problems with vandalism? I've heard that some people get rather pissed off and end up finding the boxes and smashing them in, but I've never gotten first-hand evidence. quote:Also they field the usual complaints of people in the suburbs bitching about "those drat drivers in their fancy fast cars speedin' through my neighborhood." That's exactly it. The vast majority of our accidents are rear-ends at stop signs and lights, either people following too closely or start-stop accidents. On freeways, "driver lost control" is also a big factor, and single-vehicle accidents are more common. Actual speed-related collisions are relatively few. quote:What are you thoughts on this? We spend so much time and effort on accident reports for what seems to be statistical information. In fact I can maybe scan you a copy but I'm sure it's similar to most states' our accident form the TR-310 is ALL statistical information. Only a few lines are important in terms of liability. The diagram of how the accident happened or who and how someone was injured down to the airbag deployment are all used for statistical purposes and have no bearing on how the insurance companies weigh liability (these all appear on the backside of the form.) I'm quite familiar with those forms, since we have the database available and I use it quite a bit in my job. Copies of the accident reports are also stored in file cabinets for perusal if we suspect there's an accident problem. One big problem with the system is that the officer has to put down a roadway and a direction. If the accident occurs at the intersection of two roads, he just puts down one. In an extreme case, the intersection can have four different accident rates for four different roads. The choice of direction is even more confusing, because our database doesn't have sketches of the accident. If it says someone was going northbound on an East-West road that happens to turn 90 degrees in the area, but collided with a westbound car, what actually happened? quote:Here are my thoughts and lets see if you agree. Very true, and backed up by all the evidence. The majority of our accidents occur on roads with speed limits 40 mph or less, despite the vast majority of vehicle-miles being driven on faster roads. quote:A driver, moving at a higher rate of speed is forced to pay more attention, especially when that course requires some sort of navigation as opposed to just going in a straight line. I'd say 'tends to', not 'is forced to,' as I've found it's impossible to overestimate the idiocy of drivers. A driver will drive at what he considers to be a safe speed, which means driving more carefully around difficult curves and such. quote:I see more accidents on roads where they have ludicrously lowered speed limits from what used to be 50 to 40 and now 35 on a road that will handle 50mph traffic easily. Again I think this ties back to your speed disparity solution you gave before. It drives me crazy to see the traffic teams/highway patrol hammering an area where they recently lowered the speed limit because "Everybody is speeding." It blows my mind that no one takes the fact that maybe traffic flow here is just fast and that this lowered speed limit is ludicrous. Do you think RADAR enforcement has any positive impact on the relative 'safeness' of a road? You know what? I don't think we collect that kind of statistic. I know that long-term RADAR enforcement will lower the average running speed, but the speed disparity only increases, as you've said. Technically, if lots of people are speeding, the limit should be increased so that the rest of them will keep up. Try explaining that to the town, though! Then again, I seem to recall that the number of accidents saw a dramatic decrease after the nationwide 55 mph speed limit was enacted. However, correlation does not imply causation, and the wikipedia article shows that claims of increased safety due to lower speeds are dubious. quote:Why are transportation authorities, as well as just about any other government organization (law enforcement included), so deeply buried in the business of reading so many false positives in statistics. I think we're obsessed with the idea that we can find the problem, something we can fix easily and cheaply, and make everything all better. People latch onto speeds, because, intuitively, higher speeds are more dangerous and changing the numbers on a sign is pretty cheap. We don't want to accept that there are a LOT of problems, maybe that our roads weren't built very well and drivers are undereducated. That can't be the problem, though, because it's not something that's easy or cheap to fix. quote:I'm not looking for some answer or excuse....I'm just hoping that I'm not crazy. I'm really curious about how you feel doing construction duty. We hire state and local officers here (I hear it's great overtime pay) to guide traffic around work zones, but it's a very odd thing, because technically the engineer is in charge. However, nobody wants to give an officer instructions, and an officer generally won't ask for them. How do you feel about that communication barrier? Would you like to learn more about the projects you work on and what exactly you should be doing to direct traffic? We also have stories about cops who are paid to supervise night work and just use the time to sleep in their cruisers. What do you think about the people who do this, and is it SOP for you, or just a few lazy guys? quote:Also, is the movie 'Pie in the Sky' your favorite movie ever? I'd honestly never heard of it before now, but checking out the IMDB page, it could be pretty cool. I'll try to grab it next week and have a look.
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Sep 6, 2009 19:00
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Shachi posted:Sometimes they'll put up stealth boxes to survey speed/volume if it presents a real problem, in order to show data as to why the speed limit needs to be changed. On an amusing note (I might have posted this before but I can't remember) there was a small residential stretch on a minor highway here where the residents were trying to do that. When it reached the two blocks of residences, highway went from 45 MPH down to 35, returning to 45 after those two blocks. They really, really wanted it to be 25, so they complained and complained, and finally the county did a speed survey. In California, roads that receive state money ("arterial" roads and highways, I guess) have to have their speed limits set at the 85th percentile based on the speed survey, unless there's solid reason otherwise (intersections in curves with bad visibility, high accident rates, etc.). The result of the speed survey is the section that passes through their two blocks was upped to 40 MPH.
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Sep 6, 2009 20:22
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Choadmaster posted:On an amusing note (I might have posted this before but I can't remember) there was a small residential stretch on a minor highway here where the residents were trying to do that. When it reached the two blocks of residences, highway went from 45 MPH down to 35, returning to 45 after those two blocks. They really, really wanted it to be 25, so they complained and complained, and finally the county did a speed survey. Hahaha, that's awesome. If we have a law like that here, it's certainly not upheld, otherwise every speed limit in the state would be raised by 10 mph.
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Sep 6, 2009 21:04
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Cichlidae posted:Hahaha, that's awesome. If we have a law like that here, it's certainly not upheld, otherwise every speed limit in the state would be raised by 10 mph. I should note that there is an upper limit to the 85th percentile rule; I think it's 55 MPH. Anything more than that they get to set wherever they please. Edit: 55 is also the default speed limit on a highway if not otherwise posted. There's a strange stretch of the aforementioned highway near my house where there's an "End 35 Speed Limit" sign and then a quarter mile later a "Speed Limit 35" sign. I think that short stretch exits the city border and the county never felt it worth the money to do a survey for that quarter mile. There are no intersections or driveways, so I try to take advantage of that short 55 MPH stretch as best as possible  .VVV This highway is undivided, one lane in each direction, so 55 it is. Choadmaster fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Sep 6, 2009 |
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Sep 6, 2009 21:14
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Choadmaster posted:I should note that there is an upper limit to the 85th percentile rule; I think it's 55 MPH. Anything more than that they get to set wherever they please.
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Sep 6, 2009 21:56
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Choadmaster posted:I should note that there is an upper limit to the 85th percentile rule; I think it's 55 MPH. Anything more than that they get to set wherever they please. Socket Ryanist posted:Actually the default speed limit is 65 for a road that has a median or more than one lane in either direction, and 55 for an undivided two-lane road (or one-lane one way street). Thanks for letting me know the statutory limits. You have "end speed limit" signs? I've never seen one of those. Is 55 also the limit for small dead-ends with no posted speed limit because they're so small? It might tempt me to put speed limit signs on tiny streets 
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Sep 6, 2009 23:34
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Well regardless of the default speed limit you also have to follow the Basic Speed Law -- don't drive at an unsafe speed. Posting a speed limit sign won't help you much because, in california, speed limits below 55 mph are not absolute--they are only prima facie evidence of unsafe speed. That is, if you are going 54 in a 25, but can prove in a court of law that there was nothing unsafe about going 54 in a 25, then you get acquitted (This is actually not as hard as you might assume it is).
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Sep 7, 2009 00:03
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Okay correcting myself: the default absolute maximum speed is what I posted before. The default prima facie speed limit is:CVC 22352 posted:(1) Fifteen miles per hour:
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Sep 7, 2009 00:07
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Cichlidae posted:You have "end speed limit" signs? I've never seen one of those. I've only seen two or three in my entire life. I just happen to live near one.
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Sep 7, 2009 03:01
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Choadmaster posted:I've only seen two or three in my entire life. I just happen to live near one. I wish we had more like that. It's bad enough that, when the speed limit drops, we have big yellow warning signs to let everyone know. Later, when it goes back up, the only indication is the tiny (3 feet tall, but still, that's minuscule on a freeway) speed limit sign. Then I have to pass platoons of cars who didn't notice and aren't familiar with the area. In France, there is an assumed speed limit on rural roads outside of towns; I believe it's 90 kph but it could also be 70. However, once you enter the town, the limit drops to 50 kph. Fortunately, once on the other side, a sign lets you know it's possible to speed up again. Very practical!
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Sep 7, 2009 03:37
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Hmm, weird. There's a bunch of them out here in the Northwest.
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Sep 7, 2009 03:43
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Kaal posted:Hmm, weird. There's a bunch of them out here in the Northwest. There's pretty much no road out here that doesn't have speed limit signs on it, so "end speed limit" (ie. begin assumed speed limit) is pretty useless. Even the most rural areas I've driven through have signs, though they can get spaced out pretty far (but on the coast of SoCal "rural" doesn't necessarily mean much so take my experience with a grain of salt). Of course, California is also anal enough to put an emergency telephone at every mile of every freeway. No wonder we're broke. Cichlidae posted:It's bad enough that, when the speed limit drops, we have big yellow warning signs to let everyone know. Later, when it goes back up, the only indication is the tiny (3 feet tall, but still, that's minuscule on a freeway) speed limit sign. Then I have to pass platoons of cars who didn't notice and aren't familiar with the area. Thank god we don't have that here. Though it would have been useful when I was driving through South Dakota, where after 9 or 10 hours of driving through perfectly straight and fairly flat emptiness at the 75 MPH limit, there's a single 65 MPH sign that is unbelievably easy to miss. I got pulled over a mile past the sign and luckily the cop was very friendly and just let me off with a warning. He must do that all day. One thing I hate is the stepped-down speed limits some states have. 65 -> 55, then less than a quarter mile later 55 -> 45. You can generally see the second (or sometimes third) sign before you even pass the first one. Just make it 45 already.
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Sep 7, 2009 04:40
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Choadmaster posted:One thing I hate is the stepped-down speed limits some states have. 65 -> 55, then less than a quarter mile later 55 -> 45. You can generally see the second (or sometimes third) sign before you even pass the first one. Just make it 45 already. It made you notice, right? The speed limit steps down gradually so you won't have people slamming on their brakes when they realize that they're going 25 over. It only takes a few people doing that to get some nasty rear-ends. Of course, we can bypass the whole problem by saying "Reduced speed limit ahead 45 mph," but then you've got a big 10 by 15 foot yellow sign instead of a couple 4 by 3 foot signs.
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Sep 7, 2009 04:55
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They just raised the Dallas North Tollway's speed limit to 65 from 55. Thank god, but also, people still drive like 55-60 all the time. I am paying through the BUTT to drive on the road, I want to fly, damnit! They restructured tolls as well so the offramps north of the city are cheap, but the access from the city is like $1.25 now. Costs me $2.96 a day to get to work 
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Sep 7, 2009 05:45
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Choadmaster posted:One thing I hate is the stepped-down speed limits some states have. 65 -> 55, then less than a quarter mile later 55 -> 45. You can generally see the second (or sometimes third) sign before you even pass the first one. Just make it 45 already. Near where I live there is, within about one kilometer, a drop from 100km/h to 80, then down to 60, then 50 as you enter town, then 30km/h for a school zone. And the worst part is, there is a cop that just hangs out there and nails EVERYONE who is speeding. Its infamous around these parts.
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Sep 7, 2009 05:56
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Cichlidae posted:Of course, we can bypass the whole problem by saying "Reduced speed limit ahead 45 mph," but then you've got a big 10 by 15 foot yellow sign instead of a couple 4 by 3 foot signs. We have some "reduced speed ahead" signs here and there (I assume they put them up where there have been issues) and they're the same size and style/color as the regular speed limit signs. The problem I have with the stepped signs is they're not quite close enough to make for a smooth deceleration, but they are far too close to make each step worthwhile. It's like: "Okay, 55 now" *slows down* ... 10 seconds later: "Oh, 45 now" *slows down* ... 10 seconds later: "gently caress this poo poo to the steaming bowels of hell, 35?" *slows down* While I'm on the subject of traffic-related things I hate when I'm road-tripping, what's up with all the people in the northeast who stop on freeway onramps? I've seen that stupid poo poo happen twice in my life in California, and then I spend two weeks in the northeast and maybe half a dozen times I got stuck behind some rear end in a top hat doing this. Please tell me it was just really bad luck.
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Sep 7, 2009 07:11
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Dooey posted:Near where I live there is, within about one kilometer, a drop from 100km/h to 80, then down to 60, then 50 as you enter town, then 30km/h for a school zone. And the worst part is, there is a cop that just hangs out there and nails EVERYONE who is speeding. Its infamous around these parts. That's about the speed people drive in parking lots here  . Where do you live? I know a lot of European countries have relatively low speed limits compared to the US, and I wonder how their accident statistics compare to ours. Of course, the general populace probably isn't quite as moronic over there either.
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Sep 7, 2009 07:16
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Choadmaster posted:Of course, California is also anal enough to put an emergency telephone at every mile of every freeway. No wonder we're broke. Huh, I noticed that the last time I went down to San Francisco. Up here in Oregon I don't think that we have any at all. If you get stuck out in the middle of nowhere (much of Oregon), you're just hosed and good luck getting cell service. I kinda prefer it that way though. quote:One thing I hate is the stepped-down speed limits some states have. 65 -> 55, then less than a quarter mile later 55 -> 45. You can generally see the second (or sometimes third) sign before you even pass the first one. Just make it 45 already. I agree. I much prefer the "45 mph zone ahead" sign. The stepped signs are better than just jumping into a 35 mph speed trap on a highway, but they feel really restrictive and kind of clutter up the road.
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Sep 7, 2009 07:47
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Choadmaster posted:I've only seen two or three in my entire life. I just happen to live near one. Took me like 3 days to figure out the default speed limit was 100. (Every other airport in Australia has the default limits posted for this reason. But not Launceston, that would be too easy).
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Sep 7, 2009 07:59
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Choadmaster posted:We have some "reduced speed ahead" signs here and there (I assume they put them up where there have been issues) and they're the same size and style/color as the regular speed limit signs. The ones we use here are about the size of a car, as you can see here:  The image quality is pretty terrible there, sorry. If I were at work, I could get you a shot from Photolog, which has 1080p digital photos every 30 feet along every state road in both directions. quote:The problem I have with the stepped signs is they're not quite close enough to make for a smooth deceleration, but they are far too close to make each step worthwhile. It's like: "Okay, 55 now" *slows down* ... 10 seconds later: "Oh, 45 now" *slows down* ... 10 seconds later: "gently caress this poo poo to the steaming bowels of hell, 35?" *slows down* It's very nice for drivers like me who never touch the brake pedal on the freeway. When the limit drops, I just let my car coast down to the new speed, which usually takes a good quarter mile or more. quote:While I'm on the subject of traffic-related things I hate when I'm road-tripping, what's up with all the people in the northeast who stop on freeway onramps? I've seen that stupid poo poo happen twice in my life in California, and then I spend two weeks in the northeast and maybe half a dozen times I got stuck behind some rear end in a top hat doing this. Please tell me it was just really bad luck. It tends to happen where we have substandard acceleration lanes, often under 100 feet. There's not enough time to merge; 100 feet passes in about a second at 65 mph. People realize they can't make it, and are forced to stop and wait for a platoon to pass rather than running out of road. It's not very smart, true, but I'd blame the road design, not the drivers.
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Sep 7, 2009 15:02
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Choadmaster posted:We have some "reduced speed ahead" signs here and there (I assume they put them up where there have been issues) and they're the same size and style/color as the regular speed limit signs. I was having this exact thought yesterday as I drove down MA Rt 2 from North Adams, which, as you climb up a huge mountain in preparation for what amounts to a slalom course, drops the speed limit from 45 to 25 in 5mph decrements every fifteen yards or so. It seems like it'd be much less frustrating to make it 10mph every thirty yards instead. As an aside, I wish there was a way to guarantee there would be no other cars on that road, because it would be fun as hell to careen down at 50. Der Metzgermeister fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Sep 7, 2009 |
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Sep 7, 2009 15:14
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First of all, I'll just say that you have a very, very important job, and I appreciate what you do. I live in city of about 100,000 people, and the streets are on a grid system that runs NSWE. We NEED to build a road to cut across two major thoroughfares, but there is a bunch of local resistance because they'd rather build a walking/cycling trail. In your experience, how do changes like these come about? Is it just a matter of time before people get sick of driving miles and miles in a giant U, or do I need to try and get people to write some letters?
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Sep 7, 2009 15:14
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Kaal posted:Huh, I noticed that the last time I went down to San Francisco. Up here in Oregon I don't think that we have any at all. If you get stuck out in the middle of nowhere (much of Oregon), you're just hosed and good luck getting cell service. I kinda prefer it that way though. Funny story: we used to have those in Rhode Island. They would all ring up a little box in the TMC, next to the state trooper on duty. They were all ripped out sometime before 2006. The stated reason was that nearly everyone had cell phones (it's not hard to get reception anywhere in a state as small as Rhode Island) and that, if someone didn't have one, another motorist would call. It's also quite dangerous to leave your car and trek up to a half mile down a freeway shoulder, not to mention illegal. quote:I agree. I much prefer the "45 mph zone ahead" sign. The stepped signs are better than just jumping into a 35 mph speed trap on a highway, but they feel really restrictive and kind of clutter up the road. Yep. Most people don't realize just how BIG our freeway signs are, or how much they cost. Cheap plastic signs, the ones you put up for a yard sale, bid at $30 per square foot. A foundation for a side-mounted freeway sign is $5-10 thousand. The sign itself is $50 per square foot. A cantilevered sign support bits at over $200,000 for the base and $100,000 for the structure itself. A bridge mounted foundation runs about $10,000. Those come from recent bids; I'm not just making them up.
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Sep 7, 2009 15:19
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Doppelganger posted:First of all, I'll just say that you have a very, very important job, and I appreciate what you do. One of the best ways I've seen for citizens to get involved is to keep up with the project, go to the public involvement meetings, and make a website explaining why the project is useful. We have a project here that's been stalled since the early 1970s, and it's gotten some life breathed back into it, partially because of a citizen-run website detailing its merits. One of the most important concepts of public involvement is to make sure everyone feels like he's being listened to. If everyone is well informed and everyone has a chance to have his say, then the DOT will need much fewer concessions. Perhaps the road could be built as a wide avenue with a nice streetscape and bike lanes integrated. With enough outreach, pretty much anything can happen. Go ahead and make a website, or write letters to your first selectman and the head of the DOT. Make some suggestions, but make sure you word them very constructively. Tell them you're a member of the public and would like to know more about the project. Ask for some sort of interactive meeting, whether it's a charrette or a focus group or something even bolder. You also have to remember that some people are dead-set against the project and will complain and oppose it no matter what. You need to make sure the folks in charge realize that the complainers are a small minority, and show them how much support their project has.
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Sep 7, 2009 15:27
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Cichlidae, this is a wonderful thread. I hate driving but at the same time I have a lot of interest in infrastructure and have whiled away a lot of time on roadgeek sites reading up on the national highway systems, etc., so to see a thorough examination of them like this thread has been really informative. I was wondering if you'd be willing to revisit the question of why Metro Boston is so terrible. You said it'd take a post of its own, and I haven't seen anyone mention it since, so I'd be really interested in hearing what you had to say about it if you have the time to write it up. I am from the area and kind of half-know some things about how it developed. When you talk about bad decisions made in the past, are you referring to all of the business that went on with the cancellations of I-695, the expressway projects, etc., and the realignment of I-95 to be cosigned with 128? My understanding is that the cancellation of those projects was what got us the NW Red Line extension and the Orange Line extension (good, though I wish they had gone all the way to 128 on the north side like originally planned) & realignment (controversial, with the old alignment replaced by buses), which would seem to me to be net goods compared to having another beltway, but my facts may be completely off so I'd appreciate any corrections, as this is pretty much just half-remembered bits of stuff I've read on websites and forums dealing with the topics.
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Sep 7, 2009 19:32
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Cichlidae posted:It's very nice for drivers like me who never touch the brake pedal on the freeway. When the limit drops, I just let my car coast down to the new speed, which usually takes a good quarter mile or more. I would do this with the stepped-down speed limits, but that means exceeding the new speed limit for a good while after the sign. Which normally wouldn't be a problem, but this only happens in places I'm unfamiliar with and I don't know how rabid the cops are (and if they're willing to throw up three speed limit signs in half a mile, I get paranoid). Is there any law about how soon after a sign you must change your speed to reflect a new limit? Seems like there should be, unless they expect you to slow beforehand (hard to do when a sign pops up around a curve or whatever). Cichlidae posted:It tends to happen where we have substandard acceleration lanes, often under 100 feet. There's not enough time to merge; 100 feet passes in about a second at 65 mph. People realize they can't make it, and are forced to stop and wait for a platoon to pass rather than running out of road. It's not very smart, true, but I'd blame the road design, not the drivers. My car does 0-60 in 14 seconds (ouch) and in none of those situations did stopping seem necessary. It just sticks you in the even uglier situation of starting from a stop with only 20% of the ramp left. There are a few short offramps around here and what we do is floor it and expect people on the freeway to slow down/make room for us to merge - which they do, because the other option is for them to be a massive rear end in a top hat AND likely get into an accident .Speaking of short onramps, here's the "worst" one in town. It goes from a stop sign on a street corner to the freeway in no time at all, on a slight uphill slope. But the thing is, it only appears short because it was drawn so short - there's actually plenty of room for cars to continue side-by-side for three times as long as they painted the line. So what happens is people driving 70 see you appear out of nowhere and immetdiately hit the end of the dashed line doing barely 35 or 40 MPH and they do all kinds of unnecessary evasive maneuvers. Thanks CalTrans! 
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Sep 7, 2009 20:20
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Choadmaster posted:That's about the speed people drive in parking lots here The place where this happens is in Alberta, I don't live there but I drive through it every now and then. And I agree, 30km/h is ridiculously slow, but thats the limit whenever you are within a certain distance of a school (I think one kilometer maybe). Its only in effect during school hours, though.
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Sep 7, 2009 20:34
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patricius posted:Cichlidae, this is a wonderful thread. I hate driving but at the same time I have a lot of interest in infrastructure and have whiled away a lot of time on roadgeek sites reading up on the national highway systems, etc., so to see a thorough examination of them like this thread has been really informative. Boston is so messed up that there was an entire thread about this a couple years ago. I don't have archives, but if someone could dredge it up, that would be excellent. Boston has two big problems: its freeways suck and its mass transit is horribly mismanaged. Let's start with freeways. FREEWAYS Here's a map that should really be much bigger, but I'm stuck with the 800X600 limit. Red represents canceled freeways, specifically, I-95, US 3 and the Innerbelt, I-695.  As the insets show, the interchanges were built before the freeways were canceled, so you can still see traces of where they would have gone. Why they used cloverleafs to handle what would undoubtedly become some very high-volume interchanges, I have no idea. One thing not marked on the map is the circumferential beltway around Boston is MA 128, and I-495 is 15 miles further out, with I-190 and MA 146 making a partial third beltway about 10 miles beyond. Anyway, you see that I-95 would have continued toward Boston, passing just west of downtown. US 3 would pick up the freeway from that point, heading northwest back to MA 128. The Innerbelt would have gone in a semicircle around downtown. I sketched these based on the original interstate plan, called the Yellow Book. Well, you can guess by now what happened. With no innerbelt, the only route through Boston, I-93, couldn't handle the traffic it was carrying, necessitating the Big Dig to try to get things in order. I-90 was stretched eastward via tunnels. I-95 couldn't just stop at 128 and start again on the other side (though it does manage something similar in New Jersey), so it was routed along MA 128. Well, that leads to a funny situation! I-95, I-93, MA 128, MA/US 3, and US 1 all share the same pavement. If you're heading South on I-93, you're also going South on MA 3 and US 1. Soon, though, you'll find yourself on I-95 North and MA 128 North. The end of MA 128 used to be at the MA 3 turnoff, but it's been moved to the end of I-93. Furthermore, MassHighway's been removing most of the MA 128 signage, which sucks, because most people call it 128 and not 95. hosed-up enough already? How about this: 128 is so influential, all the freeways that intersected it had their exits numbered based on it. If I remember correctly, MA 128 was always exit 25. Of course, MassHighway saw fit to change all that, as well, as well as reversing the exit numbers on 128! Way to go. So where are we now? Massive congestion! It's so bad, it's legal to drive in the shoulders during peak hours. It's so bad, there are signs on MA 24 telling you to expect congestion for the next 20 miles. It's so bad, billions of dollars later, I-93 still sucks. MASS TRANSIT Well, at least Boston has subways, right? Four wonderful lines. Except they suck. They suck SO HARD. A city Boston's size deserves at least a few dozen lines, but it's stuck with four. It HAD more, but guess what? They were abandoned. Good show! What's worse? All four lines are incompatible. They each have completely different trains and you can't swap them around. Worse yet? MBTA decided to replace its perfectly functional fleet with new custom-built cars. Super expensive! Guess what? They have a tendency to derail. They made one good decision, at least. They extended rail down along the proposed I-95 corridor when it was canceled, opening service that's soon to be extended to T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, RI. But that doesn't satisfy me, because I once ended up waiting 45 minutes for a midday train at Quincy Adams and it made me late for Blue Man Group. Do you know what happens when you're late to Blue Man Group? There are plenty of other small problems, like the lack of circumferential routes, the branches on the Green Line, the multiplicity of stops at universities, lack of direct access to the airport, and dozens more, but that's really outside the scope of this post. I'm sure some of you have plenty to add; I stay away from Boston as best I can, so I only pick up little bits here and there. Some of you poor souls have to deal with it all day, every day. Edit: Some minor things fixed. Cichlidae fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Sep 7, 2009 |
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Sep 7, 2009 21:52
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Choadmaster posted:I would do this with the stepped-down speed limits, but that means exceeding the new speed limit for a good while after the sign. Which normally wouldn't be a problem, but this only happens in places I'm unfamiliar with and I don't know how rabid the cops are (and if they're willing to throw up three speed limit signs in half a mile, I get paranoid). Is there any law about how soon after a sign you must change your speed to reflect a new limit? Seems like there should be, unless they expect you to slow beforehand (hard to do when a sign pops up around a curve or whatever). That's a question for Socket Ryanist. He seems to be the resident expert on the legal side of things. quote:My car does 0-60 in 14 seconds (ouch) and in none of those situations did stopping seem necessary. It just sticks you in the even uglier situation of starting from a stop with only 20% of the ramp left. There are a few short offramps around here and what we do is floor it and expect people on the freeway to slow down/make room for us to merge - which they do, because the other option is for them to be a massive rear end in a top hat AND likely get into an accident Maybe it was outside the project limits, or it actually was the right length back when volumes were lower and the standards were looser. You're right, it would be quite easy to fix. One thing's wrong with your diagram, though: the lane doesn't actually end where the skips do. It ends when the width of the lane is reduced to below 12 feet; the skips only go half that distance to encourage people to merge left.
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Sep 7, 2009 21:58
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