|
Just got through all 132 pages of this thread. Awesome stuff Cichlidae! As an aside but still on topic, the stretch of road two miles between my house and my parents' has 7 stop signs and 1 traffic light. The light is warranted as it's the main avenue through my suburbia but only maybe 2-3 stop signs are really warranted given the traffic on the side streets. The rest are all measures to slow traffic (appease the old folks in the major assisted living home, keep traffic from picking up speed as they see the end of the road ahead, slow down traffic at the bottom of a small hill). It's infuriating but can't really do anything else as roundabouts are impractical for your typical suburbia.
|
#
¿
Jun 4, 2012 19:14
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:18 |
|
|
Varance posted:St. Petersburg politicians don't have the backbone to do what's right for the greater good, mainly due to Pinellas having equal amounts of blue and red voters. They've brought it up a few times, but instantly cave whenever someone brings up opposition. Tea Party members are already campaigning against Light Rail in its planning phase, because they'd rather see the entire county covered in toll expressways to replace funding provided by the $0.01 road improvement sales tax. Replacing/covering the Pinellas Trail with Light Rail would just add fuel to their bonfire. I'm really glad I don't live in Pinellas County anymore. On the other hand, I moved back to the Chicago area 
|
|
#
¿
Aug 27, 2012 20:48
|
|
|
Terminal Entropy posted:You left out adjacent traffic going in opposite directions, as well as two bikes lanes surrounding and surrounded by traffic, ditto with the pedestrian lanes: Needs a Hyperloop.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2013 02:45
|
|
|
Haifisch posted:That said, not all designers seem to really "get" them: I could drive through this on my commute but it's so god awful and people are so dumb that I actively avoid it at all costs.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 28, 2013 02:36
|
|
|
cheese-cube posted:The mole-people are gonna be pissed. Behold, the Underminer! It dwarfs your pitful borer!
|
|
#
¿
Dec 23, 2013 15:07
|
|
|
So this circle is supposedly slated for a makeover soon. Maps link It's come up before in this thread for being terrible (the article's title shares it's nickname, Suicide Circle, which is also funny because it rarely causes fatal accidents. Just lots of fender benders) and it's a huge sore on that area. I will drive around it whenever possible and so will anyone else who doesn't have to. Hopefully proper signage, sign placement, education, and routing will turn it into a proper roundabout. I do love this quote from the Trib article that perfectly captures this thread: quote:"As a country, we're sometimes late to adopt," said Brian Ray, senior principle engineer at Kittelson and Associates, a firm that has led roundabout research projects for the Federal Highway Administration. Also,  at some serious Stockholm-syndrome poo poo going on:quote:In the past, IDOT proposed adding stoplights to each entry point or closing off access to the circle from State or Broadway streets. But each time, residents voiced opposition. A defining landmark of awfulness. Like a giant boil. Thwomp fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Dec 26, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Dec 26, 2013 21:51
|
|
|
Even though I lived in Seminole for a bit, I don't quite know the answer to this: Why doesn't FDOT have the authority to expand the transit networks unilaterally in the name of hurricane evac? Or is it something they reserve only for when NIMBY becomes too much of a problem?
|
|
#
¿
Jan 13, 2014 15:16
|
|
|
Varance posted:Mwahahahaha! Now you understand my pain. Our traffic engineers are loving insane. I can't tell if you are stoked about this or not. Palatine road is weird in that everyone plays the game of "which light is going to turn green first, do I stay in the express or get off to bypass everyone if the timing is perfect". It works, I suppose but I know plenty of people who actively avoid it. Also, are you secretly me or something in referencing several places I've lived (Pinellas and Cook counties)????
|
|
#
¿
Mar 5, 2014 15:26
|
|
|
Install Windows posted:One thing I find amusing is that the two places you find rigid grid systems is ancient civilizations and places built post-1600 or so. From the Middle Ages up to the early modern era, cities and towns reverted to utterly ad-hoc crowded up systems. Even some place like boston was still relatively planned out, and its layout of core streets makes a lot sense when you remember: I want to say this has something to do with the development of walled cities throughout Europe during the transition from late-antiquity to the early-middle ages. At least for european civs, it stems from the change in Roman defensive postures in the 2nd through 4th centuries. And then European cities just didn't grow out as the western roman empire continued to give way but they'd still grow within the already established walls. But once centralized states start becoming a thing again in Europe post-1600s, you get urban growth beyond old medieval borders. [/history chat] Thwomp fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Apr 2, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Apr 2, 2014 18:33
|
|
|
The Washington Post's Wonkblog had an article this weekend about Chicago's transit system and the pie-in-the-sky plan to revamp it from the hub and spoke model to something more flexible. Here are the relevant maps. Chicago's current subway/'El' lines:  And the proposed extensions and crosslines:  To be combined with new bus lines with ROW, coordinated lights, and other bus improvements:  I guess if you are going to dream, might as well go big. As an area resident, it would be amazing to hop on one line and not have to go all the way downtown to transfer. But this is Chicago we're talking about. It'll take 5 times as long and twice the cost in bribes/kickbacks alone to make it happen. The article goes into a bit more about how it's possible for it to actually happen if circumstances fall into the right places.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 7, 2014 13:35
|
|
|
Honestly, it feels like some of the roads in Chicago are currently devoid of any government support.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2014 20:08
|
|
|
In order to inspire drivers to be cautious everywhere, all roadway impediments are now unmarked (shamelessly reposting a vid from the schadenfreude thread):PaganGoatPants posted:Not sure this really counts since this thing isn't marked AT ALL, but it's still hilarious.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2014 14:01
|
|
|
Cichlidae posted:That is very cool Aside from LA just being not bike friendly, it's also spread-out so you reach less destinations in a bike than you would in NYC or Boston. Chicago has been expanding its Divvy bike sharing service in recent years and if you want an example of how bike sharing can sputter even in big cities, it's right here. Chicago has bike lanes but they aren't proper lanes and they aren't everywhere people want to go yet. So that's holding it back from say the adoption rates in NYC. That said, it's still expanding so maybe the infrastructure/bike laws will eventually catch up to a growing bike-friendly culture.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 14:11
|
|
|
Nintendo Kid posted:Anyway gas has plummeted to $2.57 a gallon this week here in Virginia, no idea why that's going on. The US is pumping a poo poo ton of oil into the market is what's happening. Oil and gas companies have invested something like 2.5 trillion dollars into fracking over the last 5 or so years and now we've got a glut of both.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 29, 2014 19:34
|
|
|
Baronjutter posted:Man that's really sad how most people had absolutely figured out what a disaster auto-centric cities would become but even with public outcry the automakers managed to just buy the right politicians and wage a propaganda war, then change cities so that driving is the only options and now you have 30-40 THOUSAND people killed each year in the US alone due to horrible city planning. I want to say that a major dent was put in the annual traffic fatality numbers once a majority of states passed mandatory seatbelt laws and pushed hard on enforcement. I believe it was the major factor in the declines although the combination of increased mandatory safety equipment including seat belts, air bags, ABS, crumple zones, and electronic stability control together probably account for the rest.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 7, 2014 19:37
|
|
|
Everytime this thread comes around to why Americans can't handle roundabouts, I think of this intersection nearby: Stop signs, no guidance on which lane goes where and divided local lanes.
|
|
#
¿
Jan 15, 2015 21:56
|
|
|
So I know other countries have different standards when it comes to traffic infrastructure but what kind of forces are we talking about in this video from Saudi Arabia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qbakrb9KJ4
|
|
#
¿
Aug 17, 2015 20:14
|
|
|
This came up in the Chicago thread but it hits a lot of themes of this thread: traffic management, the inability of anyone to plan for the conditions 30-40 years from now, non-existant pieces of highway systems leading to current gridlock, and traffic flows. How do the reversible lanes on Chicago's Kennedy Expressway work? The article has a bonus video on how IDOT actually triggers the lane reversals. My first thought is always pandemonium. There are, of course, smarter people than I to think about these things.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 4, 2016 21:38
|
|
|
Glimpse is the key word there. You don't get the run an intersection like that until every vehicle on the road is autonomous which is a bit unrealistic. Every future I've seen described almost always includes a subset of drivers who own their cars and drive it without autonomous functionality. There's no way to incorporate this future into an intersection like this. I could maybe see it in cities that restrict vehicle traffic to autonomous cars in their downtown areas but that'd be a very limited deployment.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 17:49
|
|
|
The express/HOV lanes being converted to autonomous-only is pretty likely. As is insurance companies charging a fuckload more to drivers using non-autonomous vehicles.
|
|
#
¿
May 11, 2017 18:26
|
|
|
sleepy.eyes posted:Okay, another question. On the main drag near my place the speed limit is 45. It stays there for a couple miles, then it goes down to 40, and a few blocks later it goes to 45 again. There isn't a school where the dip occurred, it's just more strip malls. Why might this be? It's called a speed trap.
|
|
#
¿
May 12, 2017 18:21
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 06:18 |
|
|
Stolen from the gif thread https://i.imgur.com/hRbEa0r.mp4
|
|
#
¿
Dec 15, 2017 05:35
|
|