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Millstone posted:I'm pretty sure grover also meant roundabouts, not traffic circles. Neither of which suck, they are actually kick-rear end replacements for stoplights sometimes.  If you say "roundabout" in conversation over here, people would think you're talking about playground equipment. See, we eat dinner 'round about 6pm, and go fishing 'round about that bend in the crick, but we use traffic circles to drive around monuments. Which are pretty much the only time you see anything like this in the US. You can't use those funny british terms like lorry, loo or boot. Shoot, if it wasn't for Top Gear, if you told me about your new "saloon car", I'd think you had a limo with a bar in the back. This thread is about traffic engineering and not urban planning so I'll not rebut any further on why suburbs are so much more popular than the alternatives in the US, but just rant about how painful it is to drive in Milton Keynes from all the damned traffic circles (or roundabouts if you want to call them that). They have their use, but not in every intersection on major thoroughfares!  Cichlidae- what changes would you make here to improve traffic flow? grover fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Oct 9, 2010 |
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Oct 9, 2010 12:52
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grover posted:We call them all traffic circles in America.[3] This is why we've made such a big effort in the last few years to emphasize to the public that roundabouts are not traffic circles, and that they operate differently. grover posted:This thread is about traffic engineering and not urban planning so I'll not rebut any further on why suburbs are so much more popular than the alternatives in the US, but just rant about how painful it is to drive in Milton Keynes from all the damned traffic circles (or roundabouts if you want to call them that). They have their use, but not in every intersection on major thoroughfares! Keep in mind, everything I'm about to say applies to urban roads. Rural roads are a completely different story. The most important thing to consider here is road hierarchy. On the slow end of the totem pole, you have local roads, which provide access to homes and businesses and don't handle much traffic. Roundabouts are better for local roads than either signals or stop signs, because they produce lower delays. The next head on the totem pole is the collector road. Collectors still provide access to commercial or residential properties, but they carry more volume at higher speeds. Stop signs on collectors are frustrating, as the volumes are sometimes high enough that they cause quite a bit of delay. Roundabouts perform better than all-way stops at all volumes (but much better when volumes on all legs are balanced). For two-way stops, whether a roundabout is better depends on the volumes, but it will always improve operations on the street that has to stop. Collectors sometimes have traffic signals, especially at intersections with arterials. Here, it's really a toss-up whether signals or roundabouts perform better, but roundabouts are cheaper to maintain and improve safety for drivers and pedestrians, as well as keep speeds down, which is a very common tactic on collectors. The penultimate road type is arterial, which provide little access; usually only to large commercial establisments, unless you're in the Northeast, where there are curb cuts on arterials every 50 feet. Their main purpose is moving cars. There seem to be two schools of thought on arterials. One encourages traffic calming, pedestrian-friendly, intersection-rich roads, which generally involves lots of roundabouts or other geometry intended to slow down traffic. The other school of thought is that arterials should have as few signals as possible, about 4 a mile maximum, and should keep traffic flowing at high speeds to serve the greatest volume possible. As I'm sure you've noticed, the former produces a lot of delay, due to its lower capacity. Both have benefits and drawbacks. As a driver, I'd much rather have free-flowing traffic with coordinated signals. As a resident or pedestrian, I'd rather have safer roads. And just for completeness, the fastest head on the totem pole is a freeway. Freeways do not provide access, only throughput. I have seen some large traffic circles on freeways, but at that point it really ceases to be a freeway and becomes an arterial instead. I don't think many people would argue for putting roundabouts on freeways.
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Oct 9, 2010 15:48
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As part of a course in Production economics of Infrastructure I've been saddled with the task of making a construction plan of a rural freeway. The problem is that our professor hasn't actually taught us how to do this, so while I know how to design a nice and economic highway, I haven't clue on how to actually build one, which makes this task a bit daunting. Where would you start, given the task of dividing the project into parts, making a construction schedule, table of materials and a risk analysis, provided you had all the drawings, tables of masses and a binder with references on how long specific tasks take?
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Oct 9, 2010 19:50
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Nesnej posted:As part of a course in Production economics of Infrastructure I've been saddled with the task of making a construction plan of a rural freeway. The problem is that our professor hasn't actually taught us how to do this, so while I know how to design a nice and economic highway, I haven't clue on how to actually build one, which makes this task a bit daunting. Where would you start, given the task of dividing the project into parts, making a construction schedule, table of materials and a risk analysis, provided you had all the drawings, tables of masses and a binder with references on how long specific tasks take? Well, assuming you had all the design work completed (which is a task that generally takes longer than construction) and had your permits taken care of, the first step is rights-of-way. Buy up the land you'll need, take the owners to court if need be. Then you advertise the project, put it out to bid, and find your contractors. If it's a big project, you may want to break it into segments, in which case you'll want a good inspector/prime contractor to work on coordination. After that's taken care of, you revise your schedule (hope you made one during design!) and have a look at critical paths. Your contractors should have a good idea of how long it'll take to do each step. Finding suppliers is a very early step, and if one of them has a problem, it can really set back the project. Make sure to keep in touch with them and try to get parts early, but not too soon, otherwise there'll be nowhere to store them. Next step is shifting any roads that will eventually require bridges. After that's done, you can begin substructure work, putting in your piles/footings. Structure work can be done at the same time as earth moving. Depending on how big the project is, you might want a plant on-site to produce processed aggregate and, eventually, asphalt. Putting the final pavement on, stripes, safety devices, signs, and facilities is the next step, followed by landscaping. After everyone's had a chance to inspect the site, you cut the ribbon and get started. Sorry if I don't have much more than that; I haven't done all that much in construction management, and most of it was in the middle of construction, not in the planning stage.
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Oct 9, 2010 21:18
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Cichlidae posted:Well, assuming you had all the design work completed (which is a task that generally takes longer than construction) and had your permits taken care of, the first step is rights-of-way. Buy up the land you'll need, take the owners to court if need be. Then you advertise the project, put it out to bid, and find your contractors. If it's a big project, you may want to break it into segments, in which case you'll want a good inspector/prime contractor to work on coordination.
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Oct 9, 2010 23:08
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Nesnej posted:I probably should have been a bit more specific in the description of the project too. I'm essentially pretending I'm a earthworks contractor placing a bid for a certain part of a motorway project that has all the paperwork done and signed. My job more or less starts with clearing trees and ends when the pavement crew arrives. What I haven't figured out is what to use as my base for planning. My objective is to avoid stalling or having to move equipment around more than necessary as far as possible, but I'm not quite sure what I need to be looking out for. Hills? Soft soil? You should have borings ready, and your cross-sections should give you your borrow and fill quantities. I'm sure if you really liked math, you could do some calculus to find the optimal way to ferry between cut and fill with the least travel. Doing equal amounts cut and fill at the same time minimizes the amount of storage area required, but you should still be heavier on the cut first, so you have some borrow in case that part of the project stalls. Obstacles? Insuitable soil should be found by the borings, but there are always inconsistencies. If you find large rocks, there's usually an item in the contract for their removal. If not, it's Cost Plus (   ). Keep equipment on-site for contingencies: drilling equipment, spare excavators, and the like. One more obstacle that is ALWAYS a pain in the rear end is buried utilities. If you run into some old pipe that wasn't on the plans, you can count on a few weeks of delay. I'd suggest having multiple areas available to be worked on at any one time, so if you hit an obstacle in one spot, you can move the equipment for the week and work double on another.
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Oct 10, 2010 03:06
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Changing the font on NYC street signs: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local...l#ixzz110zLJPyM Will there be really that much of a safety benefit after they change these signs? It seems it would be negligible at best. I know that the article says that the state will kick in funds, but with so many state and local governments in fiscal crisis, it seems every dollar would count.
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Oct 10, 2010 04:24
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It's money that's already going to be spent replacing the signs. The way the headline is phrased, and the way the question was likely posed seems to indicate a multimillion dollar sign-replacing blitzkrieg. Throw in a little "All new things are bad" and "MY TAX DOLLARS" mentality and you have that article.
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Oct 10, 2010 04:32
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theflyingexecutive posted:It's money that's already going to be spent replacing the signs. The way the headline is phrased, and the way the question was likely posed seems to indicate a multimillion dollar sign-replacing blitzkrieg. Throw in a little "All new things are bad" and "MY TAX DOLLARS" mentality and you have that article. The article states that the average lifespan of a street sign is ten years. This seems a little ridiculous. Unless the sign is damaged, what other reason would you need to replace them? Cichlidae, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I remember you stating somewhere in this thread that some of the signs on our highways here in CT are the original ones when the road was first constructed. That's a lot more than ten years.
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Oct 10, 2010 04:47
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porkfriedrice posted:The article states that the average lifespan of a street sign is ten years. This seems a little ridiculous. Unless the sign is damaged, what other reason would you need to replace them? Cichlidae, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I remember you stating somewhere in this thread that some of the signs on our highways here in CT are the original ones when the road was first constructed. That's a lot more than ten years. They're supposed to be replaced every 10 years regardless of how good they look. The only reason we wait longer is because we don't have the money to replace them after 10 years. Those old signs you see out there, go look at them up close. Check out the condition of the sheeting and lettering. Go at night and shine a flashlight at it from 400 feet away, see if you can read it. Compare it to a new sign. You'll notice the difference. It's not like the feds are going to go around in 2019 and say "Hmm, this sign isn't up to spec! You're in trouble!" It's just, "When you replace this sign, bring it up to spec." Like theflyingexecutive said, we're going to be spending the money already, may as well produce a product that does its job better.
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Oct 10, 2010 05:11
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Hah, are you guys expecting a local NYC paper to be reasonable and well thought out? I mean, the Daily News is better than the Post, but that's not saying much since the Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
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Oct 10, 2010 12:56
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BklynBruzer posted:Hah, are you guys expecting a local NYC paper to be reasonable and well thought out? I mean, the Daily News is better than the Post, but that's not saying much since the Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Yes, someone used to leave it in the breakroom at my old job. I've never seen a paper with a higher dollar sign to letter S ratio.
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Oct 10, 2010 15:15
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Nesnej posted:I'm essentially pretending I'm a earthworks contractor placing a bid for a certain part of a motorway project that has all the paperwork done and signed. My job more or less starts with clearing trees and ends when the pavement crew arrives. What I haven't figured out is what to use as my base for planning. My objective is to avoid stalling or having to move equipment around more than necessary as far as possible, but I'm not quite sure what I need to be looking out for. Hills? Soft soil? Although I'm only operating as a non-technical consultant in the construction industry I know enough to tell you what you already know: planning, material tables, risk assesment and cost calculating take pretty large team-efforts. Apparantly you're on your own so call up the nearest contractor and bribe them with a case of beer. You might want to try to compile a CPM or PERT schedule but you'd probably need to be pretty experienced already 
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Oct 11, 2010 00:27
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It seems Money Magazine's recently done their annual study to determine which careers were the least stressful. Their method was to interview employees in various fields and ask whether their jobs were low-stress. According to the study, what's the least stressful job out there? Biomedical engineer, with 70% responding that it was low-stress. But Transportation Engineer is #2, with 69%, and Civil Engineer is in the top 10. For all I complain about consultants and dead-end projects, the industry is pretty relaxed overall. There's very little we do that's urgent, and the results of our actions take years, or even decades, to manifest, so the sense of culpability isn't as strong as it could be.
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Oct 13, 2010 02:59
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Hey, Cichlidae, I just saw this on MSNBC, and I thought it was really cool! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39684119/ns/world_news-europe/ Worlds longest tunnel just completed, underneath the Alps. Will be able to accommodate high speed passenger and cargo rail by 2017. But that's not the coolest part, at least not to me. The coolest part is that the tunnel is funded by Swiss taxpayers, who voted in the project in referendum, at the cost of $1,300 each. Goddamn!  Can you imagine the poo poo storm it would cause over here if anyone even suggested each American taxpayer fork over 1,300 bucks to fund some infrastructure project? Hell, people throw hissy fits over paying an extra 8 bucks or so to fund something vital! Now granted, the United States is a lot bigger (and richer?) than Switzerland, but still. Can you imagine if we did something like this? Or, even better: what kind of stuff could we do if our citizens were willing to fork over a thousand bucks and change?
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Oct 15, 2010 17:33
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Well, $1300 over 20 years. So only $65 per year. On another subject, with all the love for traffic circles, how do pedestrian crossings work if no one ever is supposed to stop?
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Oct 15, 2010 18:14
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Cars yield to pedestrians? Just like pedestrian crossings at normal non-signaled intersections.
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Oct 15, 2010 18:52
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smackfu posted:Well, $1300 over 20 years. So only $65 per year. In the UK at least, you just cross each road individually if its not that busy (maybe using the islands if its suitable). If its busier then there will probably be dedicated pedestrian crossings of any type on each road entrance. At their busiest there would, hopefully, be a network of pedestrian underpasses that meet in the centre of the roundabout. eg. http://goo.gl/maps/j6im Directly crossing the roundabout to the centre circle is generally not the correct approach.
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Oct 15, 2010 19:30
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Silver Falcon posted:Hey, Cichlidae, I just saw this on MSNBC, and I thought it was really cool! The Swiss really love voting. Each citizen votes, on average, 13 times a year, and nearly every big issue is put up to referendum. This tunnel is a big deal for them, because it'll get a whole lot of trucks off the roads. I watched a film about it a couple years ago, talking about the history of the mountain and all the difficulty the Swiss have had with north-south transport over the years. Very cool stuff. So, what could we do with $1300/person? Assuming you collected that money from every citizen, that's about 420 billion dollars. The ASCE says we need about $2 trillion to fix all of the substandard and crumbling infrastructure in the country, so we'd be able to do about a fifth of it. A good start, but certainly not something that would please the electorate. smackfu posted:On another subject, with all the love for traffic circles, how do pedestrian crossings work if no one ever is supposed to stop? Pedestrians cross each leg individually. It's actually safer that way, since they only have to look at one direction of traffic at a time thanks to the splitter islands on each leg. They're more visible to vehicles, too, who are slowing down anyway. noblergt posted:Directly crossing the roundabout to the centre circle is generally not the correct approach. Yes, that's very dangerous for pedestrians and motorists alike. People here don't understand that they're not supposed to walk out to the island, which is made worse when we landscape it with nice plantings and use stamped concrete truck aprons that look like brick walks. So, we put up signs.  Of course, the town gets upset about all of our signs cluttering their nice landscaped island, so we'll be taking them back down. Can't make everyone happy, right?
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Oct 16, 2010 00:29
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I just noticed this...grover posted:We call them all traffic circles in America.[3] Your citation doesn't really say much and I have to disagree. What I've heard is that it's in the northeast where people use the term "traffic circle" for everything; I don't know how true that may or may not be, but here in So Cal we call roundabouts roundabouts, and it's been that way for as long as I can remember.
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Oct 16, 2010 04:08
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So, lately, my city got some influx of money (stimulus related iirc) and they've been spending it redoing a major road. On Friday I saw them going around with a machine that was making a lot of noise and dust. I swear the road didn't used to have all these black things, but now: Notice it's only in one lane, and I assume they'll do the other lane here soon. What did they do? I know they're going to eventually completely tear the road up and redo it, since that's what they did to the other half of the road.
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Oct 17, 2010 01:16
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ijustam posted:So, lately, my city got some influx of money (stimulus related iirc) and they've been spending it redoing a major road. On Friday I saw them going around with a machine that was making a lot of noise and dust. I swear the road didn't used to have all these black things, but now: They're filling in the cracks, which around here is what they do before putting a new, thin coat over the whole road to resurface it. That road looks like it's in pretty decent shape, I don't see why they'd tear it up.
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Oct 17, 2010 01:32
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They do that all the time around Baltimore, but it's usually a multi-year repair. I've seen it most often when they have to completely pave one or two blocks of a street but they go through and patch up all the cracks on the surrounding streets.
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Oct 17, 2010 01:37
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Roflex posted:They do that all the time around Baltimore, but it's usually a multi-year repair. I've seen it most often when they have to completely pave one or two blocks of a street but they go through and patch up all the cracks on the surrounding streets. In Rhode Island, that was a "permanent" repair. Of course, my street was only resurfaced once since I was born. The machine making lots of noise and dust was likely cleaning the pavement so that the crack sealant would stick. Choadmaster posted:That road looks like it's in pretty decent shape, I don't see why they'd tear it up. If they're just sealing, not repaving, it's best done while the road is still in good shape. Once the cracks get too big and too deep, sealant's not going to cut it.
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Oct 17, 2010 02:47
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Choadmaster posted:They're filling in the cracks, which around here is what they do before putting a new, thin coat over the whole road to resurface it. That road looks like it's in pretty decent shape, I don't see why they'd tear it up. Me either, really. There are other roads that need it more but the optimist in me likes to think they're taking care of this now while they have the money. This road sees a LOT of traffic. In addition to this, they've been repainting pretty much every street line. Neighborhood-level roads have been neglected for decades, and I doubt they'll ever be repaired any time soon.
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Oct 17, 2010 03:19
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Cichlidae posted:In Rhode Island, that was a "permanent" repair. Of course, my street was only resurfaced once since I was born. I'm not up on my traffic surface terms. What they've been doing is tearing up the top layer (exposing the rough stuff underneath [and causes a sharp edge at the road]) and then putting new stuff on top. The new stuff is all black.
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Oct 17, 2010 03:21
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ijustam posted:I'm not up on my traffic surface terms. What they've been doing is tearing up the top layer (exposing the rough stuff underneath [and causes a sharp edge at the road]) and then putting new stuff on top. The new stuff is all black. Ah, that's either grinding or milling, depending on how deep they go. Grinding is an all-over wearing down of the surface, deep enough to remove any pavement markings and most of the asphalt binder on the surface. Milling tends to dig little furrows into the road, and makes loud noise when driven over. It goes down much deeper, a half inch or more, and makes for great cohesion when the next layer is applied, much like scoring clay helps the next layer stick. The machines used to mill or grind pavement look like giant torture devices inside. They have multiple wheels with big metal teeth on them, kind of like an upside-down SSI shredder.
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Oct 17, 2010 06:02
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Cichlidae posted:SSI shredder.
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Oct 18, 2010 00:16
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Choadmaster posted:I just noticed this... It generally depends on the right of way. Traffic circle implies that the incoming traffic has the right of way. Roundabout implies that the traffic in the circle has right of way. This will result in yield signs at the entrances. That's the way it should be, anyway.
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Oct 18, 2010 04:48
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Millstone posted:It generally depends on the right of way. The difference really is regional. For most of my life, I've heard both varieties called rotaries, probably because of the importance of the Cape Cod Rotaries in the public memory. Where I live now, barely 100 miles from my home, I hear 'traffic circle' much more often, though I've noticed a tendency lately for people to use 'roundabout' for any kind of intersection with a central island. I'm guessing that's due to our efforts to introduce modern roundabouts to the public.
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Oct 18, 2010 12:55
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To continue on the roundabout topic, back in August I bitched about this intersection. Hot drat, turns out they've already been working on the redesign and one of them is a roundabout. I hope they do go with a roundabout...but the surrounding community (if you can call it that) is largely older people who have a hard enough time driving as it is (and the state prison). Even a T-intersection would be better than the current setup.
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Oct 19, 2010 01:52
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IOwnCalculus posted:To continue on the roundabout topic, back in August I bitched about this intersection. That's great! The final design that they choose should take into account the traffic volumes that each can handle. Since the existing design is very large, it's almost certain there will be plenty of room for future expansion. One thing I'd be concerned about is the approach speed from the South. Looking at the road, it seems like approach speeds would be 60 mph or greater. After driving a long time in relatively boring terrain, drivers won't pay much attention to warning signs, especially if they consider themselves familiar with the area. Hopefully, you've got some good engineers out there who will be aware of the problem and implement some pretty creative ideas to slow people down as they approach the new intersection. Edit: My father in law is a news anchor for a TV station in Casa Grande, do you get their broadcasts up in Florence?
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Oct 19, 2010 02:08
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Can we have a new exit 40 interchange yet?
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Oct 19, 2010 02:36
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I love this thread! I have an amateur interest in civil engineering. I was thrilled when one day I left my house to find that the intersection outside had a blinking yellow turn signal to allow me to pull up to make a left turn when normally it might be a red turn signal. That lets me turn at times when I wouldn't normally which saves me a lot of time if I ever have to make that left turn. I find this fantastic, except for the odd time when someone's too scared to take advantage of it. I was even more thrilled to discover that they're slowly phasing this feature into many of the traffic lights in the area. Occasionally you get the guy who doesn't realize he can go, but that guy usually scoots with a short polite honk. I guess I should turn this into a question, is that kind of thing becoming more common? Because it's awesome. Is there any interesting information on how safe it is?
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Oct 19, 2010 02:40
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GWBBQ posted:Can we have a new exit 40 interchange yet? Quick answer before I go to bed: it's been planned as part of the completion of the Route 7 / Route 15 interchange. http://www.ct.gov/dot/cwp/view.asp?a=3403&q=410316
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Oct 19, 2010 03:58
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Cichlidae posted:That's great! The final design that they choose should take into account the traffic volumes that each can handle. Since the existing design is very large, it's almost certain there will be plenty of room for future expansion. I live a good 30 miles north of there in Mesa. I've got a ton of family in the area down there though, so I'm sure some of them have seen him  Yeah, the approach speeds coming up on the existing intersection are pretty gnarly. Thankfully there really isn't much traffic to speak of, and I think the confusion inherent in the current layout helps to slow it down. The limit approaching that stretch is 65MPH, but on the in-town (if you can call it that) side of the road it's about 35.
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Oct 19, 2010 07:25
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Well hey, it turns out there's a roundabout practically in my backyard! Heck if I know why it's there, though, because it's a low-traffic road and it's surrounded by normal four-way-stop intersections. Google maps Why would there be just one roundabout in the middle of nowhere? 
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Oct 19, 2010 08:11
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Vino posted:I love this thread! I have an amateur interest in civil engineering. That's a permissive left, and they're pretty common in most places. They're not quite as safe as protected lefts, but they offer higher throughput and less delay, especially when volumes are light and cycle lengths are long. I'm surprised they're rare where you are; pretty much any signal with one- or two-lane approaches here has permissive lefts, albeit with a green ball rather than a flashing yellow arrow. Silver Alicorn posted:Why would there be just one roundabout in the middle of nowhere? It looks like an older design, more like a mini-roundabout with a raised island, really. Remember that roundabouts work better than all-way stops for all volume conditions, so there's probably no reason not to have one there. Why wouldn't there be more? Roundabouts cost money, and not everyone wants them, nor is there enough right-of-way at all intersections. That one was built very small, probably to avoid property takes, but it would function a good deal better (and handle more truck traffic) if it had a larger radius.
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Oct 19, 2010 21:20
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Silver Alicorn posted:Well hey, it turns out there's a roundabout practically in my backyard! Heck if I know why it's there, though, because it's a low-traffic road and it's surrounded by normal four-way-stop intersections. It's better than this retard poo poo in Point Loma. The best part is they don't light up, they're just poles in the middle of the street. Have fun driving through there for the first time at 2am when the power is out. The only place in the city I can think of that has real roundabouts is Bird Rock and the residents aren't too happy about them.
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Oct 20, 2010 10:16
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dexter posted:It's better than this retard poo poo in Point Loma.  dexter posted:The only place in the city I can think of that has real roundabouts is Bird Rock and the residents aren't too happy about them. How long have they been there? It's probably just a vocal few. There used to be bitching and whining about roundabouts where I live too but with each new one it got quieter and quieter as people realize they do actually work. This was the first major one they put in here and there was some fantastic complaining going on by a small group of morons. That 5-way intersection used to have traffic lights and was a massive pain in the rear end - traffic would back up and during busy hours it could sometimes take multiple cycles to get through. Now you hardly even have to wait a second - most of the time you can just slip right in. Night and day difference. There are so many more intersections in this town that could benefit exactly the same way. We have some of these weird little things too, they're not quite real roundabouts*. They don't really do much other than let the city put in yield signs rather than stop signs at the intersection by pretending it's a roundabout, though you can still basically drive straight through it without slowing. I think it should either be a bigger, proper roundabout or don't do it at all. Edit: * Somehow I didn't even notice these little things had already been brought up. I don't think they should qualify as roundabouts unless you actually have to make a turn around them. If you can essentially drive straight through they don't actually encourage people to slow down and pay attention to the other streets; it seems more dangerous than it's worth. Just making them a bit bigger would solve the problem. Choadmaster fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Oct 20, 2010 |
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Oct 20, 2010 11:03
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