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FISHMANPET posted:And it's much easier finacially/politcally to get federal money for new roads, rather than maintenance. New freeways are sexy, filling in potholes is not.
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Aug 2, 2010 20:49
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smackfu posted:Although in the recent stimulus grants, CT did pretty good with resurfacing projects because they were shovel-ready due to not needing much prep anyways. Same here in CA. We don't have pothole problems here as it is - no freeze/thaw cycle, plus the city puts a new layer of slurry and new striping on every street in a rotating ~5 year cycle. And yet, despite the fact that the main drag was just resealed 8 months ago and was in great shape, they just shut it down to grind off the top 6 inches and fully resurface it with stimulus money. I have to assume this stimulus money they've gotten is earmarked for street upgrades and they aren't allowed to use it elsewhere, or they wouldn't be wasting the money like that (in our case here, It'd be much better spent on another freeway lane!). They've also been using it to build these bulb-outs all over town, which some people really hate. I don't really give a poo poo about them for the most part (they are only occasionally annoying and they definitely do increase pedestrian visibility) but now I'm curious what Cichlidae thinks...
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Aug 2, 2010 21:10
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Cichlidae posted:I'm going to assume that MA's Poor 2% of roads are entirely in the Worcester area. Cichlidae posted:It doesn't help that a significant proportion of the public sees road paving as a waste of money and would rather drive over potholes than raise the gas tax by a couple cents per gallon. I just learn to dodge the potholes and torn-up spots around here  I actually get confused when they fill them in, since I suddenly find myself veering a bit for no reason. Also, when you get used to them being around, you hardly notice them, yet you do notice the construction crews out there fixing them. Driving over minor bumps/potholes: ever-so-slight annoyance That time I was stuck waiting 5+ minutes because they were repaving a part of 22: annoying!  Anyway, in local news, I went to visit some friends in town over the weekend and noticed that one of the local bridges is out. It wasn't on my route, but I know it's a bridge used fairly often by the townies. I later learned that they apparently demolished the bridge to begin replacing it, but are now out of funding and stuck without a bridge. Does this type of thing happen often? I would think that you'd want to have a full plan for a new bridge and the money to back it before you tear down a fairly well-traveled one. Edit: Actually, here's the bridge in question: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sou...2,110.59,,0,3.3 I never thought it was in particularly bad shape, though it could definitely be a bit wider and I have no idea how old Google's photos of it are. Given what you can make out of it there, maybe tack on another couple years of age, does that look like a bridge that needs to be rebuilt? Nibble fucked around with this message at 21:26 on Aug 2, 2010 |
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Aug 2, 2010 21:19
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Nibble posted:I'm going to assume that MA's Poor 2% of roads are entirely in the Worcester area. I recently got my tire eaten by a pothole outside my apartment. Popped my tire, and required bending my rim back into position because the car sat on the flat that I didn't know about. And then it turns out it bent some rod or something which is another $250 to fix. My city (Minneapolis, MN) has some terrible loving roads.
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Aug 2, 2010 21:28
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FISHMANPET posted:And it's much easier finacially/politcally to get federal money for new roads, rather than maintenance. New freeways are sexy, filling in potholes is not. We haven't had the money to build new freeways in years, because nearly everything we have is going into maintenance and paying off debt. quazi posted:If you get this built, I will drive on it and enjoy it. And correct me if I'm wrong, would this only require three levels? Yep, I posted the VISSIM-rendered version a few pages back. With 20-foot clearances between decks, the maximum height is only 60 feet. smackfu posted:Although in the recent stimulus grants, CT did pretty good with resurfacing projects because they were shovel-ready due to not needing much prep anyways. Haha, you have no idea! I had two of them (I-91 in Cromwell and Wethersfield and Route 2 in Colchester and Lebanon), and they were completely designed in less than a month. I've never seen red tape fly that fast, and I don't think I ever will again. Choadmaster posted:
There were some requirements on where and how stimulus funds were spent, but nothing terribly restrictive. Could be that town was just greedy and wanted to grab up the money, even if it was mostly unnecessary. There was a lot of competition for those funds. For bulb-outs, they're good for low-volume roads, especially in urban neighborhoods. They not only make pedestrians more visible, but also shorten the distance they have to cross and reduce the time they spend in traffic. The downsides are removal of one or two parking spaces (not a big deal in a residential area) and no right-turn lane, which isn't usually needed on local roads anyway. They're also a total bitch to plow, but you don't seem to have that problem in the warmer parts of the country.
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Aug 2, 2010 21:57
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Nibble posted:I'm going to assume that MA's Poor 2% of roads are entirely in the Worcester area. Not sure if that's just state roads, or local roads, too. I don't mind Massachusetts' roads at all, but maybe that's because I grew up in Rhode Island. Nibble posted:I just learn to dodge the potholes and torn-up spots around here Construction does sometimes get paused at inopportune moments, but it's usually because the contractor has skipped town or the design had a REALLY big mistake. All of our funding these days is secured before the project begins, and it takes a lot of overrun to put the brakes on the project. There's not too much you can tell about a bridge's condition just by looking at a picture. Pavement's decent, looks like the steel was recently re-painted, but that paint could be hiding rust, or maybe the substructure's been scoured or corroded. Massachusetts has a huge number of structurally deficient bridges, so I doubt they'd go around demolishing passable bridges just because the opportunity presented itself. FISHMANPET posted:I recently got my tire eaten by a pothole outside my apartment. Popped my tire, and required bending my rim back into position because the car sat on the flat that I didn't know about. And then it turns out it bent some rod or something which is another $250 to fix. In some states/cities, the DOT will reimburse you for that. So long as the pothole was there for a while, you can file a claim saying they were negligent and caused you damage. Only works in some places, though.
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Aug 2, 2010 22:04
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^^^ Up north a bit in Duluth has some of the worst roads as well. Runs in the state. I just discovered this thread, and up here in Duluth, we have an interchange called 'can of worms' that features a traffic light in the middle where I-35N has a left exit to the stoplight and US 53S continues through to I-35N and I-535S. It was built in the 60's and MNDOT says it won't be up for reconstruction till 2020. The space is tough as there are businesses on one side and an active rail-yard on the other but whoever designed it must have been on some good drugs. http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&i....02562&t=h&z=16
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Aug 2, 2010 23:34
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golfem posted:^^^ Up north a bit in Duluth has some of the worst roads as well. Runs in the state. May as well take advantage of the lousy situation and put up ramp meters at the signal! For all you nutmeggers out there:  Answer: You should've taken 84, dumb fox! Now you're stuck in Southington forever! Just found it funny because I have a project at what I imagine is the exact spot shown in this comic, Route 10 at Route 322.
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Aug 3, 2010 00:02
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Cichlidae posted:We haven't had the money to build new freeways in years, because nearly everything we have is going into maintenance and paying off debt. The metro area is all torn up. Not with rehab, but rebuilding. We've got crazy stuff like this: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/projects/crosstown/pdfs/crosstownprojectfinaldesign.pdf But the biggest problem isn't the highways, its the city streets that are awful.
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Aug 3, 2010 01:11
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FISHMANPET posted:The metro area is all torn up. Not with rehab, but rebuilding. We've got crazy stuff like this: http://www.dot.state.mn.us/projects/crosstown/pdfs/crosstownprojectfinaldesign.pdf The roads in Minnesota are easily some of the worst. Its more of a frogger game dodging the potholes in this state.
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Aug 3, 2010 02:30
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golfem posted:The roads in Minnesota are easily some of the worst. Its more of a frogger game dodging the potholes in this state.   I often make the mistake of reading newspaper comments, which I did a lot of during the Transportation bill veto override. A lot of people had a hard time understanding that our poo poo was more expensive to maintain than Texas'.
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Aug 3, 2010 02:49
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FISHMANPET posted:
Freeze/thaw cycles, after compound interest, are the second-most powerful force in the universe. Subject anything to a few million loading cycles and some nasty Winter weather, and you'll end up with terrible ride quality.
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Aug 3, 2010 03:29
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I can't wait to find out how many different types of accidents this will be involved in.
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Aug 3, 2010 18:45
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EoRaptor posted:I can't wait to find out how many different types of accidents this will be involved in. I'm sure they'll build it strong enough to withstand vehicle collisions. The cars that crash into it, though, aren't going to fare too well. I don't care what the video shows, I'm sure all the cars in China don't have electronic transponders to steer them away from crashes. The infrastructure changes necessitated by this thing (laying rail and ballast beneath the road, re-building all bridges, relocating utilities) must cost a tremendous amount, but I suppose that's China's thing these days. Just imagine trying to change lanes and getting sliced in half by that thing, though! On the plus side, apparently most of the drivers will be given exotic sports cars:  Also, "Non-Jeeves-style bike parked (rental) car Pavilion"
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Aug 3, 2010 19:17
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I'm not sure if this has been covered in the thread or not, but have you considered becoming a PTOE once you have the required experience? http://www.tpcb.org/ptoe/
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Aug 5, 2010 00:07
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renzor posted:I'm not sure if this has been covered in the thread or not, but have you considered becoming a PTOE once you have the required experience? This is the first time I've ever heard of it, actually. I don't know anyone else who's gone for certification of any sort other than the PE. What kind of benefits does it offer, and how much does it cost?
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Aug 5, 2010 00:10
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They're starting to pop up in a few cities around here (BC, CANADA) and a couple private firms in the area are owned by PTOEs. I know at the city for instance, a PTOE makes almost double as a regular P Eng, though there are obviously far fewer job openings. The Eng I work with who's been in the game far longer than I have claims that in 10 years you'll probably need a P Eng with his PTOE certification for any new major intersection or highway realignment. Also just so we're clear, all PTOEs are P Eng. with 4 years experience as a P Eng (not EIT) in the traffic/transportation field. I'm not entirely sure about costs, but I'm sure I could find out as a couple of the city engineers I work with on occasion seem to be PTOEs according to this site.
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Aug 5, 2010 00:17
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renzor posted:They're starting to pop up in a few cities around here (BC, CANADA) and a couple private firms in the area are owned by PTOEs. I know at the city for instance, a PTOE makes almost double as a regular P Eng, though there are obviously far fewer job openings. The Eng I work with who's been in the game far longer than I have claims that in 10 years you'll probably need a P Eng with his PTOE certification for any new major intersection or highway realignment. Also just so we're clear, all PTOEs are P Eng. with 4 years experience as a P Eng (not EIT) in the traffic/transportation field. I'll look into it once I get my PE. Hopefully, I'll be working for someone who reimburses some amount of the cost.
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Aug 5, 2010 01:55
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Ah I was looking for this picture but I finally found a copy of it on my disk. Does anything mention what you're supposed to do in situations like this? If you look at the geography of long island it's rather obvious and inevitable that going west on any road will end you up in the city of New York It seems like it would be more useful to put the destination of 495 as "Midtown Manhattan" and the destination of the NSP as "Brooklyn" (even though it doesn't quite reach brooklyn if I remember my NYC geography)
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Aug 5, 2010 11:06
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Socket Ryanist posted:Ah I was looking for this picture but I finally found a copy of it on my disk. The only thing that would prevent that would be that AASHTO has designated control cities for some Interstates. 495 is relatively short (compared to most 2-digit Interstates), so it may not be listed. Is there at least another guide sign upstream that shows which part of the City these roads go to?
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Aug 5, 2010 12:43
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Socket Ryanist posted:
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Aug 5, 2010 14:10
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I've always wondered how they decide which cities to put on those signs. You probably heard of the I-93 pothole situation. Has a car ever been just swallowed up whole by an instant sinkhole?
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Aug 5, 2010 23:20
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Large Hardon Collider posted:I've always wondered how they decide which cities to put on those signs. The cities are designated by AASHTO in a quasi-official manner. They have to be major destinations and well known countrywide, but there are no quantitative criteria. Res potholes: Not around here, but we came pretty close a couple months ago with that huge void under the road. If a heavy truck had run over that hollow pavement, it could have crashed through and fallen into the pit. Given the frequency of sinkholes in other parts of the country, I'm sure cars have fallen in at one point or another.
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Aug 5, 2010 23:37
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Large Hardon Collider posted:I've always wondered how they decide which cities to put on those signs. Edit: found it. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2151312&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=94#post380025613 
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Aug 6, 2010 03:31
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Cichlidae posted:The cities are designated by AASHTO in a quasi-official manner. They have to be major destinations and well known countrywide, but there are no quantitative criteria. That makes sense. Brooklyn and Manhattan aren't very well known outside the Northeast. OHWAIT. Serious post. The road outside my apartment has been gravveled. I don't know why, but there's .5-1 inches of gravel on the road. I've taken to biking on the sidewalk. This is in the middle of a major city, so I really don't know what's going on. Looking at the City website, looks like they're turning it into a bike boulevard, but that's the only project listed. Nothing about resurfacing or anything. E: On the other hand, this lovely 3 way interesection right outside my dor is going to be rebuilt next year! But I'll be moving away then  ^^^^^^^^^^ I knew that was Milwaukee. It was the bus that gave it away. FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 03:47 on Aug 6, 2010 |
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Aug 6, 2010 03:43
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grover posted:There was a photo in Goon Meets a few weeks ago of a sinkhole that swallowed a car. Wow, that's some massive undermining. When flooding that bad happens, all bets are off as far as road stability. Any road can just disappear in an instant. FISHMANPET posted:That makes sense. Brooklyn and Manhattan aren't very well known outside the Northeast. Unless you're near the City, they're both just part of NYC. Control cities are generally 50+ miles apart, and sometimes as much as 1000 miles apart in the more remote parts of the country. quote:Serious post. The road outside my apartment has been gravveled. I don't know why, but there's .5-1 inches of gravel on the road. I've taken to biking on the sidewalk. This is in the middle of a major city, so I really don't know what's going on. Looking at the City website, looks like they're turning it into a bike boulevard, but that's the only project listed. Nothing about resurfacing or anything. Probably just doing full-depth reconstruction. Generally, we put in the spec that they have to pave with asphalt by the end of the week, but if they're not putting cars on it, they may not have an incentive to pave it quickly.
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Aug 6, 2010 04:06
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Has anyone else here ever tried to navigate in Italy? I've spend a bit of time driving in Sicily and found it next to impossible to find my way. The freeways have proper signage, but that's about it. Once you're on the secondaries, none of the roads are labeled. The streets are often very narrow, barely alleys, a lot of one-way only, and again, there's a complete lack of street signs. I'm usually very good about navigating in the US; if I've got a map, I've got a good mental picture, and I can find my way from Pt A to Pt B unerringly. But in Sicily, it's impossible; I get lost, and then even more lost and then even more lost and then finally get my bearings somewhere I didn't want to go. It might be fine if you grew up there and have all the roads memorized, but it's horrible for visitors. Googlemaps of a typical Sicilian town Typical intersection. Good luck turning the right way!  That is, until I finally figured out the signage. They don't use street names. What they do have, instead, are directional signs and control cities. Exclusively. If you want to go from Catania to Agrigento, you look for signs to Palermo, because it's the largest city in that direction. Get a bit closer, and then you'll see signs for Enna and Caltanissetta, and keep following control signs, oblivious to what road you're on (because you're probably not where you think you are) until you start seeing signs for Agrigento. And when you get closer, tiny little signs for specific hotels and businesses and what I was looking for- Valle di Temeli. Some of these signposts are 12' tall and have 20 or 30 little signs on them and are impossible to read without blocking traffic and pissing off the very aggressive Sicilians behind you. But try finding a hotel without it! Unfortunately, it's hit or miss, and the signs often just stop, leaving you to guess. And the place I had to work did not have any road signs pointing to it, and the roads were horrible. We drove down into the middle of a farmer's field at one intersection because it looked more like the road than the road did. And the directional arrows are a bit wierd; if they have an arrow saying SYRACUSA and pointing right, you don't want to turn right because it means to go straight (or more accurately "don't bear left at the next y intersection"). That alone got me more lost than anything else. That said, directional signs to specific shops and businesses like this are awfully nice. Shame we can't use them in conjunction with our normal road signage in the US to keep tourists from getting lost. grover fucked around with this message at 15:50 on Aug 6, 2010 |
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Aug 6, 2010 15:45
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 ^^It's that way in every Old World country^^Toledo (Spanish Toledo) was a bitch to get around: 
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Aug 6, 2010 15:57
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They also love to put street name signs embedded into the old stone buildings. It works OK for when you're walking but when you're driving they can be invisible.
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Aug 6, 2010 16:07
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Giving directions is also fun "All right so turn to the left as you leave your hotel, you'll see a fork ahead of you with an intersection on the right side, take the right fork but GO STRAIGHT and not immediately into the intersection. Then you're gonna loop around past a farmacia and turn left down the next alleyway you see, which will dead end in a plaza. You want the THIRD STREET ON THE RIGHT if you face the cathedral, it'll be at your 4 o clock." Europe is tits, I am immensely excited to go back in November 
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Aug 6, 2010 16:31
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Well, these cities were built way before cars were around, so the roads were laid out in a way that suits horses and pedestrians. Having the street names on buildings makes sense if you're going walking pace. As for the lack of large signs, I believe they're trying to keep the old-world charm intact with as little modern influence as possible. The smaller directional signs don't distract from the buildings and the sights.
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Aug 6, 2010 16:35
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Everyone posted:European street signs Amazing how little we notice guide signs until we're confronted with a lack thereof, isn't it? Fortunately, I didn't do any driving in France, as it was much more convenient to take mass transit. Even walking, though, for all the reasons mentioned above. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for someone who's used to an orthogonal street network.
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Aug 6, 2010 17:23
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Not all that different from the Netherlands. The main way to navigate here is by following signs to towns, larger cities for long distances and smaller places for short ones. If you go off the main routes between villages you are screwed and should hope you find another main road soon (or use the bike signage). Additionally, signs point to important tourist attractions, central buildings, public facilities, tourist info etc. If you're not going to such a place, you look for the right street using a street book, a map, or by asking someone. Of course that was before navigation systems. Most Dutch cars probably had a street book in them before that, a thick book with basic street maps for every major town and city in the country. Street signs aren't too hard to spot here, although streets often change names as they cross town borders and such. Then there's usually separate signage for bikes with more accurate distance numbers and using bike paths or small roads. Road numbers aren't really used except when talking about the major highways you're familiar with. But yeah, when going on holiday in Europe you'd better always have a map on you if it's an unfamiliar place.
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Aug 6, 2010 20:25
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Stew Man Chew posted:
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Aug 6, 2010 20:50
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Entropist posted:But yeah, when going on holiday in Europe you'd better always have a map on you if it's an unfamiliar place. The old world isn't always that confusing though. North of Germany even major cities used to be small towns of wooden buildings well into the 19th century. This was sort of convenient from an urban planning perspective, as the cities tended to burn down every once in a while, allowing urban planners to start from a blank slate. Behold Turku (Åbo) which dates back to the 13th century, yet has a remarkably orthogonal layout thanks to a fire in 1827. 
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Aug 6, 2010 21:14
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Kakairo posted:Well, these cities were built way before cars were around, so the roads were laid out in a way that suits horses and pedestrians. Having the street names on buildings makes sense if you're going walking pace. As for the lack of large signs, I believe they're trying to keep the old-world charm intact with as little modern influence as possible. The smaller directional signs don't distract from the buildings and the sights. They can put up street markers with non eye catching colors. They just won't. There are plenty or cities in America with plenty of roads that weren't designed for modern traffic, yet we have the common courtesy to tell motorists where the hell they are. As for those alley sized roads, they look like to do a good job putting road names on the buildings. Longpig Bard fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Aug 7, 2010 |
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Aug 7, 2010 03:45
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So the Seattle area is about to get so-called Smarter Highways.  Fun fact: Cichlidae has already done a theoretical optimization of the I-5/I-90 interchange you see in the distance! These signs are placed at half mile intervals just north and south of downtown Seattle on I-5, and next year on the I-90 and SR 520 bridges. The claim is that this will reduce collisions by 30% and increase capacity by around 20%.  The signs in action. This sort of thing looks incredibly awesome and it feels like the expectations are reasonable, but are these sorts of systems really that good? They just seem really cheap compared to adding lanes to the highway and I wonder why more municipalities aren't using these systems. Any thoughts? Does anyone live in another area with these systems in place?
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Aug 7, 2010 08:52
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Solkanar512 posted:So the Seattle area is about to get so-called Smarter Highways. Do the lane markers really have much advantage over just a standard electronic message sign? The message signs themselves are pretty helpful, though the ones around downtown Atlanta can be a little hard to interpret since there's a good chance that any given lane passing under the sign won't exist (or will end up becoming the right-hand lane instead of the far left lane) by the time you get to whatever obstacle it's announcing.
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Aug 7, 2010 13:52
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Solkanar512 posted:They just seem really cheap compared to adding lanes to the highway and I wonder why more municipalities aren't using these systems. I wish we could take every dollar wasted on cars idling in congestion, and use it to fix the roads instead. For me, I worked it out once; it's about $124/year for one particular stretch of road that there ARE plans to fix, but no money to do it. And would easily cut 20 minutes of stop-go into 2 minutes of 70mph freeway. Sadly, their solution is, instead, TOLLS! Tolls that at the proposed $2.50/trip will cost me $1000/yeah and divert traffic to other arteries that will only get more clogged instead of LESS clogged once this road can handle more traffic ARRRGHHHH! Meanwhile, public outcry over tolls means the damned road still isn't getting fixed Edit: http://hamptonroads.com/2009/09/dominion-blvd-improvement-would-have-250-toll http://www.chesapeake.va.us/services/depart/pub-wrks/pdffiles/2008_dominion_proposal/2008-PH-brochure.pdf grover fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Aug 7, 2010 |
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Aug 7, 2010 14:44
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Solkanar512 posted:The signs in action. I live in RI, and I can see conceptually how those signs would work. However, living here has made me lose all faith in humanity. People would swing right and try to go 75 until running into whatever was blocking the right lane, then try to merge without signaling or looking.  I think half of the traffic backup on 95 through Providence is a result of driver stupidity, not road design or volume.
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Aug 7, 2010 15:01
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