Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!

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Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Ofaloaf posted:

Let me tell you about the state of Michigan.

I'm studying civil engineering up at Michigan Tech. I'm really upset about all of it. The roads seem a lot worse in the south part of the state. The region around Alpena down to Saginaw is pretty okay (But no one lives here).

Cichlidae posted:

It's not the state of the roads, it's where they are and where people live. Nothing is where it should be, and there's no hope of things ever getting fixed because people are too stupid and selfish to do things properly.

Now with global climate change, and the ever-worsening state of global politics, and the forthcoming mass famines, and the widening wealth gap, and resource scarcity, we're just so hosed in so many ways and there's absolutely gently caress-all I can do to help. I'm not ever having kids, so that'll be my biggest contribution, but goddamn, my life is never going to be any better than it is now, and once the I-84 project is done, I'm probably going to be forced into retirement.

Now you sound like one of my older professors. After he gave a few guest lectures he's left me pretty pessimistic (There's actually a lot of antagonism underneath the surface of the rest of department).

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 23:38 on May 22, 2015

# ¿ May 22, 2015 22:43

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 02:02

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Ofaloaf posted:

"I understand the state police set the speed limit, but will you guys set the speed limit leading to this intersection?"

He's not wrong about the state police, though.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2015 21:07

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

How do self-driving cars solve the infrastructural bomb of sprawling suburbanization?

Baronjutter posted:

Yeah I talked to some US friends in fly-over states and asked them about drivers licensing and I was shocked and afraid when they told me how ridiculously easy it is. Basically to get their full no-restrictions license that lets them drive everything short of a bus or big-rig on the freeways or anywhere it's basically "Can you pull out of this parking lot without hitting anything? Ok drive around the block, nah don't worry about parallel parking or backing in that's too advanced. Know what a stop sign is? Red light? Ok you're good to go."

What state were those (Also, using the term "fly-over" is kind of condescending for people and not even a useful descriptor)? I learned how to drive in rural Michigan and I still had to parallel park and was taught about roundabouts in class. I'd imagine if you grew up in those areas in the 70's or 80s, they probably didn't have anything more complicated than red lights or stop signs.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Aug 22, 2015

# ¿ Aug 22, 2015 04:48

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Baronjutter posted:

I know in large amounts of the US it's normal for cars to not stop at crosswalks even if someone is standing there trying to cross, you often have to wait upwards of a dozen cars until someone finally obeys the law and stops for you.

Actually, in my experience, drivers stop even when they have right of way. A small highway cuts through town, so technically they shouldn't stop, but very often they do.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2015 04:30

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

GWBBQ posted:

Seems like a great idea until it rains.

If you're riding your bike in the rain, you goofed up already.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2015 02:30

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Where should I be looking for transportation planning internships? My college's board only seems to have a bunch of construction management ones and if it's anything like the class, it's boring as hell.

Also, MDOT's site is a labyrinth.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2015 15:17

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

They have concrete for the residential roads in the suburbs around Detroit and they seem to do pretty well. Whole lot better than the asphalt rivers they have in Bay City.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2015 04:19

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Javid posted:

Here's another local clusterfuck I'd like to submit for discussion:

I have no idea what time or day they found these streets so empty, it's usually packed solid from dawn to dusk.

6th street on the left is one-way south, and 7th is one-way north. M street is a two-way, all three are big arterials. A huge amount of people going up 7th turn left onto M, and the light at 6th & M is long, so traffic in the one westbound lane will back up to 7th every single time. When that happens, somebody always just pulls into the intersection at an angle behind the last car, and blocks the entire left lane as well as the eastbound lane of M street, until the light on 6th turns and the backup clears. How do you even unfuck this without just making it a no-left intersection and moving the same issue up to the next block? I'd like to see them post something to the effect of "if M is full you must clear the intersection" and enforce it with an iron fist for a month to dissuade people. A few people being stuck turning at the next one seems better than making everybody do it.

Make M street a left-hand drive road.

Edit: Well, that would work if it didn't continue on beyond the intersections...

# ¿ Nov 1, 2015 08:28

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Pedestrian use of roads is such an after thought where I grew up that I didn't even know jaywalking was illegal. That's just how you crossed the street.

# ¿ Dec 24, 2015 18:17

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Cichlidae posted:

It's definitely out of my hands here. As I mentioned, planning completely bypasses engineering, and a developer can easily buy prime parcels from municipalities for $1, get the municipality to pay for all improvements, and just suck profits from them forever.

Why does the city do that?

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 19:17

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Baronjutter posted:

There often isn't a city in charge of anything. The "city" is the failing core of what was once an economically sustainable american city. That city is then surrounded by various towns and villages and unincorporated land that developers then buy up and build huge tracts of single family housing for cheap. The city doesn't get a say in what happens outside of its borders, and these outlying areas are excited to get anything. There's often a few one-time up front costs that go towards the local authorities and they're willing to chase after these development fees by literally not charging any taxes. You might think this is insane, what are a few one-time development fees vs long term tax income, how does the area pay for its self afterwards?? Those are questions the local authorities don't care about, they want their money (or just kickbacks and bribes) right now and someone else will deal with crazy problems like "upkeep"or "replacement" in the future. These developments create huge amounts of traffic which then clog up the roads of the city while paying no taxes towards the city, but the city authorities are scared shitless that if they don't make suburban commutes smooth and parking cheap and plentiful they'll loose business. "What if offices move out of the city to suburban office parks? Our retail is already hurting, if the drive into town isn't smooth they'll just go to a suburban mall!" So, they make sure tons of free parking and nice wide fast roads keep people happy, even if this turns their city into a debt ridden mess of car sewers and parking lots that's so unpleasant no one really wants to go there anymore.

This is when the city takes on a huge amount of debt to build a stadium or convention centre or something to "rejuvenate the city".

The whole process is like a wasting sickness or cancer and it's basically impossible to stop without a strong regional authority and plan and a concerted effort to reduce the private motoring modeshare with both carrots and sticks, so 100% politically and economically impossible in most all North American cities.

So basically Saginaw follows the same narrative?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saginaw,_Michigan

quote:

In the years following World War II, the Michigan state legislature enacted laws making it increasingly difficult for incorporated cities to expand by annexing territory from neighboring townships. Townships, which had historically served an agrarian, smaller population than that of the larger cities, were given the ability to provide nearly all of the same services that an incorporated city could. Although Midland pursued (and continues) to pursue a policy of "No annexation, no water,"[36] Saginaw chose instead to sell water to neighboring communities under long-term contracts. This allowed the townships to further develop at the expense of the city, the limits of which changed little after consolidation in 1889�90. The unintended consequence of this choice was that the city of Saginaw stopped growing in population, new housing development focused on the suburban townships, and eventually, businesses would follow.

Many people would consider Midland (Forbes has as #4 Best Small City) the much nicer city than Saginaw (Of course, Dow Chemical is based in the former and GM was in the latter and steered the cities in different directions economically).

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 21:02 on Dec 31, 2015

# ¿ Dec 31, 2015 20:59

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

nimper posted:

I've never been to the Michigan U.P. and I'm sure the Canucks who had to take that detour would be jealous of that fact.

...What?

It's the best part of the state. If you're gonna visit Michigan, that's where you should go. It's got pretty forests, lakes, waterfalls, cliffs, the whole shebang.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jan 13, 2016

# ¿ Jan 13, 2016 19:19

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

osirisisdead posted:

"The auto industry is one of the most important industries in the United States. It historically has contributed 3.0 � 3.5 percent to the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP)."

Every time you ride a bicycle, you are cutting into their bottom line, increasing their chances of being laid off, etc. This is why entrenched capitalism is hosed.

http://www.autoalliance.org/files/dmfile/2015-Auto-Industry-Jobs-Report.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycling_in_Detroit

Detroit is the front of the battle then.

Endorsed by David Byrne.

The city's in a pretty cool position right now so they can implement a lot of new urbanist stuff and complete streets (With new transit) with pretty much no opposition.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Jan 27, 2016

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 07:34

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Devor posted:

Edit: My first draft of this post was saying this is just a frankenstein hodge-podge monstrosity. The post above was written on the assumption that the brown truss bridge is in the foreground, and a separate structure. Now I'm not so sure - I don't see a pier where the left side of the big silver truss ends, so is it supported by the brown bridge?

Has to be separate. It has that spinny part for boats going on.

# ¿ Feb 15, 2016 08:16

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

jyrka posted:

Yeah, that's the one.

We have these in the UP of Michigan but it's not quite divided and the 1 lane can use one of the 2's lanes to pass (though I haven't seen anyone do that). It's the only part of the state I've seen with them and I imagine it's because a disproportionate amount of the traffic is trucks and it's a bit more hilly here.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2016 08:02

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

I feel like just an eye-melting shade of yellow or something is good enough. the puzzle pattern really fricks with me.

# ¿ May 13, 2016 03:41

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Is there basically a Michigan left going on in that intersection? Wrong-side driving hurts my head.

# ¿ May 27, 2016 01:38

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Varance posted:

I've seen that thread, and it's mostly "Here, let me post the transit system in my home town and some random news articles about transit."

I'm thinking more along the lines of, "I have experience with dispatch and planning, and can tell you what goes on behind the scenes and why things are the way they are."

Edit: Also, my agency is really far ahead of the curve in terms of technology. We were one of the first agencies to roll out OneBusAway (we beat NYCMTA, WMATA, MBTA and MARTA to that one), plus we're implementing our own version of the Los Angeles tap farecard system with full credit card/mobile/ApplePay support later this year. Not bad for an agency with an $85 million/year budget.

I've kinda been waiting for you to post more.

:justpost:

# ¿ Jun 13, 2016 04:32

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

I have a feeling some people in this thread watch RegularCarReviews.

# ¿ Jun 22, 2016 19:27

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

So what do DOTs look for in student positions? I got an interview coming up with the Michigan DOT and I don't know what say other than "I really like transportation". It's in the Office of Rail at that.

I thought private companies do almost all the stuff in rail. Would this be regulatory or Amtrak stuff?

# ¿ Jul 5, 2016 04:08

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Baronjutter posted:

I think we're going to see a lot more of this in the US with so many under-used paved roads being in area populated by people who refuse to pay for them. That's of course if they can even afford to "unpave" them.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a21794/cities-unpaving-roads/

The roads will unpave themselves, don't worry.

fishmech posted:

"Cities" is a real stretch. They namecheck a road in Montpelier, VT and despite being the state capital it only has a population of 7,855 which is mostly concentrated around the state offices. It's really just a small town in a heavily rural area and the road in question, Bliss Road, mostly just connects a dozen or so farms to an important road or two.

And it's not like Vermont is known for underfunding/low taxes either.

It sounds like it was originally a waste of money then. And how is it not underfunding if you literally can't afford to maintain a road..?

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 07:13 on Jul 14, 2016

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 07:04

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Deteriorata posted:

As population and traffic patterns change, some roads fall into disuse. Depaving makes sense when the road is no longer needed and repaving costs more than it's worth.

If you look at the road in google maps, as fishmech said, it's practically a cul-de-sac of farms. It didn't make any sense to pave it in the first place. If they got federal and state money for it, I still don't understand why they'd bother.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Jul 14, 2016

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 19:56

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Baronjutter posted:

Giant freeway interchanges really disturb me for some reason
http://www.politico.com/magazine/gallery/2015/07/the-art-of-the-interchange-000173?slide=0

The interchanges themselves are beautiful, I think. It's what's around it that's terrifying.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2016 21:39

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

Yeah like half of them are in Texas or LA, gross!

I was eyeing the ones in Metro Detroit actually. I don't know why you want to pigeonhole me like a child.

The Oakland county executive is a real work of humanity.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Jul 29, 2016

# ¿ Jul 28, 2016 22:47

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Wow, I complain about the cloverleafs still around here, but that sounds awful.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 18:49

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Turdsdown Tom posted:

Reducing hazards by adding more hazards is a pretty stupid idea in most disciplines, yeah.

Well, uh... yes? Traffic calming is mostly all about making the driver feel less safe so they think more, so maybe they should only be perceived hazards instead, like parked cars?

(Most accidents happen when driving conditions are great)

Also, from a theoretical view, why not make road decision trees instead of hierarchies (Or are they the same thing?)?

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 06:54 on Sep 1, 2016

# ¿ Sep 1, 2016 06:40

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Hippie Hedgehog posted:

"Slamming" into the pictured structure doesn't look like it could cause anything worse than some damage to the car. Far preferable that speeders hit a chicane, than that they hit a pedestrian.

He needs to drive his Bimmer at at least 25mph or else the engine falls apart.

Also, what are the point of arterials in a theoretical sense..? The cars move too fast to be pleasant for pedestrians (or even providing decent car access) and they don't move cars very quickly because of signal stops (Not to mention the least desirable property in a city is along these kinds of roads from what I've seen).

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Sep 2, 2016

# ¿ Sep 2, 2016 19:24

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

Uh, because we can't have freeway/rural highway and quiet residential street be the only roads?

Was looking for an actual why. Obviously you're going to need more than a 20ft wide road, but I see some 5 lane monstrosities that aren't really doing a lot of good for the city besides moving cars and making gas stations. They're pretty expensive for their utility too.

It seems like the worst of both worlds instead of an actual middle option.

From personal experience, this works a lot better than this. (And I'm almost certain the tax revenue per infrastructure works much more in the favor of the former)

I guess I'm saying is Parisian style boulevards are way more pleasant than what is usually built.

It also seems weird that land use decisions aren't the first step to mitigate congestion over trying to fight induced demand.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 06:38 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 05:53

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

I really don't understand what you're asking. Absurdly massive monumental boulevards aren't the logical progression from a narrow residential street. You do need to have roads that are in-between in size and performance.

And your comparisons are bizarre, those aren't in actual cities, and they're both arterial roads. I can't imagine why you think the first one is better for going through a pretty low density area than the other, or why you'd think it'd be better for tax revenue? And building fancy boulevards through the middle of tiny towns and outlying areas would just be crazy.

He's asking about the blatantly painted bike lane, not the obvious sidewalk. The bike lane that only lasts like 8 feet, which seems super super pointless.

I don't know why you're thinking of massive boulevards. The first example is a literal boulevard in a tiny town (There's a small frontage road with curb parking beside the larger, higher-speed road. Nothing terribly elaborate). They're both arterials which is my entire point and one is much more compatible with urban development. The latter has massive distances between the buildings along it and and is essentially encouraging a waste of utility frontage, though that may not be entirely the road's fault, but zoning or something.

How those aren't aren't "actual" cities is beyond me, but they evidently are moving multi-lane arterial levels of traffic past an urban area at some point.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 16:42

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

Neither of those are "compatible" with urban development, as they're in tiny small towns in the middle of nowhere. The first one isn't a boulevard either, it's just the highway that happens to have a small road next to it - and the primary reason it exists is that the railroad is blocking the road from expanding on that side. You see similar configurations all over America, and if the railroad or road happened to have swapped positions the side road wouldn't exist.

Uh, one has 3000 people and the other has 8000 people. That's how they aren't actual cities, on top of them also being extremely low density development. And the traffic going through them, since that's US 23, is mostly traffic that's just passing through town, they don't have 2 lanes in each direction because of the town's own usage.

Okay, I guess you have a different definition of urban that revolves around numbers, but you pretty much defined a boulevard there, dude.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulevard

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 17:10

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Actually, I can straight up tell you they're urban roadways because in traffic eng, that's usually defined on whether you're using drains or ditches for rainwater.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 17:25

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

They're not urban roadways, because not in anything close to an urban area.

Okay, I got that from traffic eng professor, but okay.

Anyway, not sure what your point is. It is much easier for a pedestrian to deal with my first example (Generally a sign of being more compatible with an urban area) than my second yet they are dealing with the same road.

Also, there's literally four lane roads in half of your pictures and one without a serious median, so I'm not sure what exactly your issue is, but it geometrically fits the bill. You're spergin really hard on this.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 17:51

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

The thread in which fishmech tries to argue that roads that aren't in a major metro area cannot possibly inform street/city design for pedestrians because the buildings near them aren't tall enough or something.

FYI: that's an incredibly busy street during the summer with cars and pedestrians. Life if you want a real disaster, I can link you one.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 18:06

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

It is no easier for a pedestrian to deal with either of those roads. They both have decent sidewalks, and they both have quite far differences between safe crossing points, because they're different stretches of a long distance surface highway that isn't in any sort of city or even large town.

I can tell you from user experience you're wrong. The traffic is slower in the first example and there's less high-speed lanes to cross while the other has cars moving at 35-40mph (perfectly fatal) that can and do use the median. You absolutely do not want to cross it (Though you're also in a parking crater, so walking is already the awful option).

Not sure why it has to be intentional to be a boulevard, though.

quote:

All I'm saying is a) it ain't a boulevard and b) that sure as hell ain't a city. And I have no idea why you're trying to insist it's both.

I'm not saying it's a city, but that is definitely urban if you bother going down the street and looking at the building pattern...! It's boulevard like. Does that work for you, dude? Does that help us understand why it works better than than the 5 lane for the town? No, but thanks for your help.

You know what, I'm done with autism for the day, thanks. I didn't know it was a highway. I've only driven on that road 5,000 times.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 18:24 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 18:11

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

You don't want to cross the first road outside of crosswalks either though. Maybe you personally do, but it's a pretty bad idea, both crossing 4 and 5 lanes unprotected is terrible for pedestrian safety, and even if the cars are only going 25 it can easily kill or cripple you. Although complaining that the latter road which is even further out from a city goes a whole 35-40 mph is quite ridiculous. How are we supposed to get anywhere in a reasonable fashion if our long distance surface highways can't be at least 35 mph?

Because a boulevard is an intentional choice of road design? Like that's the point of it, you build a boulevard because you're intentionally seeking to create a particularly grand roadway compared to others. The grand Paris Boulevards, the boulevard sections of Park Avenue in NYC, and so on. Even that lovely boulevard that leads between a mall and some housing developments is at least trying to be fancy.

That stretch of US 23 on the other hand, is just a plain old arterial road. It happens to have a narrow road next to one side, separated by a railroad, that's no sort of intentional design. Design like that comes up constantly around the country, because major surface roads often get built alongside railroads that were there for a long time before cars were common - like this example:

In this case, that railroad's been there in more or less the same location since the 1830s. The roads eventually developed on either side later on, much like what happened with your Michigan small town.

It is not urban, it is a small town. Those are very different things. And it's also not boulevard like at all. And it doesn't "work better" than a 5 lane road, nor is there a problem with it being 5 lane where it is 5 lane.

It doesn't matter how many times you drive on that road, it won't make it any more of a boulevard.

Yes, but you're not looking at the actual effect of that layout on the city. the highspeed traffic is kept out of the on stretch of blockface of the one street in the town that is built in an urban format that allows walking (buildings set against the narrow street with a diverse set of businesses with maybe some residential above them. You're not finding that in a rural, ex/suburban context anywhere). Pedestrians don't really have anywhere to go across the street besides where the crosswalks are. I guess it's less of an arterial critique, but a criticism of trying to build a town on the arterial as opposed to the smaller roads.

I really don't know why there's a problem of saying the road layout has somewhat of a boulevard effect. I didn't just pull that out of my rear end. Other places can have it too, and I think that's good for them. It's unintentionally cool and good. I'd much rather walk along the smaller road, but there's still a place for car traffic and small business in parallel.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 18:35

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Kill access to arterials that aren't other roads and streets and move businesses and other activity to smaller roads is maybe what I'm saying.

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 18:47

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

Dude that isn't doing anything for small business. They'd do just as well right up against the arterial road, especially since without the railroad in the way they'd probably still have parking lanes alongside.

Dude, what.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.593...!8i6656!6m1!1e1
You just have to go down where the road narrows to actually find where urban starts again.

Maybe if you're McDonalds, but people aren't looking in the window of your shop at 40mph.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 18:50

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

Koesj posted:

What you could do is create a two-lane (4 if needed) bypass around the town and downgrade the hell out of that horrendous car gutter.

Yeah, but that would be pretty expensive and cut through the National Forest plus a few bridges (In my second example that isn't Bay City). There really isn't a good option to fix the through traffic (Nor is it a huge deal for most people because getting through town besides summer traffic is still quick). The truck stop corridor through half of town will be around my entire life.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 19:12

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

That'd be a pretty terrible idea, in a ton of places, because you'd need to tear down a bunch of existing buildings in order to do it, cutting wide swathes through whole towns.

I'm not sure what point you think you're making. Here's a typical town with an arterial as a place with "small businesses" though:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.077...!8i6656!6m1!1e1
https://goo.gl/maps/x7AFmFwXt872

Nobody's looking into the windows of the buildings of shops while driving by in a typical town in the first place though. That poo poo's pretty dangerous even if you're only going 20 mph. If you think you want to shop in the area you're going to find parking first and check poo poo out from the sidewalk, unless it's a real one-horse town sort of thing where suddenly slowing is safe.

People walk sometimes. It's pretty cool. This is what I meant. Your arterials, are narrower and slower than my examples and I like them, but they're far from the common case.

I fell like we're on the same page here, but you want to argue some benign points. I mean I think you could fix the arterial in Oscoda by adding some frontage roads and narrowing the through traffic road from 5 to 4 lanes. Of course it's too late to fix that (Not to mention whether businesses would just jump into that is a big fat "if"). I'm saying we shouldn't keep doing it, though.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 19:22

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# ¿ Apr 19, 2024 02:02

Eskaton: Aug 13, 2014

fishmech posted:

Those roads in Burlington are actually a good deal wider - overall the one is 6 total lanes wide and the other is about 7 lanes wide. Slanted parking eats into some of the width and on the other one the rail line that's goes down the center also does the same (and if you go down the street, the light rail station in the center of the street takes out another lane for the stretch). But they're what that arterial would look like without the rail line going through it and separating it from the businesses, since room for parking would be considered necessary.

The first link looks like it maxes out at 4 or 5 lanes at the intersection. but is fairly narrow throughout for actual driving lanes. Nice town. Do you know how fast traffic moves? Curb parking generally tells me a lot slower (about 25ish) than most arterials.

That's what I'd call a tamed arterial. Capacity is higher, but you're not moving too fast either.

Eskaton fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Sep 3, 2016

# ¿ Sep 3, 2016 19:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!

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