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"Me dig make red light, baby!" just made me cackle in my office. Glad everyone else is out at lunch, so they don't think I'm insane.
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Jul 9, 2013 18:14
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Yay! Cycling infrastructure upgrades are being turned into a wedge issue in my city again. OK, to be fair, the engineers' proposal to remove a 14,000 car/day arterial (that should never have been an arterial, given how narrow it is) was probably a little too much for the car driving psyche, but it still makes me sad. Not least of all because I've heard that the traffic engineer who worked on the designs has been getting harassed on his home phone number, and has even been spat on. 
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Jul 11, 2013 19:24
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Yay! Cycling infrastructure upgrades are being turned into a wedge issue in my city again. OK, to be fair, the engineers' proposal to remove a 14,000 car/day arterial (that should never have been an arterial, given how narrow it is) was probably a little too much for the car driving psyche, but it still makes me sad. I was assuming you lived in some little right wing suburban american city... then I clicked the link. Although isn't Point Grey a famously elitist rich conservative district?
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Jul 11, 2013 20:50
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Baronjutter posted:I was assuming you lived in some little right wing suburban american city... then I clicked the link. Although isn't Point Grey a famously elitist rich conservative district? Hah -- the way some people in the local political spectrum carry on, sometimes I wonder. And Point Grey .. Point Grey is pretty elitist, but has one of the highest bicycle commute mode shares in Canada (at around 12% of trips to work). Point Grey / Kits are about 50% or more ex-hippies who got rich, so there are some pretty progressive people there, but also some pretty conservative types. The anti-bike lane campaign is suspiciously well funded. They have lawn signs, and have been flyering the neighbourhood like crazy (with pamphlets containing erroneous information). I'm hoping they won't have too much of an influence, especially with the 2,600 supporting signatures, plus cycling and pedestrian advocacy organisations being in support (and actual legitimate residents associations seeming to be on the fence). The City Council meeting to vote on the proposals promises to be a complete poo poo show, however. When the representative from my organisation registered to speak, she was something like number 52, and everyone gets five minutes. The attacks on the engineer made me sad, though.
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Jul 12, 2013 07:08
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What do you think of this plan for a 76 mile under sea tunnel?
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Jul 14, 2013 07:54
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 Is that really easier than just making a big old ferry line?
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Jul 14, 2013 08:11
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:
They build multi lane highways all over the place that end up getting filled with traffic a few months later, a ferry line probably isn't going to work for the largest growing automotive market in the world right now.
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Jul 14, 2013 15:41
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mamosodiumku posted:What do you think of this plan for a 76 mile under sea tunnel? If it were anywhere else, I'd say it'd never get off the ground. The fact that it's China's plan brings its chances up considerably. Our biggest projects have always seemed unlikely at first, and plenty of them (the Long Island Sound tunnel, for example) never ended up getting built, even with funding guaranteed. China doesn't care about environmental impact statements or rights-of-way, so that'd cut 5-10 years off the design phase. I'm sure there would be scandals during construction, plenty of corruption, and shoddy workmanship, but then again, if the tunnel floods and kills a few hundred people, they'll just patch it and keep going. So yeah, chances are decent.
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Jul 14, 2013 16:12
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PittTheElder posted:
They already have a ferry! I was wondering how much longer the trip would take, and when google took me across the bay I was assuming that it was doing one of those cute "kayak across the pacific" things. But nope, ferry. Between two random points in the cities, it's 182 km and 8 hrs with the ferry. If you avoid the ferry, it's 1411 km and 16 hrs.
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Jul 14, 2013 19:39
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dupersaurus posted:Obviously they know how to take the best line through a chicane for maximum speed onto the straight
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Jul 14, 2013 19:47
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And it looks like a fair number of them don't even bother to stay on the pavement on the way out, although I guess that could be a truck artifact...
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grover posted:Why don't public roads put race-track style curbing on the apexes? If people are going to cut the corners anyhow, let them do it right. I know! The neighbors would have a fit, but it'd make my driving a hell of a lot more fun. I'm also a fan of using maximum superelevation just about everywhere. If they ever make street-legal Formula 1000 cars, my commute's going to be SO COOL.
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Jul 14, 2013 20:12
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grover posted:Why don't public roads put race-track style curbing on the apexes? If people are going to cut the corners anyhow, let them do it right. Like this? https://maps.google.com/maps?q=bren...1,264.8,,0,22.5
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Jul 14, 2013 20:42
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More like this: FIM/FIA have specs on just how to do it. Would be a great addition to roads everywhere! Might even help give people visual cues on where they're actually supposed to be placing their car in corners. grover fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Jul 14, 2013 |
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Jul 14, 2013 20:48
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Even better would be banked turns so you barley have to turn the wheel while still going as fast as you can.
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Jul 14, 2013 22:30
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grover posted:More like this: The complex I linked was designed by a motorsports enthusiast and I suspect he couldn't get the red and white painting approved. Full of very interesting turns.
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Jul 14, 2013 23:07
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nm posted:The complex I linked was designed by a motorsports enthusiast and I suspect he couldn't get the red and white painting approved. Full of very interesting turns.  e: it's used like so. Same kinda places you'd see rutting on public roads. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVpi5IhzBDY grover fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 00:02
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Move to Savannah and drive around Hutchinson Island: http://goo.gl/maps/rLE4Z Wore out but they're still there.
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Jul 15, 2013 02:17
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Peanut President posted:Move to Savannah and drive around Hutchinson Island: e: you can even see the barriers near the entrance: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Hutc...1,270,,0,0&z=16 e2: vvv sorry, didn't glean that from your context grover fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 02:24
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Yeah I know. Jesus.
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Jul 15, 2013 03:55
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sincx fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Jul 15, 2013 08:52
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grover posted:That road is a racetrack - Grand Prize of America Road Course. Was built in the mid 90s for vintage racing as part of the Hilton Head Motoring Festival. They close it to public traffic when they use it, I imagine, just like other multi-use road courses like Le Mans. Holy hell. I went to school in Savannah and I had no clue
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Jul 15, 2013 13:35
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mamosodiumku posted:What do you think of this plan for a 76 mile under sea tunnel? We really need to build more massively long tunnels and bridge-tunnel systems in the US. Like lets not just build a Long Island Sound link, let's build several of them at different points along the island, including the proposal to link the northen tip of Long Island with Westerly, RI by way of island hopping using Fishers Island and Plum Island, possibly with the actual crossing not landing on each but skirting them to the side with local access coming down off it. As well as the more traditional Bridgeport-Port Jefferson and Rye-Oyster Bay crossings, of course.
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Jul 15, 2013 16:30
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Hah -- the way some people in the local political spectrum carry on, sometimes I wonder. And Point Grey .. Point Grey is pretty elitist, but has one of the highest bicycle commute mode shares in Canada (at around 12% of trips to work). Point Grey / Kits are about 50% or more ex-hippies who got rich, so there are some pretty progressive people there, but also some pretty conservative types. So I was just oddly enough in Vancouver in a neighbourhood I'd never been in. Almost every house had some sign telling council to slow down and delay a vote, no idea what it meant. Finally I came to this sort of narrow street with 2 lanes of traffic and 1 lane of parking going along the water. As a pedestrian it was terrible because the sidewalks were choked with bikes as no one was willing to ride on the street. Normally a street like this could have users "share the road" but it was almost entirely lexus SUV's and luxury cars driving way too fast and aggressively, I'm not a traffic planner but there was a clear feeling that despite this being a fairly small residential street cars had totally claimed it as their own and sharing with bikes or even pedestrians is out of the question. (We we nearly hit twice crossing with the right of way at a signaled intersection by left and right turners, one lady actually loving HONKED at us) I saw a couple dudes in their ridiculous spandex biking superhero costumes actually riding on the street and cars were seemingly purposefully driving really close and cutting in front of them and being huge assholes. But 90% of bikes were on the sidewalk and acted like they owned it as much as the cars owned the road. As I was walking along I thought "what the gently caress is wrong with the city, this seems to be a major bike route, take away the street parking and put in bike lanes idiots" and then it all fell into place and I realized THIS was the street I was just reading about on SA before my trip. Also some of the most disgusting walled mansion compounds I've ever seen. After discussing the fact that the bike lanes are at all controversial we decided the only course of action was to close the entire street to car traffic and convert it to a tram/busway with bike lanes and convert all the multi-million dollar gated monuments to Randian psychopathy into social housing. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 19:17 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 19:12
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Install Gentoo posted:We really need to build more massively long tunnels and bridge-tunnel systems in the US. Like lets not just build a Long Island Sound link, let's build several of them at different points along the island, including the proposal to link the northen tip of Long Island with Westerly, RI by way of island hopping using Fishers Island and Plum Island, possibly with the actual crossing not landing on each but skirting them to the side with local access coming down off it. You're forgetting the major impediment to those Sound Crossings: no New Englander wants them fuckin' Yankees fans comin' up heah. I-95 is a bottleneck on purpose to keep those bastids out! Baronjutter posted:So I was just oddly enough in Vancouver in a neighbourhood I'd never been in. Almost every house had some sign telling council to slow down and delay a vote, no idea what it meant. Finally I came to this sort of narrow street with 2 lanes of traffic and 1 lane of parking going along the water. As a pedestrian it was terrible because the sidewalks were choked with bikes as no one was willing to ride on the street. Normally a street like this could have users "share the road" but it was almost entirely lexus SUV's and luxury cars driving way too fast and aggressively, I'm not a traffic planner but there was a clear feeling that despite this being a fairly small residential street cars had totally claimed it as their own and sharing with bikes or even pedestrians is out of the question. (We we nearly hit twice crossing with the right of way at a signaled intersection by left and right turners, one lady actually loving HONKED at us) I saw a couple dudes in their ridiculous spandex biking superhero costumes actually riding on the street and cars were seemingly purposefully driving really close and cutting in front of them and being huge assholes. But 90% of bikes were on the sidewalk and acted like they owned it as much as the cars owned the road. As I was walking along I thought "what the gently caress is wrong with the city, this seems to be a major bike route, take away the street parking and put in bike lanes idiots" and then it all fell into place and I realized THIS was the street I was just reading about on SA before my trip. I don't understand why you'd need on-street parking in a residential neighborhood, anyway. According to the Green Book, the proper way to do things is to establish a hierarchy of roads. Freeways <--> Arterials <--> Collectors <--> Locals. Each category should, ideally, only interact with the adjacent categories. You don't want local roads interfacing with arterials or freeways, and you don't want freeway-collector junctions, either. This dictates that you do NOT have an arterial in a residential neighborhood, and if you have to, you cul-de-sac the nearby roads to limit the intersections. Cut conflicts, give more right-of-way for mixed-mode transportation, and keep the local roads clear of through traffic. If you want an arterial, don't half-rear end it by putting in parking; that's a collector. And if you want a collector, don't give the road a 4-lane cross section. Put in a TWLTL and bike lanes, remove the parking on the water side to compensate, as well as the two inside lanes. Problem solved.
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Jul 15, 2013 23:14
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Cichlidae posted:I don't understand why you'd need on-street parking in a residential neighborhood, anyway. Because tons of people don't have driveways and/or garages of any sort, and those that do might have more cars than spots in the garage to store them? And that's for house-type buildings. Up here there is apparently (based purely on anecdotal observation) zero regulation requiring apartment and condo type buildings to provide any sort of guaranteed parking. So tons of people need street parking for that too. Really this is such an obvious answer I feel like I must be misreading the context. My place is in a very suburban residential area, but it's new, so only about 40% of the houses have garages behind them. And we're three guys living in that house, so we have more cars than we could fit behind the house anyway. And there's an apartment complex at the end of the street, and those folks are always parking on the street. The available area is full of cars during non-work hours. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 23:29 on Jul 15, 2013 |
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Jul 15, 2013 23:25
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Cichlidae posted:You're forgetting the major impediment to those Sound Crossings: no New Englander wants them fuckin' Yankees fans comin' up heah. I-95 is a bottleneck on purpose to keep those bastids out! And spiting those people is exactly why it needs to be done, besides the multidecade employment needed to build those projects + appropriate upgrading and maintenance of connecting infrastructure. 
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Jul 15, 2013 23:59
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Baronjutter posted:Also some of the most disgusting walled mansion compounds I've ever seen. After discussing the fact that the bike lanes are at all controversial we decided the only course of action was to close the entire street to car traffic and convert it to a tram/busway with bike lanes and convert all the multi-million dollar gated monuments to Randian psychopathy into social housing. I know that streetcar tracks are a hazard to cyclists, but can we do this anyway? 
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Jul 16, 2013 03:44
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Baronjutter posted:So I was just oddly enough in Vancouver in a neighbourhood I'd never been in... Here is the street in question: http://goo.gl/maps/87TBm Point Grey Road between Alma and MacDonald carries 10,000 vehicles/day. The two proposals are to convert it into two cul-de-sacs with a passthrough for bikes, or turn the two lane road into a westbound one way, using the reclaimed space for a separated bike lane. 4th Ave is a few blocks south, a 4 lane arterial with street parking on both sides.  or  
less than three fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 04:56
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Something as simple as taking out the parking and turning it into a normal 2-lane street with a little bike lane on both sides would probably get the job done. What's the advantage to blocking it off like that?
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Jul 16, 2013 06:28
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Baronjutter posted:Something as simple as taking out the parking and turning it into a normal 2-lane street with a little bike lane on both sides would probably get the job done. What's the advantage to blocking it off like that? Homes on that street sell for $2m to $7m, so if the dirty proles want to take away my street parking for bikes maybe they should just bootstrap themselves into wealth and buy a car. Really the only reason this is at all controversial compared to Vancouver's other bike lane plans is that this one happens to inconvenience some rich folk in a conservative neighbourhood.
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Jul 16, 2013 09:01
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Why in the world would turning an arterial into a cul-de-sac be a good idea? Or only allowing traffic in one direction? All it's going to do is force congestion onto other arterials and the nearby secondaries and make the problems even worse. Instead of effectively banning cars from the road, why not ban bikes from the road and require bicyclists to dismount and use the sidewalk?
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Jul 16, 2013 10:34
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Baronjutter posted:Something as simple as taking out the parking and turning it into a normal 2-lane street with a little bike lane on both sides would probably get the job done. What's the advantage to blocking it off like that? Well, you can spend days laughing at drivers who don't update their GPS and ignore 'dead end' signs. Trucks getting stuck at the end, having to back out, causing a traffic jam, drivers looking around being confused, then driving into another local road and getting lost there... it's great. 
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Jul 16, 2013 16:48
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grover posted:Why in the world would turning an arterial into a cul-de-sac be a good idea? Or only allowing traffic in one direction? All it's going to do is force congestion onto other arterials and the nearby secondaries and make the problems even worse. Probably because it was never intended to be an arterial in the first place? I'm not familiar with the road, so I don't know, but if it wasn't intended to be an arterial, the engineers that designed it would have made design decisions that make it unsafe for people to treat it like one. There's also the possibilities that residents are super sick of the traffic (but it doesn't sounds like that's the case), or that the people just 'downstream' of the proposed cul-de-sac are really pushing for it because it would reduce the flow on the road and make their commute easier (but that's also unlikely, because I doubt they would have thought that far ahead).
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Jul 16, 2013 19:24
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The only thing that road seems to link is a dang yacht club to a bunch of wealthy people houses.
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Jul 16, 2013 19:36
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PittTheElder posted:Probably because it was never intended to be an arterial in the first place? I'm not familiar with the road, so I don't know, but if it wasn't intended to be an arterial, the engineers that designed it would have made design decisions that make it unsafe for people to treat it like one. Would it not be better to turn 1st or 2nd ave into one-way only with a bike lane than to divert all the point grey road traffic onto them? Seems like it's the bikes causing all the problems; remove the bikes, remove the problem.
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Jul 16, 2013 21:16
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grover posted:All that traffic would end up on the next street over, which looks from google maps to be even less suited for car traffic. misguided rage fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Jul 16, 2013 |
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Jul 16, 2013 21:42
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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Bike boulevards are great and all, but putting a cul-de-sac in the middle of a through street is going to severely increase your response times from emergency providers.
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Jul 17, 2013 00:05
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I thought this was pretty cool.quote:To recap, the anonymous group installed the pylons under the cover of night this spring. They then sent an email to Seattle Bike Blog and SDOT explaining why they did it and pointing out the fact that they used a simple adhesive to make them easy to remove should SDOT choose to do so. Maybe you just need to resort to guerrilla tactics to get a bike lane.
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Jul 17, 2013 04:45
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grover posted:Instead of effectively banning cars from the road, why not ban bikes from the road and require bicyclists to dismount and use the sidewalk?  If it were a regular east-west boulevard, the easiest solution would be to make it one-way, with an adjacent street running in the opposite direction. That way you could retain street parking, as well as giving cyclists room for a bike lane, although it would be safest if there was a buffer between them and said parked cars. However, Point Grey Road follows the bay, which means that things become a little more complicated. Then again, isn't having on-street parking for a major thoroughfare dangerous in and of itself? Really, replacing that with bike lanes would be doing everybody a favor. NightGyr posted:I thought this was pretty cool. This is, indeed, pretty cool.
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Jul 17, 2013 05:16
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Hedera Helix posted:Then again, isn't having on-street parking for a major thoroughfare dangerous in and of itself? Really, replacing that with bike lanes would be doing everybody a favor. Yeah, if it's functioning as an arterial, there really shouldn't be parking on it.
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Jul 17, 2013 06:03
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