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Varance posted:The bridge vs grade question on my mind is, how many freight vehicles will potentially be using that interchange each day? Bridging the road would easily be justified if the new road were designed as a truck route. During peak hours, the truck percentage is a pretty typical 3-6%. Outside of peaks, it can rise to 20%. And they could access it a couple blocks down in either direction. I should mention that there's a major high school to the north and it's a heavily used bike/ped route. will_colorado posted:Could you use something like this? I don't think there's enough traffic to/from the residential street to justify the ROW impacts, honestly. We'd already have to bring the new road down a steep embankment to make it hit the residential road so close to the RR tracks, so adding additional ramps would probably require raising the residential road's grade and taking properties. Baronjutter posted:gently caress the side street, bridge it. Is there anything anyone can walk to in the area? Have some stairs coming down from the ramp if there's anything people on the side street could walk to east or west of the image. A bridge might be imposing but 8 lanes of cars idling at a light is way worse. https://www.google.com/maps/@41.7616617,-72.7004048,17z <-- basically we're rebuilding this interchange, and the residential street is a realigned Capitol-Forest. Looks like it's only actually a couple hundred feet from the RR. John Dough posted:Maybe move the side street closer to the railway if possible, that way you can make the bridge shorter. We'd have to take ROW to do that. Trying to avoid any ROW takes at all.
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Mar 27, 2015 12:24
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Cichlidae posted:A question for someone who's well versed in urban design: I had a project where we turned the overpass into the at-grade option as a retrofit. The area was being redeveloped, and industrial uses were becoming new pricey stuff. It was a neat project - we lowered big chunks of the viaduct in-place.
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Mar 27, 2015 12:35
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Cichlidae posted:I should mention that there's a major high school to the north and it's a heavily used bike/ped route. Yeah, bridge it. There's no way that I've seen to make an eight-lane intersection safe or comfortable for people to walk or bike across.
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Mar 27, 2015 16:23
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Cichlidae posted:. Capitol Ave is getting an interchange with 84? Are the flyovers from 84 that go to West Blvd being removed?
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Mar 27, 2015 18:24
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will_colorado posted:Capitol Ave is getting an interchange with 84? Are the flyovers from 84 that go to West Blvd being removed? That is a definite option. Nothing's set in stone yet, but those ramps were meant to connect to a Route 9 freeway that was never built.
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Mar 27, 2015 22:33
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Does the railroad on your drawing include the busway?
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Mar 30, 2015 01:55
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Minenfeld! posted:Does the railroad on your drawing include the busway? Yup.
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Mar 30, 2015 04:15
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So a lady is in critical condition after riding her bike into an open pit. Traffic control always bends over backwards to make sure cars are totally safe from construction but rarely give a poo poo about everyone else. Quite often the sidewalk or bike lane will actually be blocked by traffic control's signs warning motorists about construction. The pit had no fencing and signage/warnings placed around it (strictly for car's safety, no one else's) actually blocked the safer routes for non-motorized traffic. 
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Mar 31, 2015 21:27
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Cichlidae posted:Yup. That's a tough one. Is the part of the consideration for the Aetna viaduct still to "repair Hartford's urban landscape?" If so, I'd imagine the bridge being a bad idea.
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Mar 31, 2015 22:57
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Baronjutter posted:So a lady is in critical condition after riding her bike into an open pit. Traffic control always bends over backwards to make sure cars are totally safe from construction but rarely give a poo poo about everyone else. Quite often the sidewalk or bike lane will actually be blocked by traffic control's signs warning motorists about construction. The pit had no fencing and signage/warnings placed around it (strictly for car's safety, no one else's) actually blocked the safer routes for non-motorized traffic. That's awful, I hope that she turns out ok and is able to get a big settlement. People need to be much more aware about this sort of thing. While civil engineers are typically decent about it (if only because of litigious avoidance), far too many roadworkers treat bike lanes and sidewalks as little more than parking strips - and they're the ones who end up actually placing the warning signs and performing the work. Can you share a link or something with more information?
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Mar 31, 2015 23:11
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Baronjutter posted:So a lady is in critical condition after riding her bike into an open pit. Traffic control always bends over backwards to make sure cars are totally safe from construction but rarely give a poo poo about everyone else. Quite often the sidewalk or bike lane will actually be blocked by traffic control's signs warning motorists about construction. The pit had no fencing and signage/warnings placed around it (strictly for car's safety, no one else's) actually blocked the safer routes for non-motorized traffic. We had plenty of work zone safety training for this kind of thing, but mandating better safety and actually implementing it are two different things. You probably won't find a single work zone in the state that meets ATSSA, OSHA, FHWA, and local guidelines. Minenfeld! posted:That's a tough one. Is the part of the consideration for the Aetna viaduct still to "repair Hartford's urban landscape?" If so, I'd imagine the bridge being a bad idea. Yeah, though that division has been there since the 1840s and there's very little we can actually do about it without getting rid of the railroad. The real question is whether jamming an 8-lane arterial through a residential neighborhood is less divisive than a four-lane overpass.
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Mar 31, 2015 23:31
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Kaal posted:Can you share a link or something with more information? I was just going off photos and local gossip so far but here's a brief article. http://www.cfax1070.com/News/Top-Stories/Cyclist-critically-injured-in-worksite-incident-ne From what I heard the works truck was blocking the bike lane/right of the road so the lady went around it except that half of the road was open pit and wasn't fenced or taped off. All the cars were going left of the truck/signs but bikes had nowhere to go except into the pit with nothing warning or blocking them. It's surprising because the area is well used by bikes so it's not like it should be an afterthought. The lady probably was just in the wrong place at the wrong exact time as things at the site were moving around and protections didn't have time to re-adjust. The whole area is a clusterfuck as they build a new bridge that's gone like 9000% over budget while be drastically scaled back in just about every category they used to "sell" the bridge in a referendum. 
Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 23:42 on Mar 31, 2015 |
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Mar 31, 2015 23:38
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Baronjutter posted:I was just going off photos and local gossip so far but here's a brief article. From the perspective of the road workers, unless they lived/biked in the area they wouldn't know how much it is used by bikes. They probably didn't really give bikes a second thought.
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Apr 1, 2015 05:05
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New info is coming out. Apparently the old lady blasted around a sign, maneuvered through a wall of cones, and ignored workmen and flag people who frantically tried to warn/stop her. I don't know if she's one of the many old semi-homeless people who ride around town but they do not give a gently caress. They will ride against traffic while "taking the lane". They will knock you down on the sidewalk, they will do a U turn in the middle of a 6 lane arterial at rush hour. It's as if they actually don't interpret anything that isn't one of their friends or a recycling bin full of bottles as being on their plane of existence.
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Apr 1, 2015 17:28
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Baronjutter posted:New info is coming out. Apparently the old lady blasted around a sign, maneuvered through a wall of cones, and ignored workmen and flag people who frantically tried to warn/stop her. I don't know if she's one of the many old semi-homeless people who ride around town but they do not give a gently caress. They will ride against traffic while "taking the lane". They will knock you down on the sidewalk, they will do a U turn in the middle of a 6 lane arterial at rush hour. It's as if they actually don't interpret anything that isn't one of their friends or a recycling bin full of bottles as being on their plane of existence. Well at least it means the road crew weren't being negligent. My favourite is when they put down a two-inch-thick metal sheet to cover a pit, allowing cars to go over it. Two inches is actually quite a bump to go over on a bike, especially if you don't see it (they never mark these, and they can be hard to make out in the dark). Smooth metal is also slippery as gently caress in the rain. And then there's the state of the road surface after they've "repaired" the asphalt within a year after doing whatever pipe work necessitated digging a pit in it. Cracks, road snakes and potholes everywhere.
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Apr 1, 2015 23:58
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Well at least it means the road crew weren't being negligent. ConnDOT didn't allow steel plates for a while because they're awful for bikes and motorcycles. I guess now they're allowed again, which is disappointing. Almost busted a tire driving over a misaligned metal plate on the Tappan Zee Bridge once... ----- April is Distracted Driving Awareness Month! All the research I've read recently shows that talking on the phone (even hands-free) is about as bad as being drunk. Texting or emailing while driving are even worse - significantly so, if we are to believe the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration: drivers who are dialing a phone are 6 times more likely to be involved in a crash, near crash or unintended lane change. The number jumps to 23 times when texting or emailing. At any given daylight moment, 660,000 drivers in the US are using their phone. That might not seem like a huge amount (1/500 of the US population), but if you take that as a percentage of the number of people actually driving, it's pretty significant. Another source offers these tips: · Plan calls – Establish times during the day when the driver can pull off the road and be available for communications (whether text, email or telephone). Work out the frequency and times, based on expected needs and the job being done. · Ignore the phone – Calls cannot always be scheduled. Establish a culture where allowing callers to leave messages to be returned at the earliest convenience (i.e., when it is safe to do so) is acceptable. · Drive defensively – Defensive driving techniques provide more time to respond to changing driving conditions. · Pre-set temperature and radio controls · Clear windows of frost, ice, snow or debris before driving · Increase following distance (Zurich recommends 4 seconds in normal conditions) · Understand what is occurring ahead of the vehicle (Zurich recommends scanning at least 10 seconds ahead) · Drive for conditions – in inclement weather, slow down and allow for increased stopping distances and poor visibility · Deal with distractions in a safe location, while parked Remember how I mentioned balancing safety and capacity? When I was in Driver's Ed, they taught us to keep 2-second headways. A recent defensive driving pamphlet I read said 3 seconds. Zurich, whoever they are, is recommending 4 seconds here. Let's take a closer look at those numbers. We typically assume a single lane of uninterrupted traffic has a capacity of around 2200 veh/hr. That's about a 1.6-second headway. Since vehicles have a finite length, the time between your rear bumper and your tail's front bumper is a bit less. Now if everyone follows the old Driver's Ed rules and keeps 2-second headways, the capacity drops to 1800vph (81%). Go with the newer 3-second headways, and your capacity is 1200vph (55%). And if everyone follows Zurich's advice, now the capacity of an uninterrupted lane is 900vph (41%). Why does that capacity reduction matter? To maintain the same traffic flow, you'd need more than twice as many lanes as currently exist. If 4s headways are really what we need to make the roads safe, then we're completely hosed. In reality, of course, everyone will keep the same 1.6-second headways, because that's what we're all used to.
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Apr 2, 2015 00:46
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People are trained not to leave headways because if you have >1.5~ car lengths in front of you someone will merge into it and you're back at square one.
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Apr 2, 2015 00:59
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Is there any data for incidence of rear-end accidents and consequent back injury against average amount of headway? I feel like you could get average headway just from those throughput numbers you mentioned, and integrating it with the injury data might give some very useful insights into the trade-offs involves.
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Apr 2, 2015 01:10
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Cichlidae posted:ConnDOT didn't allow steel plates for a while because they're awful for bikes and motorcycles. I guess now they're allowed again, which is disappointing. Almost busted a tire driving over a misaligned metal plate on the Tappan Zee Bridge once... I'm guessing that Zurich here is Zurich Insurance. My car has speed sensitive radar cruise control, which lets you set the distance between you and the car in front, from one car length to five. I usually have it set at two, but I have played around with the longer settings. There's no way you could get the average American drive to leave that much room during normal conditions.
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Apr 2, 2015 01:31
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However did anyone make business happen before cell phones?? Can't just loving turn the drat thing off while in the car!
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Apr 2, 2015 02:42
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I'd imagine they tend to get a proper cause in drunk driving accidents more than in texting or phone ones.
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Apr 2, 2015 03:11
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The condition of our lovely roads in Massachusetts continue to impress, as the state just can't keep up with the potholes from this awful winter. I blew a tire on 495S heading to 290 this weekend because there was a giant gaping pothole in the right hand lane. You can't see those fuckers coming at 70 MPH. Then the state has the gall to put "Report potholes!" up on the VMSes but has it written into state law that it is not liable for potholes causing damage to cars on state roads.
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Apr 2, 2015 03:52
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kefkafloyd posted:The condition of our lovely roads in Massachusetts continue to impress, as the state just can't keep up with the potholes from this awful winter. I blew a tire on 495S heading to 290 this weekend because there was a giant gaping pothole in the right hand lane. You can't see those fuckers coming at 70 MPH. Still better than Connecticut. I reported some potholes and got a form email back saying "yeah we know the roads are poo poo, but we've got so many potholes to deal with that we can't prioritize yours." Granted, they have limited staff for pothole patching (which is a tremendously dangerous job), and they say that this is the worst winter for roads we've ever had.
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Apr 2, 2015 12:07
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Unlike for other aspects of traffic law, the Netherlands isn't any better than the US for laws about distracted driving. Our universities are full of driving simulators where they study time and time again how dead you are likely to be by doing various distracting things (too many people study psychology here), but all of these results are being ignored. I guess the only law we have is one that bans talking to a phone that is in your hand.
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Apr 2, 2015 12:43
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We have technology in our phones that can detect if people are looking at them or not. I seriously think some sort of system that beeps at you if you look away from the road for more than 3 seconds. I see people doing poo poo like that all the time, they turn around to face the person in the back seat (jesus christ people can hear you you don't need to look them in the eye to tell your amazing story) and in those 3-4 seconds nearly hit me. Or check their phone, or do their makeup, or fiddle with their backpack in the side seat, or turn around to yell at their kids, or just anything but look where the gently caress they're actively controlling their huge metal land torpedo. Anyone who thinks they can look away from the road for more then 2-3 seconds is a bad driver who doesn't understand the risks they are to them selves and others. Also something that actively records where you were looking would be amazing for insurance claims. Force young drivers to have those in their cars to be eligible for insurance. Also here when road works put those metal plates down they always make a little asphalt ramp. Over time it chips away but those plates are generally just there for a few days, and the part that bikes drive over of course don't get worn down as fast so it's generally nice and smooth. They also love to block bike lanes and sidewalks with huge huge signs warning drivers that there is a slight slight bump coming up don't get scared. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Apr 2, 2015 |
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Apr 2, 2015 17:28
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Javid posted:People are trained not to leave headways because if you have >1.5~ car lengths in front of you someone will merge into it and you're back at square one. That is the first driving thing I learned when I moved to a big city from a rural town.
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Apr 2, 2015 19:00
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My guess is about 80% of the people on the road during rush hour are loving around on their phone. It has gotten a lot worse the past 2-3 years. Cyclists in big cities are also pretty bad. I see someone cross a wide street while texting at least once a day. This isn't even illegal.
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Apr 2, 2015 20:12
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I do all sorts of things while cycling, but not around intersections or in touristy areas (they don't care about intersections). I don't mind this much as distracted driving, because if I run into something (hasn't happened) I'll mostly just hurt myself and certainly won't kill anyone. The next song won't pick itself! Random is not good enough.
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Apr 2, 2015 21:14
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Cichlidae posted:Still better than Connecticut. I reported some potholes and got a form email back saying "yeah we know the roads are poo poo, but we've got so many potholes to deal with that we can't prioritize yours." Granted, they have limited staff for pothole patching (which is a tremendously dangerous job), and they say that this is the worst winter for roads we've ever had. They've been doing a good job on Route 25, at least. Every night on the way home there's a new pothole, and the next morning it's always filled in. But the persistent below freezing temperatures for the past three months, plus all this melt-water is murdering the roads. Route 7 is the absolute worst south of Danbury at the moment. It's sad how many people I see on the road with cellphones attached to their heads despite it being incredibly dangerous and illegal. What's perhaps even worse is the amount of people I see with those earbuds in both ears... But on the plus side, those electronic road signs on 84 are now saying "U Text, U Drive, U Pay." Maybe some people will take it to heart.
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Apr 2, 2015 22:56
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The boards in California say stuff like that sometimes. Though our version is "one text or call could wreck it all". Another frequent message is about slowing or moving over to another lane for work crews. This combined with a recent billboard campaign for roadside worker awareness/safety makes me wonder if we've had a rash of accidents/fatalities lately. 
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Apr 2, 2015 23:09
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Minenfeld! posted:They've been doing a good job on Route 25, at least. Every night on the way home there's a new pothole, and the next morning it's always filled in. But the persistent below freezing temperatures for the past three months, plus all this melt-water is murdering the roads. Route 7 is the absolute worst south of Danbury at the moment. You want depressing? Read the comments on this Courant article about the distracted driving crackdown. Galaga Galaxian posted:The boards in California say stuff like that sometimes. Though our version is "one text or call could wreck it all". Work Zone Safety Week was a couple weeks ago, so that's probably why. There are always fatalities, unfortunately, especially in Texas, which is by far the worst state for it. Also, relevant to both people I'm quoting here, the messages are nationwide, but they are rotated around between states to keep them fresh. So one year you'll get "slow down for the cone zone," the next you'll get "double fines, double trouble," the next you'll get "pleaze slow down, my daddy workz here."
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Apr 2, 2015 23:45
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I don't think I could work on a busy highway with only some cones protecting me from traffic, way too dangerous. So many people just auto-pilot their route and plow into poo poo. Every accident I've witnessed with my own eyes has been someone just driving straight into something as if they had fallen asleep, but they all had these blank stares as they rear-ended someone. Hell I drove straight into a construction site sign once, only thing I've ever hit. To be fair it was dark, no street lamps, and the sign was facing backwards. I think once again they were just storing the sign in the bike lane. When I was a kid I was driving with my dad in a kinda suburban/exurban area, not even rural, and a huge cougar trotted across the road. We went around a corner and there was a loving mama bear and 3 cubs walking across someone's acreage. We then found this poor road worker assessing the drainage ditches and warned him. He had no transport, was dropped off. And this was before cell-phones. So yeah, if you aren't hit by a car you're eaten by a cougar or mauled by a bear. Lot of accidents for railway work crews too. Transport is a dangerous word.
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Apr 2, 2015 23:52
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During college, I did a summer internship as an inspector at the Ohio Department of Transportation, and I'll say it was certainly psychologically much scarier being behind orange barrels next to 45 MPH traffic than being behind a concrete barrier next to 65 MPH traffic.
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Apr 3, 2015 01:14
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Baronjutter posted:I don't think I could work on a busy highway with only some cones protecting me from traffic, way too dangerous. You honestly get used to it after a while. The first time you're standing in the shoulder getting ready to race across I-95 in heavy traffic, you'll get one hell of an adrenaline rush. The fiftieth time, it's routine. Getting complacent isn't really a good thing, because it makes you less attentive and more prone to make a fatal mistake. And then there's night work. Holy poo poo, it's hellish compared to being out in the day. Even with drums and a police escort, you're just waiting for some drunk driver to plow through the work zone.
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Apr 3, 2015 03:58
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Entropist posted:I do all sorts of things while cycling, but not around intersections or in touristy areas (they don't care about intersections). I don't mind this much as distracted driving, because if I run into something (hasn't happened) I'll mostly just hurt myself and certainly won't kill anyone. If you run into a pedestrian they could die or be seriously injured. My guess is most of the people in cars that drive distracted have the same reasoning as you. If i run into the car in front of me while we are crawling along at 20kph we'll ruin our bumpers, no big deal.
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Apr 3, 2015 11:56
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Twice I've almost run head on into some rear end in a top hat who had to fiddle with his iPhone while biking. Please look where you're going, regardless of your mode of transportation.
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Apr 3, 2015 22:44
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Going back to the crossing, if the large bridge is an issue couldn't you partially sink the residential street to reduce the height of the bridge / length of it?
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Apr 5, 2015 00:25
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Ika posted:Going back to the crossing, if the large bridge is an issue couldn't you partially sink the residential street to reduce the height of the bridge / length of it? Significantly changing the grade (elevation) of a roadway causes all sorts of costly problems, particularly lowering the grade. All the utilities have to be relocated, storm drain systems have to be relocated. If you didn't have storm drain before, you do now, because you've created a low point, and you may have to chase a significant distance in order to daylight the pipe (water has to run downhill). Maintenance of traffic is difficult because you can't just reconstruct half the roadway at once as easily. Bridges can be cheap in comparison.
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Apr 5, 2015 00:35
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Devor posted:Significantly changing the grade (elevation) of a roadway causes all sorts of costly problems, particularly lowering the grade. All the utilities have to be relocated, storm drain systems have to be relocated. If you didn't have storm drain before, you do now, because you've created a low point, and you may have to chase a significant distance in order to daylight the pipe (water has to run downhill). Maintenance of traffic is difficult because you can't just reconstruct half the roadway at once as easily. There is also a river buried right below the surface. We're going to have a week-long public workshop later this month to talk it over with people from all over the region. It's their neighborhood, so it's only fitting they get a say in it, right? Maybe they'll have some ideas we didn't even think of.
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Apr 5, 2015 20:26
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Cichlidae posted:There is also a river buried right below the surface. Yes, but the river is cool and you can kayak in it. I actually drove through Hartford on 84 this weekend going to Bradley, and I made sure to look at the area of your map. I think a bridge is going to be really imposing for pedestrians in the area. Did the TransformCT website comments ever mention anything useful about the Aetna viaduct? The only think I remember seeing was a comment asking for a "mini-dig" to put 84 entirely under Hartford like that stretch father north. Edit: Also, was 84 built with future expansion in mind? I was paying attention while I was driving and it seems the entire length between Danbury and Waterbury has a large, grassy median. Is that there for future expansion? And if so, is it a common way to build a highway? Minenfeld! fucked around with this message at 01:31 on Apr 6, 2015 |
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Apr 6, 2015 01:14
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