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Goontastic posted:It was for me and and the back way to a few houses on my street. The city has taken it over and maintains it once every year or two, so I doubt a barrier would work. The only thing that can be done to reduce the noise though is blocking off through access. You're going to get the combination of people accelerating loudly just as much if there's a speed bump, as well as all the noise of people going over the speed bump itself.
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Jun 15, 2012 22:55
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Install Gentoo posted:The only thing that can be done to reduce the noise though is blocking off through access. That's what I was guessing might have to happen. It really does need to be closed. Cars also fly down it, and there are dozens of near misses a week, and a few impacts. Not to mention the neighbors animals keep getting ran over, which is the exact reason mine aren't allowed to go outside. I know the stop sign that used to be on the corner got ran over, and never replaced.
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Jun 15, 2012 23:04
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Cichlidae posted:If that land to the east of A27 is protected (looks like there are a couple of castles/forts there), it's untouchable, so any improvements need to be to the west. The intersection of Waterlinieweg and A28 will be critical during construction. A flyover in the WB>SB direction would divert ~50k cars, provided there's enough capacity downstream. Yeah good call on the fly-over, that's a major part of the plans they're working on right now. A full on bypass WB>SB (left side of the picture) was called off apparently since the big bridge southwards is way too expensive and you can't do a direct connection towards the parallel lanes inside the Lunetten loops since it would have a lower maximum speed than desired. A full parallel lane setup is out of the question too since a lot of ramps would go over capacity so there's this asymmetric 2-4-3-3 setup in the works right now (right side of the picture) with some neat things going on. 
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Jun 15, 2012 23:05
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Ryand-Smith posted:Would you mind if I used that design for a RPG session, it feels so "FUTURE DESIGNED MEGACITY OF THE 22nd Century" and it looks awesome. Absolutely. Let me know what the reaction is. Goontastic posted:I wish I could get some next to my house. What used to be a driveway to get to my house was turned into an unofficial road by the city, so sometimes I have people doing 30+ MPH next to my house, which is only 2 feet from the road. And my bed is only 3 feet away from that wall everyone is driving next to. There are plenty of good solutions for lowering speed. One very useful one is putting a small island in the center of the road. If it narrows the travel lanes down to ~10 feet, you'll cut speed significantly, and if you cut them to 9', no trucks will use the road. Just make sure it's visible and repair it after plow damage.
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Jun 15, 2012 23:19
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Cichlidae posted:Absolutely. Let me know what the reaction is. I'm guessing it's about 9' then; it's one lane, and trucks can barely make it through. A good number have to stop, and back out of there since they can't make it all the way down. I do like the island idea though!
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Jun 16, 2012 01:58
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Goontastic posted:I'm guessing it's about 9' then; it's one lane, and trucks can barely make it through. A good number have to stop, and back out of there since they can't make it all the way down. I do like the island idea though! A road around where I used to work had this problem; two roads that ran almost but not quite parallel would intersect, and it was a pain in the rear end to effectively turn left from one onto the other one that's RIGHT THERE 50 FEET AWAY. So, some poor folks had their residential street destroyed by jerks driving through it all the time because it easily cut 5 minutes off of your drive. The signs they put up didn't work, but the huge loving barricades helped. Consider getting huge barricades to really drive home the "get out" mentality.
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Jun 16, 2012 02:22
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Volmarias posted:A road around where I used to work had this problem; two roads that ran almost but not quite parallel would intersect, and it was a pain in the rear end to effectively turn left from one onto the other one that's RIGHT THERE 50 FEET AWAY. So, some poor folks had their residential street destroyed by jerks driving through it all the time because it easily cut 5 minutes off of your drive. grover fucked around with this message at 02:33 on Jun 16, 2012 |
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Jun 16, 2012 02:31
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Volmarias posted:A road around where I used to work had this problem; two roads that ran almost but not quite parallel would intersect, and it was a pain in the rear end to effectively turn left from one onto the other one that's RIGHT THERE 50 FEET AWAY. So, some poor folks had their residential street destroyed by jerks driving through it all the time because it easily cut 5 minutes off of your drive. Lately I've been cutting brush down and leaving it in the road. I seriously do need to contact the city about it since I do have photographs were people decided to drive thru my yard while turning around the corner; and this is about 10 to 15 feet into the yard, not on the edge.
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Jun 16, 2012 02:41
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I find this works just as well as speed bumps: http://goo.gl/maps/LmQR I think the crosswalk is on a gentle bump since the streetview photos, only enough to improve visibility of the walk/pedestrians.
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Jun 16, 2012 04:28
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Cichlidae posted:Awesome; I tried to get them to put similar trompe l'oeil markings on the Busway, since there was no room to mount signs, but Maintenance refused to re-paint them if we did. Can I see it from the other direction?
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Jun 16, 2012 05:20
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grover posted:If it cuts 5 minutes off the drive and eliminates a left-hand turn at a dangerous intersection, sounds like it actually makes a lot of sense for people to use this road, and the city should improve it appropriately to encourage its use, NOT try to stop people from using it. I've seen too many traffic problems created by NIMBYism. Traffic has to go somewhere, you know. You are such a tool. Maybe people would like to live in a neighbourhood where there isn't the constant threat of children and animals being run over and killed by some idiot driver thinking it's cool to speed down a residential neighbourhood because driving fast makes him feel like a big man. But no, we can forget all that, gotta make way for the almighty car! Traffic does have to go somewhere, you're right about that, but it should be routed where it is least harmful to the most people.
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Jun 16, 2012 05:34
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Cichlidae posted:Everyone likes to design SimCity-style "ideal road networks", but almost all of them I've seen are orthogonal. I decided to try something different, and I like how it turned out. I'll be playing with it in detail in VISSIM for a while, but in the meantime, have a look: So... how does this work for people who are walking from various points, or who are on a bicycle? What about public transportation, where would that fit in? After all, you said this was meant to be a dense downtown area, right? How long would it take for these highways to reach capacity? How many of these hex-blocks would be parking lots?
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Jun 16, 2012 05:51
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Midget Fist posted:You are such a tool. Maybe people would like to live in a neighbourhood where there isn't the constant threat of children and animals being run over and killed by some idiot driver thinking it's cool to speed down a residential neighbourhood because driving fast makes him feel like a big man. Maybe the other roads should have been built better in the first place.
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Jun 16, 2012 06:20
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Install Gentoo posted:Maybe the other roads should have been built better in the first place. That would help, along with good traffic engineering (which is why I love reading this thread) to assess the best way to improve road and traffic flow/impact. Something being done poorly initially is not an excuse to continue to do it poorly, and try ad-hoc solutions that benefit no one.
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Jun 16, 2012 07:30
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Midget Fist posted:You are such a tool. Maybe people would like to live in a neighbourhood where there isn't the constant threat of children and animals being run over and killed by some idiot driver thinking it's cool to speed down a residential neighbourhood because driving fast makes him feel like a big man. This is the guy whose solution to every road which is dangerous to cyclists is "just ban the cyclists!!" I wouldn't count on him having any sympathy towards people who don't submit to The Almighty Car unfortunately.
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Jun 16, 2012 08:51
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Cichlidae posted:I'd be very interested in seeing how intersection capacity in China compares to here. Not an intersection, but leaving the freeway they have innovative methods to increase capacity. Can you guess how many lanes this exit has?  It's 2 Some of the freeway connections were fun in that they didn't have a way to turn left, you turned right to the other freeway then a bit later the fence separating the lanes had a gap and you made a U-turn there.
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Jun 16, 2012 12:45
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Midget Fist posted:You are such a tool. Maybe people would like to live in a neighbourhood where there isn't the constant threat of children and animals being run over and killed by some idiot driver thinking it's cool to speed down a residential neighbourhood because driving fast makes him feel like a big man. I was talking about Volmarias situation, not yours, which I'm not sure I have a full picture of from your descriptions; is it some 1-lane dirt road cut-through people use as 2-way traffic? I'd like to hear Cichlidae's thoughts these situations, though. These and similar create problems all over the world. grover fucked around with this message at 13:50 on Jun 16, 2012 |
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Jun 16, 2012 13:45
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Hedera Helix posted:So... how does this work for people who are walking from various points, or who are on a bicycle? What about public transportation, where would that fit in? After all, you said this was meant to be a dense downtown area, right? Like I said, it's an "ideal road network," something that works in a SimCity-like environment where everyone is in a car. We wouldn't build a unimodal city like this anymore, but it's a fun mental exercise. With a freeway network that dense and redundant, they should stay clear until every building is a high-rise, and even then, there's room for additional lanes. Even if it did break down, the redundancy of the network means it should all break down at the same time, which is the best you can hope for in an over-capacity network. If you want to add in transit, it's not too hard to do. Bikeways adjacent to the arterials with overpasses/underpasses where needed, heavy rail down the freeway medians with stations along the frontage roads, eventually subway lines passing through downtown with stations near major intersections. Buses can use existing infrastructure with no problems. Those signs look like they'd be illegible from 100 meters out. I would have figured that the Chinese characters would be much larger than the Roman letters, given their increased complexity. grover posted:I'd like to hear Cichlidae's thoughts these situations, though. These and similar create problems all over the world. As you might've guessed, there is no simple solution. The best answer depends on the individual situation; this is the kind of project that needs a context-sensitive solution. If you've got two parallel roads, punch through a small connector roadway between them somewhere. If there's nowhere to put it, and there is an existing residential road, you could offer to buy the people out like we do at the end of runways. That is an optional thing, not like eminent domain. You could make the residential street right-in, right-out, which would effectively make all the through traffic one-way, but leave local traffic relatively unperturbed. Geometric changes that narrow lanes, like bump-outs at the intersections, make it look more like a driveway. Things not to do: Don't put in speed bumps, it'll only screw you over when an ambulance/fire truck needs to use the road. Don't put up signs, people will just ignore them. Don't put an all-way stop at both ends of the road, or a signal, as that encourages cut-throughs. Don't put a barrier across the road; a half-barrier across half the road works much better. And even MORE important than making the right decision, is involving the public in that decision. Set up workshops, brainstorming sessions, invite all the stakeholders (locals, commuters, emergency services), get people talking, and try to get them to understand each others' points of view. Design by consensus.
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Jun 16, 2012 15:25
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Cichlidae posted:And even MORE important than making the right decision, is involving the public in that decision. Set up workshops, brainstorming sessions, invite all the stakeholders (locals, commuters, emergency services), get people talking, and try to get them to understand each others' points of view. Design by consensus. Sounds good, people like to be involved. I do think speed limits should be lowered in residentila areas but that's my own ideology talking. I think you have talked earlier about making through-roads into cul-de-sacs, which obviously controls traffic a lot. As Grover was using in his example, sometimes the solution is a little more frustrating as it doesn't benefit everyone either, but with more public consultation things might get better. A personal anecdote: I'm staying with my wife in a cottage in Canada, and the access road is great. All the houses back onto it and the speed limit is 10-20 kph. Kids can play hockey, dogs and people can run, people can bike and throw a frisbee around and not have to worry. All it would take is one person to ruin it of course, but it just seems like such a good way for a neighbourhood to be. Once you take the access road out, then you can get to the bigger roads with higher speed limits that take you where you're going. I just think neigbourhoods should be without the threat of high-speed cars. Vehicles have changed our culture for good in a lot of ways, but we also have sacrificed so much in our way of living that I think impacts on every facet of our lives. Maybe it's just me. This is such a great thread though, I love reading how things come to be the way they are, and why some are such clusterfucks and others work so well.
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Jun 16, 2012 15:36
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grover posted:If it cuts 5 minutes off the drive and eliminates a left-hand turn at a dangerous intersection, sounds like it actually makes a lot of sense for people to use this road, and the city should improve it appropriately to encourage its use, NOT try to stop people from using it. I've seen too many traffic problems created by NIMBYism. Traffic has to go somewhere, you know. It's not a dangerous intersection, it just gets backed up and the left turn involves a jughandle, so you'll wait about 3 minutes to get TO the light, then go through the light and turn at the jughandle, then wait another minute for the light to change, and another minute for enough traffic to move that you can get through the light. For any goons near Princeton, I'm talking about the intersection of Cherry Valley Road and 206, and the residential street is Hillside Ave. Streetview (not working on my chromebook) shows the barricade. https://maps.google.com/maps?q=0854...2186487882,,0,0
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Jun 16, 2012 16:26
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Volmarias posted:It's not a dangerous intersection, it just gets backed up and the left turn involves a jughandle, so you'll wait about 3 minutes to get TO the light, then go through the light and turn at the jughandle, then wait another minute for the light to change, and another minute for enough traffic to move that you can get through the light. Hah, I used to live around there and would cut through that exact street all the time as a teenage driver.
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Jun 16, 2012 16:49
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Volmarias posted:For any goons near Princeton, I'm talking about the intersection of Cherry Valley Road and 206, and the residential street is Hillside Ave. Streetview (not working on my chromebook) shows the barricade. Had a quick look at the map and even before I saw Cichlidae's comment of "punch through a small connector roadway between them somewhere" thought this would be the best solution:  Given on Maps view it appears the local authority already has the reservation:  I'd say it's just an issue of budget (plus those "barricades" hardly look like something intended to be permanent).
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Jun 16, 2012 16:57
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Sorry, Volmarias, but your street is pretty much perfectly situated as a cut-through, and doesn't look unsafe or unreasonable to do so. The barrier in google streetview is a perfect example of what I was talking about as a short-sighted solution, because now you've blocked access from Cherry Valley Road for local traffic as well as through-traffic, and every person who lives on your street needs to sit in traffic an extra ~10 minutes in order to come in from Van Horne. I bet it's already been removed, hasn't it?exo posted:Had a quick look at the map and even before I saw Cichlidae's comment of "punch through a small connector roadway between them somewhere" thought this would be the best solution:
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Jun 16, 2012 17:24
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grover posted:I'd move it further to the southwest, where there's a straight shot right through a wooded area between the backs of two developments. Honestly, I don't see any particular reason not to just use Hillside as the connector, though. As someone who used to drive through there, it's kind of narrow and not particularly safe. It's a decent shortcut but a proper road shortcut through some of the land farther up would work better.
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Jun 16, 2012 17:34
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Install Gentoo posted:As someone who used to drive through there, it's kind of narrow and not particularly safe. It's a decent shortcut but a proper road shortcut through some of the land farther up would work better. Yes, this. There's some commercial/light industrial which Gentoo identified which would be a much better place to put the connector. That said, if you look just a little further towards the light, there's already a little bit for CVR to turn right onto 206. This being Princeton, there's probably a fuckload of NIMBYism that's blocked anything from happening. Princeton has way more traffic than they can handle; I just avoid the town entirely during rush hour if I can at all avoid it. Grover posted:Sorry, Volmarias, but your street is pretty much perfectly situated as a cut-through, and doesn't look unsafe or unreasonable to do so. The barrier in google streetview is a perfect example of what I was talking about as a short-sighted solution, because now you've blocked access from Cherry Valley Road for local traffic as well as through-traffic, and every person who lives on your street needs to sit in traffic an extra ~10 minutes in order to come in from Van Horne. I bet it's already been removed, hasn't it? As far as I know it's still there (I haven't driven past in like 6 months, but it's been there for at least a couple of years), and I imagine the folks that live there drive around the barricade since it only blocks half the street.
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Jun 16, 2012 18:05
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Cichlidae posted:Those signs look like they'd be illegible from 100 meters out. I would have figured that the Chinese characters would be much larger than the Roman letters, given their increased complexity. The signs here in Korea are small too. There aren't any road names so you're pretty hosed regardless if you don't have GPS and don't know where you're going. SEOUL -> is about the best you can hope for.
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Jun 16, 2012 18:50
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Hello friends. Can anyone tell me why no one in the US can execute a proper loving zipper merge? Are we all too self-centered to let our fellow drivers in in front of us? Or are we all too brain dead to intelligently execute the act? Let me present you this: This is a huge interchange right outside of King of Prussia, PA where several major Philadelphia metro highways converge, including (as you can read) 202, 76, and 276. Please focus your attention on the right side, at Exit 328A of 76 on the eastbound side. See where an offramp from 202E merges into 76E? This is pure. living. hell. every weekday from about 2:30 PM to 7 PM. Traffic stops moving. It doesn't even crawl. Pure gridlock. But why? From my observation it's because the 76 drivers are too loving greedy to leave two car lengths in front of them for the 202 mergers to zip into, and the idiots coming off 202 are equally retarded and don't realize that they need to merge over until the end. This backup causes a ton of people to early merge over a triangle slice where the two highways converge (before two separate solid whites converge into a dotted white) and accidents happen and people get their cars stuck sideways in the triangle slice because they couldn't early merge fast enough. I understand the theory of early vs. zipper merges. As a driver I like to early merge on highways with flowing traffic but I understand how the zipper can be effective in a congested traffic scenario. I could understand if a proper zipper merge caused traffic to slow down, perhaps to half of the speed limit, but why the gridlock? I'm sure you get the idea. So how come no one in the US can execute a proper merge on a busy highway? Is it a two-part issue as I assume? Is education the primary issue, or is it our sense of self-entitledness and "my F250 is bigger than your Mini, so gently caress off"? Even in driving school the instructor never mentioned proper heavy-traffic merging etiquette/technique, and I'm sure as hell the PA Driver's Manual doesn't mention merges. To make this more relevant, what are traffic engineers doing to help alleviate this problem? What can I do as a driver to help? What kind of education standards do we need to put in place? Why is it so loving easy to obtain a license in the US? 
Fixed Gear Guy fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Jun 17, 2012 |
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Jun 17, 2012 03:27
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When I visited Minnesota, they had signs up in the construction zones reminding people to do the zipper merge. I think you are right on with the self-centered aspect. I used to drive a section of road, 35 mph, that went from 2 lanes in each direction to 1. It was a constant source of traffic jams at rush hour. The through lane would back up for blocks because of early merging, and if you went to the end and tried to zipper merge most drivers would not let you in. One day I was driving this road, and tried to zipper merge. There was a pickup truck a bit behind me in the continuing lane, I turned on my signal and started to merge. Mr. Pickup truck man promptly sped up so we were side by side. I'm running out of lane, so I slowed down and merged in behind him. As soon as I was behind him, he flipped me off with both hands and drove under the posted speed limit for almost a mile until we turned opposite directions. That was the worst incident I personally experienced, but you could see it everywhere. People blocking the late mergers. Talking to friends and co-workers, most everyone felt they were being 'cheated' by the other drivers late merging, almost like it was the automotive equivalent of cutting in line.
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Jun 17, 2012 06:18
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Fixed Gear Guy posted:Hello friends. Can anyone tell me why no one in the US can execute a proper loving zipper merge? Are we all too self-centered to let our fellow drivers in in front of us? Or are we all too brain dead to intelligently execute the act? Let me present you this: In counterpoint: Portsmouth/Norfolk Downtown Tunnel. If you're trying to get away from Portsmouth, VA, there are three zipper merges in about 140 yards. They're all executed with VERY little hassle. Sometimes someone will crowd, but the guy behind lets two in. Traffic always drops to ~15, but never locks up solid. There are buses, semi trailers, and all manner of trailer-toting pickups/vans, and they're just treated as "two cars" for the zipper merges. That said, when the drawbridge opens, it stays hellish for a while; sometimes as late as midnight. The other side is a bag of used assholes, though. Weaving, stupid people. Different speed limits from different approaches. Steel-deck bridge. Left exits. That side is not fun.
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Jun 17, 2012 06:18
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Fixed Gear Guy, I'm excited to see your rant because I just came into the thread to post this anyway: http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20120617/PC16/120619203/alternate-merging-why-cant-we-do-it-right This newspaper has figured out the problem with roads are the users and is using itself as a platform to scream "HEY! JERKBUTTS! IT WORKS LIKE THIS!"
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Jun 17, 2012 08:32
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The Proc posted:Fixed Gear Guy, I'm excited to see your rant because I just came into the thread to post this anyway: This feels like more than half the traffic issues I run into in LA; its like every exit/onramp to the freeway leaves you about 100 feet to merge before it a) exits again to somewhere else, or b) ends straight up disappearing and leaving you to enter the freeway with everyone else who just wants to be in front of you. http://goo.gl/maps/qLkP Is a great example of a combo attack, the lane coming into the freeway ends, and you have precious little distance before that lane exits right back onto Los Feliz. Making that merge, the next lane over is about 150 feet from disappearing altogether, so you have to get over 2 lanes very quickly. Of course, nobody on the through lane is about to let you merge into the only way you have onto the continuing road. A few exits down on the Stadium Way exit, the only way to make the exit is to cross 3 lanes of freeway traffic right after you merge into it. Folks aren't very nice about letting people through that one.
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Jun 17, 2012 10:23
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Fixed Gear Guy posted:To make this more relevant, what are traffic engineers doing to help alleviate this problem? What can I do as a driver to help? What kind of education standards do we need to put in place? Why is it so loving easy to obtain a license in the US? As traffic engineers, about all we can do is come up with new signs and try to study their implementation to see how people react. A few I've seen have been promising: "ALTERNATE MERGING" - Where two lanes merge into one, this seems to do the trick. When people don't have the clear right-of-way, they pay a lot more attention to who's in the other lane. I'm not sure what we'd do for pavement markings, though... The alternative merge sign -  This one was studied in-house. It's not perfect, but it's better than the normal "chimney" sign. We did some video studies to see how drivers react: http://www.ct.gov/dot/cwp/view.asp?a=1384&q=259518 Unfortunately, these two signs have two major problems. First, they're not enforceable. If someone cuts someone else off, they probably won't get a ticket, and if they do, it's easy to get out of it. Second, they only work on two-lane roads. A sign for multi-lane roads is a simple "DO NOT PASS" electronic sign that turns on when there is congestion. There are usually multiple signs a few hundred feet apart, and are illuminated just before the start of the queue. Unfortunately, people have no idea that this means "don't cut someone off" until they get their first ticket. People in the left lanes are required to go just as slow as everyone to the right. As for education, it's a slow and difficult process. Even if you get your message across to 100% of students, and their parents/passengers don't immediately revert them, you have to wait ~25 years before most people on the road are doing it right. A PSA campaign might have a temporary effect, but I don't think anything less than giving people tickets and long-term driver's ed will work in the long run. Edit: keep in mind, for a freeway on-ramp, main line drivers have no reason at all to slow down and let in entering traffic. They have the absolute right-of-way. If you wanted it to work differently, you'd have to stripe it as an auxiliary lane and end it further down the road, but even then, most people wouldn't realize what that means. Cichlidae fucked around with this message at 15:30 on Jun 17, 2012 |
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Jun 17, 2012 15:27
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Well, this is what we use in the Netherlands, with the last sign telling people to merge there: "ritsen" is the name of the merge. There was a big ad campaign to introduce the concept back when they started this. It isn't perfect but most people seem to know about it by now, though too many people still try to merge in as soon as they see the first sign.
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Jun 17, 2012 15:42
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So far in my automotive exploration of Johannesburg, SA I have noted that these designers LOVE traffic circles and they really loving love speedbumps, both are everywhere.
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Jun 17, 2012 18:53
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Elendil004 posted:So far in my automotive exploration of Johannesburg, SA I have noted that these designers LOVE traffic circles and they really loving love speedbumps, both are everywhere. ughhhh now imagine going around / over those things in a lovely custom top heavy field spec land rover and it's basically like My Trip To Gauteng in a nutshell. As a question for Cichlidae, do you deal directly in any way with public feedback? What sort of systems are set up for Citizens Concerned About Traffic Engineering exist up there? Anything?
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Jun 17, 2012 21:29
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Stew Man Chew posted:ughhhh now imagine going around / over those things in a lovely custom top heavy field spec land rover and it's basically like My Trip To Gauteng in a nutshell. All of my interactions are project-related. Major projects (most things over a million bucks) have public meetings, and I usually go for support, but people ask very few questions. I also go to Chamber of Commerce and Town Council meetings when needed, and I'm happy to chat about traffic after meetings, which happens on occasion. Kind of wish I could do some outreach, but the Department really isn't set up to do that. Engineers are more or less isolated from the public by design. That's a horrible way to do business, in my opinion, and if people knew there was someone to answer their questions, they might not throw beer bottles at me when I'm surveying along the freeway. RIDOT has a column in the Providence Journal for engineering outreach, several websites, all the social media... why can't we?
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Jun 17, 2012 22:06
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Man that sucks at least I can chum it up with the engineers lamenting tight loops and space constraints during our trillion PR and communication events wrt public projects.
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Jun 17, 2012 22:08
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Surge Strip posted:That was the worst incident I personally experienced, but you could see it everywhere. People blocking the late mergers. Talking to friends and co-workers, most everyone felt they were being 'cheated' by the other drivers late merging, almost like it was the automotive equivalent of cutting in line. In all fairness, there are a lot of instances when drivers are doing exactly that; they'll zip into the lane that's ending and everyone is merging out of, go as far as they can, and then merge back in, usually when there's a ton of traffic so they'll save 3 minutes while cheating everyone else of 15 seconds. Cichlidae posted:All of my interactions are project-related. Major projects (most things over a million bucks) have public meetings, and I usually go for support, but people ask very few questions. I also go to Chamber of Commerce and Town Council meetings when needed, and I'm happy to chat about traffic after meetings, which happens on occasion. Have you ever watched Parks & Recreation? The town hall meetings are pretty much exactly what I figure would happen, and probably why you don't want to expose the engineers. While people mean well, they usually have dramatically disproportionate ideas about what's possible and how much effort it would take, as well as priorities. Sure that intersection is killing 100 people a year, but why are you redesigning the intersection that will vaguely (or not even) inconvenience me???
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Jun 18, 2012 03:44
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Volmarias posted:Have you ever watched Parks & Recreation? The town hall meetings are pretty much exactly what I figure would happen, and probably why you don't want to expose the engineers. While people mean well, they usually have dramatically disproportionate ideas about what's possible and how much effort it would take, as well as priorities. Sure that intersection is killing 100 people a year, but why are you redesigning the intersection that will vaguely (or not even) inconvenience me??? We take classes on public involvement to minimize that sort of situation; when you have a hostile audience member, the best you can do is show the rest of the audience that he/she is wrong, otherwise things can get out of hand. True, most of us engineers aren't the most sociable or talkative folk, but it's not too hard to say, "One death is too many. It could be your kid, your neighbor, your relative... do you want to go to a funeral that you could've helped to prevent?"
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Jun 18, 2012 12:36
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Edit: I shouldn't derail. I'll take your word for it if you say you can handle it. Just make sure you never give out any sort of contact information.
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Jun 18, 2012 17:26
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