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Well, that's preferable over the '95 floods at least  
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Feb 3, 2012 18:04
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grover posted:The simple answer is that buried electrical runs are far more expensive than above ground. I much prefer it, because underground utilities are far more stable and don't take as many lightning hits or trees falling across lines. Don't forget Apache helicopters 
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Mar 17, 2012 00:07
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Cichlidae posted:We use it for our Geographic Information System, which is the base grid upon which we lay out all of our projects. It does need to be very accurate, at least as accurate as our surveying equipment, and as far as I know they do account for the Earth's curvature. I don't think they do, which is why there are individual grids for countries and regions. The curvature of the Earth is small enough then that it's not significant. The Netherlands uses a grid with its origin just north of Paris, so that all coordinates that are actually inside the Netherlands are always positive numbers. I imagine your grid having its origin in Pennsylvania is for the same reason. Cichlidae posted:For my purposes, though, all I really need to know about it is that if I try to export something to Google Earth, it all ends up clumped in Camden. Google Earth uses WGS84, which is not a flat grid but uses degrees/minutes/seconds and spans the globe. If you simply dump data from a flat projection into it (like the Pennsylvania-based grid) then your data won't end up in the right place. You'll need to transform the coordinates, which ArcGIS and other GIS software can probably do. Apologies if you already know all this, I'm far from an expert on projections but GIS is my job. What I do mostly is processing our surveyors' measurements of newly completed or altered bits of highway. Me and my collegues then process the measurements into a complete database ready to send to the highway authority. They then integrate it into their main database that covers all highways in the country. That database contains almost every object belonging to the highway authority, including the pavement, lamp posts, guard rails, pavement markings, traffic signs, sewer pipes, traffic lights, distance markers (every 100 meters), as well as all the underground cables to power and control everything, all in x, y and z coordinates. Then there's the attribute data for every object, specifying its exact type (what kind of traffic sign, which type of lamp) as well as information like when the object was installed (if known), and which district it belongs to. It's pretty comprehensive as well as a pain in the rear end to fill in everything completely and correctly, and the highway authority is pretty good in spotting any omissions or errors when we submit the database for a newly completed stretch of highway.
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Mar 23, 2012 00:00
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And then there is Denmark with it's own crazy design:
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Apr 4, 2012 23:17
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KozmoNaut posted:The reason for phasing out steel cable rails is actually safety-related. Motorcyclist + steel cable = cheese cutter effect. Not pretty. It's no different with regular guard rails. In the outer edge of cloverleaves around here, they have put up guard rails with protection on the underside, so you can't slide underneath them and have your head chopped off.
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Apr 30, 2012 21:18
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GWBBQ posted:If you see someone stopped way back, look over and draw a line from their eyes to the farthest forward point of their car that they can see, and that line will inevitably end at the stop line. I sometimes stop a bit further back from the stop line. I'm reasonably tall, and can't see some stoplights without bending over into the steering wheel. They don't place them opposite the crossing over here.
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Jun 5, 2012 15:58
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Cichlidae posted:I am familiar with this, uh, "traffic area." What else are you going to do with 7 roads coming together in the middle of a town? You can't build bypasses, you can't build a traffic circle big enough to hit all the approaches, the volumes are too high to close half the legs, there's no way you can grade-separate, and there are pedestrians, which makes life even harder. Ah, the Italian approach. 
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Jun 8, 2012 21:54
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Koesj posted:Wait how does privatizing red light cameras work?? My guess would be that a company pays the city to install cameras, and they then get to keep the fines.
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Jun 21, 2012 14:05
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MrBling posted:So those safety barriers .. How does this happen? Any barriers I've seen rise up out of the ground at both ends, so how do you slam into one like that?
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Jul 7, 2012 21:26
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Koesj posted:Hey it's not like the scene is unrealistic! I just don't think it would be built like that right now, the pic I provided is the line they're planning here in Groningen, the Netherlands and my only live tram experience has been using them in-country and being on the business development side at an engineering firm for a bit. Ah, the political clusterfuck that is the Groningen tram line. A majority of the city council is now against the plan if funds are not found. At this point, however, the city itself is in debt and the province does not want to give them the money either. A friend of mine is vocally opposing the plan, and has been interviewed by various media, where he claims that the numbers were fudged to make the benefits of the tram plan seem much higher than they really are. This led to a shouting match with the councilwoman responsible for the plan on Twitter What street is that artist impression of, by the way? The entrance to the campus? I can't quite place it. Anyway, I like trams as a mode of transportation, but in Groningen I am worried that it will replace bus routes, which serve a much larger area due to having more stops. I doubt the city can afford to maintain the tram, as well as keeping bus services as they are now. SixFigureSandwich fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jul 17, 2012 |
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Jul 17, 2012 17:47
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Looking at Street View, it doesn't appear to have lane markings, which can be a pain when half the cars think it has two lanes, and the other half thinks it has three. But otherwise, yeah, that's a bog-standard rotary.
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Jul 18, 2012 13:06
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The Netherlands has started using section control on the A2. Cars are photographed when passing under a portal entering the section of highway, and is photographed again exiting it. If the time in between is less than the distance divided by the maximum speed, then you have speeded and get fined. I also encountered this method in Austria, in a construction zone, and everyone actually adhered to the max speed for once. Is this used anywhere else?
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Jul 28, 2012 10:21
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Jonnty posted:Yeah we have that here too - I don't know how popular they are now or whether they're still legal but we also had speed camera detectors which I think detected the radar they used in advance. Interestingly, as far as I know they're actually illegal in France. Illegal to the point where companies like TomTom had to release a patch to remove this information from their navigation sets for people in other countries who were planning to go to France. I believe the fine was something ridiculous like €1500.
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Aug 2, 2012 22:49
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I like how it's apparently necessary to put up a separate "no cars" sign below the "Bike path" one.
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Aug 4, 2012 11:32
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Mandalay posted:Why are you still in the crosswalk while they have the right of way? I'm confused. In most jurisdictions, being in a crosswalk means you have right of way, if there are no traffic lights.
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Aug 8, 2012 21:16
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Cichlidae posted:This particular location is the one I'm most familiar with. It was installed by direct order of the Governor after a really horrific crash in 2005, and another near-fatal two years later. They were bad enough crashes to get a prominent section in the town's Wikipedia entry: Belgium has these things as well. Wikipedia says they started placing them in the 1960s, after a runaway truck full of gasoline blew up dozens of houses, killing 22 
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Aug 9, 2012 06:36
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Cichlidae posted:After a time, we would probably do dual guidance, with radio transmitters on each sign to relay the same information to the car as a driver sees. I say probably, because at this point, the car is getting redundant information (since it can already "read" the existing signs) But why would you need radio transmitters if the cars can read ordinary signs fine? Regular signs are probably more reliable and durable, and I think there will be people driving cars for a long time still, if not forever. Think oldtimers, emergency vehicles, recreational drivers, malfunctioning cars which have reverted back to manual control, etc.
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Aug 11, 2012 10:35
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Cichlidae posted:You didn't read the rest of the paragraph. Unless radio transmitters are massively cheaper than signs (which they may very well be on freeways, where a lot of the signs are made useless by GPS anyway), we'd keep signs up until it was 100% automated drivers. No, what you said was that there would be little point in switching over until 100% of all vehicles are driverless. But since driverless vehicles need to be able to read regular signs anyway, I don't think there is a (technical) need to switch to radio signals at all. It could well be more cost-effective though, I don't know. In fact what I can see happening is that highways eventually become off-limits to manually controlled vehicles, but smaller roads allowing them, for those people who can't or won't drive an autocar.
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Aug 11, 2012 14:53
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That sounds much better, and people probably will stop when everything's finished.
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Sep 1, 2012 18:16
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Millstone posted:They're creating the crack, then filling the crack. Billions of them. Some sort of anti-buckling measure? Are they installing detection loops, perhaps?
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Sep 23, 2012 21:41
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I'll case the first vote for New Dublin. Very soon a shitton of Irish will move here, and they'll go to where there's an established community.
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Sep 26, 2012 09:56
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Baronjutter posted:Note this last part actually happened in my city. City hosed up big time on a bridge project that was started by lies and a botched referendum (oops we showed a light rail bridge? nope just cars! Oh and it's 30% over budget and hasn't even started yet). The one newspaper in town with any sort of journalistic integrity dug up numbers and memos and found tons of extremely shadey stuff so filed a FOI request to get all the financial numbers and information from thir secret meetings. Council voted that the newspaper was making an unreasonable and hostile request and simply denied the FOI. Also mayor ran on a platform of open government and accountability And then the newspaper sued the council and the judge ordered them to release the information, right? Right?
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Oct 25, 2012 11:20
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These puny little aircraft that people are all abuzz about nowadays are little more than wasps. Nutmeg needs to invest in the future, Nutmeg needs to invest in Zeppelins. The Nutmeg American Zeppelin Investment Corporation proposes a landing field and docking station in the area between Oliver and Hartshire. We will set up a regular service to all major cities in the United states: New Cork, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, and more. In the decades to follow, we may even reach Europe and the Far East.
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Nov 26, 2012 22:11
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Here's a website with (nearly) all traffic signs that exist in the Netherlands. It saved me hours of work looking up the exact code for some of the more obscure ones.
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Dec 3, 2012 20:44
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Cichlidae posted:Speed tables or raised crosswalks are a better bet. And yes, humps are at fault. If a cop or ambulance or fire truck is going 60 mph to get to an emergency, and they hit that bump, who's to blame? The driver, for driving at a speed unsafe for that stretch of road. If I take a sharp turn at high speed and crash into a tree, I can't hold the government liable for putting a bend in the road, so why are speed bumps an exception? Assuming there is a sign indicating the speed bump, of course.
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Dec 25, 2012 00:06
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Speed bumps can be badly constructed, and in those cases I can see why a government could be held liable for damages. But still, there are many reasons why it may not be safe to drive the speed limit on any particular stretch of road, depending on traffic situation, weather, your vehicle, and other factors. I can't help but feel that speed bumps are held to a higher standard here for no real reason.
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Dec 25, 2012 01:13
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After 5-10cm of snow in the western and southern parts of the country, the Netherlands just broke its record for traffic jams. The previous record stood at a total of 975km somewhere in 1999, today we managed 1007km, compared to about 200km on a normal tuesday morning. I decided it was a good day to stay off the highways and bike to the head office instead.
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Jan 15, 2013 10:54
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They sell it to the police, as well, who use it to figure out where lots of people drive faster than the speed limit. Mobile phone data actually suggested that the 1000km of traffic jams here last Tuesday was actually nearly 4000km, because the 1000km figure only counted the highways.
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Jan 16, 2013 23:34
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I work somewhere overlooking the A15 from the Rotterdam harbour, and it's pretty much a continuous stream of trucks all day, every day. One every five seconds or so in each direction. I can barely imagine the strain that puts on the asphalt in the right lane.
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Jan 17, 2013 00:01
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Agricola Frigidus posted:Laying down new tracks or even expanding existing ones is a nightmare in Belgium - population density of around 300/km². It's enormously costly, there's loads of NIMBY involved, no politician likes evicting people... Also, there's still a bit of an economic competition between Belgium (Antwerp harbor) and the Netherlands (Rotterdam harbor) - for example, despite the tracks already laying there, there is no train traffic through the Netherlands between Belgium and Germany - all existing train traffic has to move via the Liège-Aachen line, instead of via the so-called Iron Rhine. I thought an agreement was reached a few years ago to re-open the Iron Rhine route? Did that fall through after all?
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Jan 17, 2013 16:56
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Jonnty posted:This is kind of my point - I'm aware of all the weaknesses of European (and British) railfreight, and the reasons why it's not popular. But if you're a central authority and you've set dealing with a lorry problem on a road one of your policy objectives, then it's surely reasonable to consider roadfreight restrictions/tolling a point-to-point freight service to a more central location(s) to get rid of the bottleneck. Even if it requires subsidy, it might end up much cheaper than an upgrade of the road along with, as you say, saving on wear and tear, which people forget so often - although governments shy away from this as they apparently find subsidising the road network much more palatable than subsidising the rail network. Transporting things from one place to another is actually a pretty decent chunk of the Dutch economy, and restricting freight trucks might cause them to go to Antwerp or Hamburg instead.
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Jan 17, 2013 21:53
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Cichlidae posted:Then, you just have to figure out how to build furniture that fits in 120-degree corners. I suppose you could just keep building square(ish) buildings, and use the remaining space for parking, green space, bus stops, etc.
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Feb 6, 2013 16:54
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FISHMANPET posted:I understand the reasoning for "Buy American" rules, but it ends up creating some serious horseshit when it comes to transit. To be fair, if your choice is between light rail Siemens and anything else, you probably want to go with 'anything else': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combino quote:On March 12, 2004, Siemens admitted to problems concerning the stability of the car bodies and, as a precautionary measure, instructed all public transportation services to take all Combinos with a service distance of more than 120,000 kilometres (74,565 mi) out of service. Torsion forces generated in S-curves were much higher than anticipated, leading to cracks around the articulations between the car modules. Subsequently, hairline cracks were found in the joints of the aluminium bodies, which could cause the roof to collapse in the case of an accident. (...)The cost of the rebuild programme was put at €400m.
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Feb 15, 2013 02:17
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Yes, but it wouldn't be difficult to anonymize it further before handing it over to third parties.
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Feb 19, 2013 14:03
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Cichlidae posted:Speaking of painted lines, let's say you're on a line striping truck. You run out of road, but you've still got a few gallons left in the tank. Cleaning it out would be a huge pain, and it's technically toxic waste, so you can't just dump it. What do you do? But everyone's doing it! 
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Mar 1, 2013 13:19
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Koesj posted:Because it's VISSIM I immediately thought of this thread Any news at all about who's actually going to build it? I've been searching but can't even find a timetable for the bidding process.
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Mar 3, 2013 23:15
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, but it's funny anyway. I've 'been' with this project for 10 years now, first as a road enthousiast, then from the political side where one of the local opposition parties decided to join the city council in their support of it 
, and now as a regular user of those roads and stakeholder in the public consulting process.
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Mandalay posted:Personally I always dreamed of a menu like this in Simcity: (the red lanes are bus lanes) That's crazy, everyone knows red lanes are bike lanes 
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Apr 3, 2013 23:10
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Carbon dioxide posted:Also I'm reminded of this 'nice' one. Need to get from eastbound A59 to southbound A50? You leave the highway, take the roundabout on the N-road (local through road), take the traffic lights on the N-road, and then get back up another entrance ramp. During rush hour, traffic here is routinely backed up on the highway exit lane, and often onto the emergency lane before the exit, too. Cue people slamming their brakes going from 120kph to 0 so they don't miss the exit.
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May 16, 2013 13:12
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Baronjutter posted:I've only ever seen a concrete road once in my life while in the US and it was horrible to drive on, I thought the car was going to vibrate it self to death. Based on that one anecdote I've declared concrete roads bad. I remember there being concrete highways when I was a kid. Then porous asphalts were applied everywhere from the mid-90s onward and the people rejoiced, for their travels were smoother, and they drove unhindered by the rains, and the Lord saw it was good.
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May 23, 2013 21:09
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nielsm posted:What the gently caress. In my entire life I can't remember ever seeing anyone make any kind of arm gesture when they're about to stop. Just stick out your arm on the side you want to go when turning, that's pretty much it.
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Jun 6, 2013 19:40
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