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fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Kaal posted:

And those edge cases are what, maybe one percent of total trips? Less than one percent?

The fact that most people don't take long distance trips in the outer high speed limit interstates in Texas should certainly indicate that reducing speed limits on those roads wouldn't be useful for handling and reducing emissions or most other things.

Which is the entire reason said roads have high speed limits now after the stupid nationwide 55 mph speed limit was repealed decades back.

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Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.

fishmech posted:

The fact that most people don't take long distance trips in the outer high speed limit interstates in Texas should certainly indicate that reducing speed limits on those roads wouldn't be useful for handling and reducing emissions or most other things.

Which is the entire reason said roads have high speed limits now after the stupid nationwide 55 mph speed limit was repealed decades back.

The reason those roads have high speed limits is because the American leaders didn't care about the environment at all regardless of the impact, and it's foolish to pretend otherwise. If you want to develop a system that can moderate emissions while also allowing long-haul drivers to watch their Netflix, go right ahead. But until that happens, 8 million people around the Earth are dying prematurely each year specifically because of NOx emissions. You might not care, but it's terrible policy to just ignore environmental impact and pretend that it isn't happening. And NIMBYing Texas desert highways as a reason to preempt national speed limits is exactly the kind of shortsighted thinking that has landed the world with such environmental problems.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Nov 13, 2019

fishmech
Jul 16, 2006

by VideoGames
Salad Prong

Kaal posted:

The reason those roads have high speed limits is because the American leaders didn't care about the environment at all regardless of the impact, and it's foolish to pretend otherwise.

Nope. It's because those are roads fairly dedicated for long distance travel through very low population areas.

Kaal posted:

. And NIMBYing Texas desert highways as a reason to preempt national speed limits is exactly the kind of shortsighted thinking that has landed the world with such environmental problems.

I have absolutely no idea what you think you're talking about. The 55 mph emergency limit law was a moronic response to the fuel crisis.

Kaal
May 22, 2002

through thousands of posts in D&D over a decade, I now believe I know what I'm talking about. if I post forcefully and confidently, I can convince others that is true. no one sees through my facade.
The high speed Texas freeways, like SH 130 which is the fastest at 80-85 mph, are typically built for commuters. The idea that they're mainly being driven by a handful of long-haul rebels without a cause is pure fancy. As is the idea that a road can be too important to have less than maximum speed limits, but not important enough to impact the environment. Fishmech isn't ever going to agree with me or anyone, but the purpose of these environmental speed limits is both very worthwhile and remarkably low-impact.

I'm totally open to developing an American equivalent of the Autobahn, where low-emissions vehicles driven by trained and law-abiding drivers have free reign. But that is not the American freeway system, which is largely filled with idiot drivers commuting 1-10 miles to and from work as fast as humanly possible. And it is certainly not the Netherlands, which is twice the size of New Jersey and has far more typical roads than Texas.

Kaal fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Nov 13, 2019

silence_kit
Jul 14, 2011

by the sex ghost

AreWeDrunkYet posted:

If everyone was calmly accelerating and coasting down to meet traffic speeds, overall speeds and throughput could be higher.

This doesn’t follow from the earlier part of your post. In any case, it has nothing to do with highway speed limits. Speed limits are not really relevant in stop and go traffic.

Hippie Hedgehog
Feb 19, 2007

Ever cuddled a hedgehog?

silence_kit posted:

This doesn’t follow from the earlier part of your post. In any case, it has nothing to do with highway speed limits. Speed limits are not really relevant in stop and go traffic.

Adaptive speed limits do exist and are used in many places to increase safety and throughput. A choke point in my city is a tunnel which has digital signage reducing the limit from 70 km/h to 50 or even 30 during rush hour when it gets congested. The lowered speed means less distance between cars and thus more cars per minute get through the tunnel, allowing more cars onto the freeway from the surrounding roads. It means lower average speed for cars already on the freeway but shorter travel times for cars trying to get onto it.

Kaal posted:

But until that happens, 8 million people around the Earth are dying prematurely each year specifically because of NOx emissions.

Not in rural Arizona, they're not...

Really, if you want argue for lower speeds in order to save the planet, it's enough to state that the fuel efficiency of a car is very poor at 85 mph, because of air resistance and friction. So, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, speeds should be lowered on those roads. Really, rising gas prices ought to solve this problem for us in a perfect world, but I gather the U.S. still has basically 0 gas tax in many states.

No need to get into the whole deal about inefficient combustion. Respiratory and cardiac effects of NOx seem mostly to happen locally according to what I can find out. NOx forms ozone and particles (like nitric acid vapor) that don't travel far. NOx emissions do contribute to the greenhouse effect, but their volume is so much less than the CO2 emission itself, so I imagine the NOx effects are negligible. Correct me if I'm wrong, here...

Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 22:40 on Nov 13, 2019

mamosodiumku
Apr 1, 2012

?
Faster speeds feel more important when you have to drive a few hundred miles. If you only have to drive 20 miles, I feel driving slower doesn't really make much of a difference.

I'll give an example:
Traveling 20 miles at 120 miles per hour (Autobahn, I guess?) takes 10 minutes.
Traveling 20 miles at 75 miles per hour (Normal highway) takes 16 minutes.
Traveling 20 miles at 60 miles per hour (Slight traffic) takes 20 minutes.

The time difference between ludicrous speed and slightly below the speed limit is only 10 minutes.

Tank Boy Ken
Aug 24, 2012
J4G for life
Fallen Rib

mamosodiumku posted:

Faster speeds feel more important when you have to drive a few hundred miles. If you only have to drive 20 miles, I feel driving slower doesn't really make much of a difference.

I'll give an example:
Traveling 20 miles at 120 miles per hour (Autobahn, I guess?) takes 10 minutes.
Traveling 20 miles at 75 miles per hour (Normal highway) takes 16 minutes.
Traveling 20 miles at 60 miles per hour (Slight traffic) takes 20 minutes.

The time difference between ludicrous speed and slightly below the speed limit is only 10 minutes.

In my personal experience, driving to work you'll do about 50 to 90 mph (rarely) on the Autobahn, when driving to work. Just because there is no speed limit, doesn't mean traffic won't slow everything down.

That depends where you live in Germany. In rural areas you can actually go above 90 mph.

wolrah
May 8, 2006
what?
IIRC the average speed on derestricted stretches is something like 88 MPH. Of course that counts trucks which AFAIK are still limited, but still. Just because you can max out your car doesn't mean you will. It takes effort to drive fast, it's exhausting even in a car that's very capable. Driving at the natural speed of the road on a controlled-access highway is comfortable by design.

Watermelon Daiquiri
Jul 10, 2010
I TRIED TO BAIT THE TXPOL THREAD WITH THE WORLD'S WORST POSSIBLE TAKE AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID AVATAR.

Kaal posted:

The high speed Texas freeways, like SH 130 which is the fastest at 80-85 mph, are typically built for commuters. The idea that they're mainly being driven by a handful of long-haul rebels without a cause is pure fancy. As is the idea that a road can be too important to have less than maximum speed limits, but not important enough to impact the environment. Fishmech isn't ever going to agree with me or anyone, but the purpose of these environmental speed limits is both very worthwhile and remarkably low-impact.

I'm totally open to developing an American equivalent of the Autobahn, where low-emissions vehicles driven by trained and law-abiding drivers have free reign. But that is not the American freeway system, which is largely filled with idiot drivers commuting 1-10 miles to and from work as fast as humanly possible. And it is certainly not the Netherlands, which is twice the size of New Jersey and has far more typical roads than Texas.

What? Do the west texan interstates and highways no longer have 90mph limits? I distinctly remember travelling at that speed and more driving out to new mexico.

RFC2324
Jun 7, 2012

http 418

Watermelon Daiquiri posted:

What? Do the west texan interstates and highways no longer have 90mph limits? I distinctly remember travelling at that speed and more driving out to new mexico.

Never did, thats just how you drive in Texas.

Qwijib0
Apr 10, 2007

Who needs on-field skills when you can dance like this?

Fun Shoe

Watermelon Daiquiri posted:

What? Do the west texan interstates and highways no longer have 90mph limits? I distinctly remember travelling at that speed and more driving out to new mexico.

I-10 from el paso to the mountain climb to van horn is 85 I believe, and yeah, everyone goes ~90.

barnold
Dec 16, 2011


what do u do when yuo're born to play fps? guess there's nothing left to do but play fps. boom headshot
:patssay: In Massachusetts you could be doing 95mph on I-95 and a statie will give you the shaka as he passes you on the right doing 110 imo it's the closest thing to an autobahn we've got round here

Entropist
Dec 1, 2007
I'm very stupid.
Passing on the right? That's no Autobahn!

barnold
Dec 16, 2011


what do u do when yuo're born to play fps? guess there's nothing left to do but play fps. boom headshot
Well, for the record, I did say "closest thing to" :spergin:

Hippie Hedgehog
Feb 19, 2007

Ever cuddled a hedgehog?
A/B Street: A game that lets you A/B test changes to a traffic simulation of Seattle.


https://github.com/dabreegster/abstreet




quote:


A detailed rendering of Seattle from OpenStreetMap and King County GIS data, including sidewalks, on-street parking, bike lanes, bus-only lanes, turn lanes, buildings, and bus stops.
Intersections governed by stop signs and traffic signals, with default signal timings heuristically inferred. Hand-tuned geometry to reasonably model Seattle's strangest intersections.
You can adjust lane types, stop signs, and traffic signals, and reverse lanes.

Carbon dioxide
Oct 9, 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OfBpQgLXUc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42oQN7fy_eM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlXNVnftaNs

Baronjutter
Dec 31, 2007

"Tiny Trains"

Not Just Bikes does good stuff. There's so much most places could learn from the dutch, but we refuse because thousands of deaths are easier to swallow than admit any of our standards are bad or that we're not exceptional.

Foxtrot_13
Oct 31, 2013
Ask me about my love of genocide denial!
Those continuous footpaths have started to be introduced in Britain. A set has been introduced on the side roads of a main road that have been used as ratruns. It seems to have reduced the traffic going through tight residential streets and the cyclepath has a lot of use. Still get a couple of the "bicycles are allowed on the road so i will cycle on the road and not the cycle path" numpties though.

Lead out in cuffs
Sep 18, 2012

"That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."




Baronjutter posted:

Not Just Bikes does good stuff. There's so much most places could learn from the dutch, but we refuse because thousands of deaths are easier to swallow than admit any of our standards are bad or that we're not exceptional.

Yep.

On that note, I just found this article in a local paper from last year.

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/05/06/Cycling-Vancouver-Vs-Amsterdam/

It's a newspaper intern from Amsterdam, qqing about how chaotic and terrible cycling is over there. Except, it's the most popular form of transportation for a city with a population of 2.4 million. There is just no way to get that many people around without there being some chaos, and bike chaos is an order of magnitude less harmful in terms of injuries, deaths and property damage than car chaos. I'd happily take her (Amsterdam's) three cycling accidents a day and six fatalities a year over Metro Vancouver's 562 car crashes a day and 95 car crash fatalities a year.

https://www.icbc.com/about-icbc/newsroom/Documents/crashes-casualty-crashes.pdf
https://www.icbc.com/about-icbc/newsroom/Documents/injured-victims-fatal-crashes.pdf

Carbon dioxide
Oct 9, 2012

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Yep.

On that note, I just found this article in a local paper from last year.

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2019/05/06/Cycling-Vancouver-Vs-Amsterdam/

It's a newspaper intern from Amsterdam, qqing about how chaotic and terrible cycling is over there. Except, it's the most popular form of transportation for a city with a population of 2.4 million. There is just no way to get that many people around without there being some chaos, and bike chaos is an order of magnitude less harmful in terms of injuries, deaths and property damage than car chaos. I'd happily take her (Amsterdam's) three cycling accidents a day and six fatalities a year over Metro Vancouver's 562 car crashes a day and 95 car crash fatalities a year.

Every Dutch city and town has similar cycling infrastructure (and don't forget there's a full network of safe bike paths BETWEEN towns so you can reach the entire country by bike safely). In my experience, this chaos and people shouting "move, rear end in a top hat" mainly happens in some of the very crowded city centers, most notably Amsterdam. It becomes much less when you cycle out to the suburbs (and if you live in the suburbs you really never need to go to the center, every neighbourhood has its own little shopping street with a grocery store and everything), and this sort of bike path rage is nearly non-existent in mid-sized towns.

What I'm saying is, if you want to make a place with Dutch cycling infrastructure and "autoluw" roads, start with a relaxed neighbourhood. Really the first thing you need is for that neighbourhood to have both houses/apartments and pedestrian shopping streets, that also contain other important services such as schools and a GP's office/local medical center. Best if both can be in the same street: shops on road level and apartments upstairs. (check Not Only Bikes' video on grocery stores) Make it autoluw so people will walk and cycle to the shops and the shops see an increase in sales. Get cafes to make on-street terraces. Add microparks in the streets where there's room or make/connect it to a regular park. To deal with the rest of the city's infrastructure you probably need a place to park cars. Put that on the edge of the neighbourhood, perhaps with quick back access from the apartments.

That gives you all the ingredients for a nice, enjoyable street with clean air where people will want to walk and bike and where people can get their groceries locally at a relaxed pace without having to drive through bad traffic to the city-edge walmart. Do not expect outsiders to come there by car and go to the stores there. Not at first. That might start happening once locals start using the place and it's already lively and people start talking about it, but it's not a given. Once word spreads, people might want to come there from adjoining neighbourhoods by bike. So once you have that you can start investing in a radius of bicyclists-as-primary-users infra. Meanwhile keep some of the main car access roads in place, just make sure cyclists can cross them by viaduct or tunnel. Once you get a good connection to the next neighbourhood you can give it a little autoluw center with small shops as well. And spread out the infra further from there.

Do the busiest areas of the city such as the city center last after everyone in the suburbs is used to this system, because this change in very busy areas will lead to a dangerous chaos at first.

Colostomy Bag
Jan 11, 2016

:lesnick: C-Bangin' it :lesnick:

Dear OP, would you (or would want to) take a look at a set of engineering plans that involve drainage issues while combining bike trails along busy roads and things of that nature?

I mean seriously, I consider myself somewhat of a learned man but holy gently caress it looks like the schematics to the Space Shuttle.

Reason I ask is I'm looking for an informed opinion and not getting smoke blasted up my rear end by the city when our board makes a decision. If this kind of thing is not in your wheelhouse, no big deal just thought I'd ask.

Devor
Nov 30, 2004
Lurking more.

Colostomy Bag posted:

Dear OP, would you (or would want to) take a look at a set of engineering plans that involve drainage issues while combining bike trails along busy roads and things of that nature?

I mean seriously, I consider myself somewhat of a learned man but holy gently caress it looks like the schematics to the Space Shuttle.

Reason I ask is I'm looking for an informed opinion and not getting smoke blasted up my rear end by the city when our board makes a decision. If this kind of thing is not in your wheelhouse, no big deal just thought I'd ask.

Post the plans

Carbon dioxide
Oct 9, 2012

The OP hasn't posted in this thread since 2016.

Jaguars!
Jul 31, 2012


Chichlidae's still around and posting though, so you could PM him to get in contact. We'd love to see the plans as well!

Colostomy Bag
Jan 11, 2016

:lesnick: C-Bangin' it :lesnick:

Carbon dioxide posted:

The OP hasn't posted in this thread since 2016.

My apologies, all I did was scan through a page or two of posting history after reading the OP and saw he was active (albeit other threads) so figured based on probability this thread as well.

I'll see what I can do with the PDF. Not good on zooming on this, so will talk to those above to getting more depth in resolution. Gosh, seems like government is trying to pull wool over our eyes.

Varance
Oct 28, 2004

Ladies, hide your footwear!
Nap Ghost
I wish I could post more about what I do, but I learned early on in the advanced stages of my career that it's unwise to talk about anything relevant that you're actively involved with on the Internet. Especially when what you do has a lot to do with transit infrastructure safety and security. It tends to come back and bite you in the rear end. Haven't created a transit ask/tell thread because of this.

I work in an Operations Control Center (consolidated bus/para/rail) as a Lead/Superintendent. Most of the stuff I deal with falls into the realm of either 1) stuff that gets media or legal attention, or 2) security sensitive information (SSI), which is information that is exempt from sunshine laws and should never be voluntarily disclosed. I'm also the go-to guy whenever management wants to pick someone's brain about operating procedures, route design and computer aided dispatch issues.

BTW, if you're into transit and work at a transit authority, you owe it to yourself to go after Transportation Safety Institute (TSI) training. It does wonders for your career, and you end up with an alphabet soup after your name: Your Name Here, TSSP, PTSCTP, and eventually WSO-CSS/CSSD/CSM/etc.. Besides being extremely informative, you get to do some very unique stuff that you wouldn't otherwise do unless you're in a safety/security role, like audit someone else's rail stations/yards and investigate accidents with the NTSB. TSI also offers quite a few infrastructure design courses that focus on building safe/secure transit infrastructure, and the Federal Transit Administration is more or less signing off on your ability and knowledge when you pass them.

Varance fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Feb 3, 2020

Precambrian Video Games
Aug 19, 2002



Guy Axlerod posted:




https://www.google.com/maps/place/4...4!4d-74.6380431

Two signalized intersections. No yield signs. Two lanes that just turn into one if you're going from US1 SB and turning left.

There's a good and nice roundabout a mile away, so they know how to do it: https://www.google.com/maps/place/4...1!4d-74.6285831

I searched the forums just to see if someone had posted about this abomination in this thread and wasn't disappointed. It seems like every intersection in New Jersey has a unique design, but hardly ever in a good way.

I should add that the issue with left turns is mirrored exactly in the rightmost northbound lane (which is closer to eastbound but anyway). It often backs up for miles with cars trying to turn left, eventually forcing unaware drivers to try to turn off from the middle lane, making 2/3 lanes unusable for anyone trying to keep going.

I think it's actually worse than any abomination I ever made in Cities: Skylines.

Precambrian Video Games fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Feb 3, 2020

Lobsterpillar
Feb 4, 2014

Colostomy Bag posted:

Dear OP, would you (or would want to) take a look at a set of engineering plans that involve drainage issues while combining bike trails along busy roads and things of that nature?

I mean seriously, I consider myself somewhat of a learned man but holy gently caress it looks like the schematics to the Space Shuttle.

Reason I ask is I'm looking for an informed opinion and not getting smoke blasted up my rear end by the city when our board makes a decision. If this kind of thing is not in your wheelhouse, no big deal just thought I'd ask.

Post the plans, if you can, but do you have a specific issue with them? Are you concerned about drainage/flooding and water flow paths, traffic capacity and flow, traffic safety, cyclist safety or something else? And do you know which of the above factors are the designers priorities?

barnold
Dec 16, 2011


what do u do when yuo're born to play fps? guess there's nothing left to do but play fps. boom headshot


It's like a choose-your-own-adventure, but for getting on a highway. What onramp would you like to take today? Do you feel like taking a left or a right? The choices are yours and yours alone!

Tex Avery
Feb 13, 2012

Varance posted:

BTW, if you're into transit and work at a transit authority, you owe it to yourself to go after Transportation Safety Institute (TSI) training. It does wonders for your career, and you end up with an alphabet soup after your name: Your Name Here, TSSP, PTSCTP, and eventually WSO-CSS/CSSD/CSM/etc.. Besides being extremely informative, you get to do some very unique stuff that you wouldn't otherwise do unless you're in a safety/security role, like audit someone else's rail stations/yards and investigate accidents with the NTSB. TSI also offers quite a few infrastructure design courses that focus on building safe/secure transit infrastructure, and the Federal Transit Administration is more or less signing off on your ability and knowledge when you pass them.

Any courses in particular that you could recommend for a rail operator that wants to move up into training or safety?

Varance
Oct 28, 2004

Ladies, hide your footwear!
Nap Ghost

Tex Avery posted:

Any courses in particular that you could recommend for a rail operator that wants to move up into training or safety?
For Training: TSI's "Instructors Course for Transit Trainers" is the gold standard. Once you complete that, you're certified by the FTA to train bus and paratransit operators, which is a big bullet point on a resume. Doesn't guarantee you a job, but if you're already an on-the-job trainer, it definitely gives you a leg up over other candidates for training instructor positions. Rail is its own unique beast, and doesn't have a specific course, but follows the same fundamentals.

For Safety: You're going after a Transit Safety & Security Program certificate. Going after Rail TSSP first makes it easier to go after Bus TSSP and PTSCTP (safety oversight certification) later, if you choose to go hardcore safety. You have three years from the completion of your first course to complete Transit System Security and Effectively Managing Transit Emergencies, plus the two safety/accident investigation courses for either Bus or Rail. Pass the three year mark, and you have to start taking the expired courses over again. Again, doesn't guarantee you a job, but if you finish TSSP, you get to tack TSSP on the back end of your name on resumes. That's like sticking AICP on the back of your name as a planner.



Keep in mind that these are week-long courses, and travel from agency to agency. There's a fairly cheap tuition cost, plus big travel/lodging costs if you're in an area that doesn't see classes often. If you're going to commit to it, save money and vacation time before starting the first course, so that you don't time out. This list should give you an idea of tuition and how often the courses float around the States. The course list refreshes on September 1.

The biggest takeaway from these courses is the networking. If you travel for the TSSP, you will meet dozens of people from other transit agencies. You will also meet state regulators, NTSB investigators, officials from the FTA and Amtrak, etc.. They will tell you about all the shenanigans they have to deal with, and you will quickly realize that everyone has to deal with the same mess that you do. You'll also have their contact information, so if something completely out of left field shows up, you have people you can reach out to for advice.

If you're cheap/poor and want to get something done now, there's also FEMA training. FEMA offers a ton of free online training, and you really want to finish up some of the ICS and NIMS courses. IS-100, IS-200, IS-700 and IS-800 are the big ones for emergency response like the COVID-19 stuff we're going through right now, which is good to have in any safety role.

NTI is also a thing, and is more along the lines of "Transit For Dummies," for those who haven't been in the industry long. Generally, you bring in NTI when some specific aspect of your transit agency is failing or brain-drained, but there are some good general courses like "Crisis Communications for Transit Employees."

Varance fucked around with this message at 08:37 on Mar 4, 2020

Tex Avery
Feb 13, 2012
Fuckin' dope, my dude. I sure appreciate the insight and I'm going to start digging in to this. Training is my first choice, but lord only knows when another opening in that department will open up at my agency. Hopefully that'll give me time to prepare.

EDIT: It looks like these courses are hosted at every major agency in my state EXCEPT mine. I wonder why they aren't being hosted here... :tinfoil:

Tex Avery fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Mar 5, 2020

Alpine Mustache
Jul 11, 2000

wolrah posted:

Yeah from a look at the thread it's a combination of a school during pickup/dropoff times and a local transit project causing main road traffic to divert through residential areas. The assholes trying to cut through the neighborhood are getting held up by the assholes lining up to ensure their child doesn't have to ride the bus and this is the result.

In many suburban areas, many times not all kids are eligible for bus rides, depending on how close to the school they are.

Lobsterpillar
Feb 4, 2014

Alpine Mustache posted:

In many suburban areas, many times not all kids are eligible for bus rides, depending on how close to the school they are.

That's true, funding and eligibility certainly would come into, but don't underestimate the stigma that some people have against buses. Parents will want what they see as best for their children, and to many parents that means a personalized taxi service.

Varance
Oct 28, 2004

Ladies, hide your footwear!
Nap Ghost

Tex Avery posted:

EDIT: It looks like these courses are hosted at every major agency in my state EXCEPT mine. I wonder why they aren't being hosted here... :tinfoil:
It changes from year to year. Some agencies started early and already have all the people they need for TSSP/PTSCTP compliance, and don’t see the need to request more classes locally. Some don’t have the facilities to host. Others would rather just send their people to a nearby agency. Sometimes it’s just limited availability of instructors (who are teaching pro bono), first come first serve.

Rail classes only go through rail properties. Streetcar/Light Rail/Heavy Rail/Commuter. The big players generally get those, but occasionally you see them in places with small rail systems like Albuquerque, El Paso or Buffalo.

Certain locations get the entire set annually, due to having dedicated transit education programs. USF’s Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR) in Tampa is one of the big ones. TSI headquarters in Oklahoma City usually hosts regularly. The huge agencies like Washington DC WMATA, Boston MBTA, Los Angeles LACMTA, Chicago CTA and New York City NYCMTA are also regular hosts. Pretty easy to get cheap hotels/flights for those, and they have useable public transit to avoid the cost of a rental car.

Varance fucked around with this message at 02:24 on Mar 7, 2020

sleepy.eyes
Sep 14, 2007

Like a pig in a chute.
So, there is a major road near me that has a dual right turn to deal with rush hour traffic. The thing is, there is also a "no turn" LED sign that isn't always used, even then the right turn signal is red. Why? I just don't get it. You have a red right turn arrow, so why would you need a separate sign to tell you not to turn right on red? This is Florida, US if it matters.

Tank Boy Ken
Aug 24, 2012
J4G for life
Fallen Rib

sleepy.eyes posted:

So, there is a major road near me that has a dual right turn to deal with rush hour traffic. The thing is, there is also a "no turn" LED sign that isn't always used, even then the right turn signal is red. Why? I just don't get it. You have a red right turn arrow, so why would you need a separate sign to tell you not to turn right on red? This is Florida, US if it matters.
I'm not from the US, but could the bolded part be the answer?

Dominus Vobiscum
Sep 2, 2004

Our motives are multiple, our desires complex.
Fallen Rib

sleepy.eyes posted:

So, there is a major road near me that has a dual right turn to deal with rush hour traffic. The thing is, there is also a "no turn" LED sign that isn't always used, even then the right turn signal is red. Why? I just don't get it. You have a red right turn arrow, so why would you need a separate sign to tell you not to turn right on red? This is Florida, US if it matters.

In Florida you can still turn right on red after stopping at a red arrow in the absence of a NO TURN ON RED sign. Are there railroad tracks there?

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pkells
Sep 14, 2007

King of Klatch
Yeah, I’m willing to bet there are train tracks running parallel to the road you’re turning from. We have similar signs in SC that only light up when a train is coming and the gates are closed.

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