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Dominus Vobiscum posted:I'm trying to imagine cramming existing volumes onto the SB span of the Howard Frankland in some sane fashion while the NB span gets reconstructed. I'd think you could fit 5 lanes (2 each way with a third reversible lane in the middle) in the existing cross-section, but moving a 3+ mile long zipper barrier twice a day would be fun. It's done for the Delaware River bridges in Philadelphia but the spans are a lot shorter. Hopefully HART and PSTA will push park and ride plus cross-bay transit services to Westshore and downtown...somehow. Regional transit in the Bay Area is all county MPOs and TBARTA these days. HART, PSTA, PCPT and SCAT play second fiddle, as they barely have the funding the maintain current levels of service. 2013's regional priorities in terms of shovel-ready projects: 1) I-275 managed (HOT) lanes 2) SR54/56 managed (HOT) lanes 3) That Roosevelt Connector I mentioned a few posts ago 4) Extend the Suncoast Pkwy north to Lecanto & Crystal River 5) Get the ball rolling on an I-75 expressway link for Port Manatee 6) Commuter bus service, Wesley Chapel/Bradenton/Brandon to/from Tampa via managed lanes where possible. Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot. Design of overpasses on Gandy at 16th, 9th and 4th/Roosevelt was approved earlier this year, $120 mil from FDOT to get it all done. 6 lanes + frontage roads for Gandy, which will turn it into a full expressway between Roosevelt and I-275 (as a traffic interceptor for cars coming to/from Downtown St. Pete). The Roosevelt Connector will allow traffic from US-19, Ulmerton, East Bay, Bryan Dairy and the Bayside Bridge to have quick access to I-275 and the Gandy (with tolls, of course), hopefully taking a hell of a lot of traffic off local roads. Enjoy your traffic, Westshore NIMBYs. This is all we really wanted: 
Varance fucked around with this message at 14:45 on Dec 17, 2012 |
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Dec 17, 2012 04:45
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grover posted:It's also untrue. The infrastructure throughout much of Europe is far worse than in most of the US. I don't really care for the article, local context and all that jazz, but these are just hollow statements if you aren't able to quantify them.
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Dec 17, 2012 05:27
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Cichlidae posted:The German exchange students we had were utterly shocked at one of our monthly power outages - they'd never seen one in their entire lives.
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Dec 17, 2012 14:58
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smackfu posted:I think housing density is a huge factor here too. There are plenty of roads in Connecticut where there is one power line following the road on poles, and that is the only utilities service those houses have, and it may go for miles and then dead-end. Upgrading all those to buried lines seems like it would be excessively expensive. All it takes is one tree limb to knock out power to all those houses. Oh wait, this is America, half the time we don't replace our infrastructure until it fails. We got terribly lucky in Tampa this past year when a catastrophic failure took out the water main for all of New Tampa (500,000 residents) - City of Tampa had a replacement water main nearly completed due to the existing one reaching end of life and operating at maximum capacity, so all they had to do was complete the switchover early instead of repairing it. Otherwise, a huge chunk of Hillsborough County would have been without water for a month. Varance fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Dec 17, 2012 |
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Dec 17, 2012 15:39
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Yeah way back in the day my very dense (by NA standards) city had the utility company offer to go 50/50 with he city to bury all the lines but the city was too cheap to do it. We get at least a few nearly full days a year of the power out every time there's wind (because the city also has its hands tied by literal tree-huggers that will protest and tie them selves to sick trees overhanging power-lines that NEED to be cut down for safety). It also just randomly goes out nearly every month for at least a few hours for seemingly no reason. There was a car fire 10km away, there was a leaking water main in another district, they forgot to turn it back on after doing some upkeep and can't send anyone turn it back on till next shift. It's always some really stupid reason and it's always really far away.
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Dec 17, 2012 17:33
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Utility outages in the UK are mostly linked to big storms or floods. Blackouts or brownouts not related to those are basically unheard of. That said our government, as the UK is wont to do, is taking a leaf out of the US' book and has been skimping on infrastructure spending. That and the government energy policy is in a total muddle so we might have them in the future should politicians not get their act in gear. We dodged a bullet since a potential supply crunch coincided with the economic slowdown (which reduced demand) and a rise in efficiency. Water quality has gone up in leaps and bounds since I moved to the UK. When I moved there in the late 90s opening a tap in London gave you a wonderfully strong whiff of Chlorine... http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/feb/29/uk-power-blackouts-now-unlikely Munin fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Dec 17, 2012 |
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Dec 17, 2012 17:44
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Cichlidae posted:
Given that MA is going to open road tolling in the next few years, would you do anything differently to the design?
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Dec 17, 2012 22:55
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Chaos Motor posted:I-49 signs are up all along US 71 from KC to Harrisonville, at least. If only Rep. Cleaver would stop blocking attempts to remove the traffic signals & replace with over/underpasses, we could have I-49 all the way up, which would mean that we'd have I-49, I-29, I-35, and I-70 all running through KC. Isn't there a court order preventing highway overpasses from being built along the stretch of suburban KC?
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Dec 17, 2012 22:57
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Kahta posted:Isn't there a court order preventing highway overpasses from being built along the stretch of suburban KC? Yes there is. I found a good writeup of the history of the highway here: http://www.pitch.com/kansascity/road-rage/Content?oid=2177879
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Dec 17, 2012 23:47
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That is an excellent summary, yes. And I might note that while publicly Cleaver claims to support removal, privately I understand that Cleaver is responsible for the toxic status of any bills or other legislation to actually resolve the situation. Reason being, his support for intersections helped put him into the Mayor's seat and then the Representative's seat. To go back on his earlier positions is to go back on his supporters that got him elected, who are very old, and reliable voters. Basically, the word in Jeff City is that Cleaver will have to die of old age before it's fixed. Chaos Motor fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Dec 18, 2012 |
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Dec 18, 2012 01:04
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Chaos Motor posted:To go back on his earlier positions is to go back on his supporters that got him elected.
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Dec 18, 2012 01:16
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How do you decide if a shopping center is worthy of a traffic light?
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Dec 18, 2012 01:21
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nimper posted:The article does note that public sentiment in the immediate area of those intersections is generally now in favor of fixing the road, and that was even back in 2005. I can only imagine that it's even more in favor now. I admit that I'm not an expert on local KC politics since I don't live there, but what does Cleaver have to lose if an increasing number of people in his district are in favor of fixing it? I edited in a detail that might change things. Cleaver has his voting base to lose, the elderly black voters who are his core support, and still live in the post-Civil-Rights era mindset that white people are out to screw them. Yes, that may have been true at the time, but attitudes have changed. The younger people support a more reasonable, intersection solution, but they also don't vote like Cleaver's base, who were politically active during the original fights about this, and remember it well. Words are words, but Cleaver actually supporting an overpass-solution would make him a traitor to a big chunk of the people who actively vote for him, while any gains he'd get are from people who drive through the area, and aren't able to vote in his district. Why does Chiclidae always complain about the local DOTs doing bone-headed things that make sense to locals but screw over pass-through traffic? Same thing - pass-through traffic can't vote for you, locals can. quote:The article does note that public sentiment in the immediate area of those intersections is generally now in favor of fixing the road, This in the immediate vicinity, or directly affected by an accident, yes, but his district is larger than the immediate vicinity, and many voters are focused on his representation of the black community, and the intersections were an attempt for the black community to stand up for itself. Going back on that now is a sign of defeat to many of the people who were there for the initial fight. Remember, people don't change their positions, they just eventually die.
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Dec 18, 2012 01:28
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SlothfulCobra posted:How do you decide if a shopping center is worthy of a traffic light? The Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices spells out 9 "warrants" which are cases where installing a traffic light would be appropriate. For a shopping center, it would probably be one of the first 4 warrants, for vehicle or pedestrian volumes. http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part4/part4c.htm Warrant 1, Eight-Hour Vehicular Volume Warrant 2, Four-Hour Vehicular Volume Warrant 3, Peak Hour Warrant 4, Pedestrian Volume Warrant 5, School Crossing Warrant 6, Coordinated Signal System Warrant 7, Crash Experience Warrant 8, Roadway Network Warrant 9, Intersection Near a Grade Crossing
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Dec 18, 2012 15:08
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SlothfulCobra posted:How do you decide if a shopping center is worthy of a traffic light? Aside from the signal warrants Devor just mentioned, you need to take into context the political climate in the town. Sometimes a shopping center isn't enough to warrant a signal by itself, but you feel it will attract more development, so you cut a deal with the developer to upgrade the intersection, splitting the cost. This benefits both parties. On the other hand, even if a shopping center does meet the warrants, they'll often try to avoid installing a signal, since they're on the hook for the cost. Developers will typically hire a consultant to fudge the analysis so that it shows no impact - sometimes they'll even show their development reducing traffic. Developers are notorious for that, and unfortunately, the unit at the DOT that reviews their analyses will typically just let it slide. Then we end up with really congested driveways. Sorry I've been so busy lately, guys. I swear I'm doing 4 times as much work as anyone else in my office...
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Dec 18, 2012 22:40
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This map is illegible at 800px, so... Behold our new route numbers! Numbers in the loosest sense of the term, of course.
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Dec 20, 2012 01:27
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I do love the hexagons. They'll even save the sign shop some money, since you can cut a bunch out of one sheet without much wastage.
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Dec 20, 2012 01:38
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Cichlidae posted:This map is illegible at 800px, so... Looking good, map of an imaginary place that's taken over an A/T thread.  So what's next for this game? I recall you mentioning earlier that the purpose of this game was for us to come up with a route-numbering system, and now that's done. Do we get to keep going?
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Dec 20, 2012 04:33
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What's next? Depression! Suburbia! Freeway wars! Oil shock! Exurbia! Depression!
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Dec 20, 2012 10:25
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Hedera Helix posted:Looking good, map of an imaginary place that's taken over an A/T thread. Pffft, it's hardly taken over the thread. Things seem about 50/50 at this point. And woe unto all who think that the routes will only be numbered once! Connecticut's roads have gone through 5 renumberings.
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Dec 20, 2012 13:11
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You have to keep sign painters employed somehow.  Btw, how did roadsigns etc change over time? Is signage still rudimentary to non-existent?
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Dec 20, 2012 14:33
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Munin posted:You have to keep sign painters employed somehow. The US Highway shield comes into use in 1927, MUTCD in 1935, international road signs in the late 1950s. Varance fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Dec 20, 2012 |
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Dec 20, 2012 18:59
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A quick cross-over from the Comic Strip Megathread today: Can anyone solve the mystery?
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Dec 21, 2012 03:02
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Cichlidae posted:A quick cross-over from the Comic Strip Megathread today: He would turn right because there is a man waiting to give him a present 
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Dec 21, 2012 03:24
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Volmarias posted:He would turn right because there is a man waiting to give him a present Also, odd that the only sign there points to Waterford, not Waterbury.
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Dec 21, 2012 03:26
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grover posted:no, he'd turn right because his GPS says to, duh There is no PND on that scooter, geez.
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Dec 21, 2012 03:27
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Cichlidae posted:A quick cross-over from the Comic Strip Megathread today: Given that it's where he just came from, he'd put the post back up so that the sign for Bristol is pointing toward the road he just traveled. I think? Hedera Helix fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 03:32
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Hedera Helix posted:Given that it's where he just came from, he'd put the sign back up so that the sign for Bristol is pointing towards the road he just traveled. I think?
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Dec 21, 2012 03:35
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Hedera Helix posted:Given that it's where he just came from, he'd put the post back up so that the sign for Bristol is pointing toward the road he just traveled. I think? The sign would then be incorrect for at least two directions 
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Dec 21, 2012 03:50
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Varance posted:The US Highway shield comes into use in 1927, MUTCD in 1935, international road signs in the late 1950s. Quick follow-up to this: Here's the 1927 AASHTO Sign Manual, expanded in 1931. Also, the 1935 MUTCD. You can find other revisions that will be helpful throughout the game here. Edit: The 1961 MUTCD is a fun read, especially the civil defense portion. "Maintain top safe speed" signs for an irradiated area? Sounds like a good idea. Varance fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 03:52
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So here's a new one. Well, one I'm sure the engineers have seen. Last night we had some nasty storms roll through. The lightning did some new and interesting things to all the traffic lights around work. Most of them were dark when I left work, several were in flashing-red mode. One of them was flashing red, then would appear to reboot, and every-loving-light would go green and yellow, then immediately back to flashing red for a few minutes. I called the city about it, they had someone on-scene within about 15 minutes. I watched him from the parking lot, it looked like he swapped a card in the cabinet to get the lights working again. This light was 2 miles from the intersections I describe below, in the same jurisdiction (same city, same zip code, same street), and I called them in at the same time. The area I work in borders another city. Nearly every light along that border was either dark or flashing red when I left work at 11pm last night. At 6pm today, all of those lights were still flashing red. This is one of the busiest roads in the area, traffic was backed up for 2-3 miles in every direction and made getting to work an absolute nightmare. Even the traffic people on the radio was commenting how odd it was that most lights got fixed rather quickly (300+ lights not working last night, down to a dozen by 6pm), but the ones along the border with this city were still hosed. And it was limited to the ones that bordered this particular city. The traffic folks on the radio even mentioned they'd talked to the police from the neighboring city, who were expressing frustration that not only was Dallas stonewalling on sending someone out to fix the lights (they all got fixed at once, as rush hour was easing up, so I assume it was some kind of communications issue between the controllers), but DPD was also flat out refusing to help them direct traffic. DPD provides traffic control for several apartment complexes in the same area during rush hour, and they were still doing that today (please kill me if I ever move into a complex on a road busy enough to require 4-6 uniformed cops to direct traffic around it during rush hour). Am I being too  in thinking maybe there's some passive-aggressive poo poo going on between the two cities? And shouldn't the controllers have some sort of fallback program installed, along with a remote reboot capability? I was stuck in traffic within sight of the controller cabinet by one of the intersections when they came back to life, and there wasn't anybody near the equipment - and I could see another 2 lights that had been flashing also come back to life at the same time.
randomidiot fucked around with this message at 11:53 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 21, 2012 11:41
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Reminds me of the time all of the traffic lights on campus were showing Green, Yellow and Red simultaneously for about 5 mins before resetting, then doing it again a few minutes later. Did that for half a day, nightmarish chaos, lots of finger pointing.
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Dec 21, 2012 11:45
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The one that was going multi-color would only do that for a couple of seconds before going dark, then coming back as flashing red in all directions, I assume the conflict monitor was going "WHAT THE gently caress ARE YOU DOING YOU SUICIDAL BASTARD?!?!". Seemed like the whole process would start over every 2-3 minutes. When a city is fixing lower traffic intersections ahead of high volume intersections bordering one specific city, and even the news people on the radio take notice, and go so far as to interview the police department in that specific city and get a lot of "WTF" from said interview...
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Dec 21, 2012 11:58
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some texas redneck posted:The one that was going multi-color would only do that for a couple of seconds before going dark, then coming back as flashing red in all directions, I assume the conflict monitor was going "WHAT THE gently caress ARE YOU DOING YOU SUICIDAL BASTARD?!?!". Seemed like the whole process would start over every 2-3 minutes. Someone cut back on funding. They are regretting this.
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Dec 21, 2012 13:50
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Varance posted:Quick follow-up to this: Here's the 1927 AASHTO Sign Manual, expanded in 1931. Also, the 1935 MUTCD. You can find other revisions that will be helpful throughout the game here. Well I know what I'm doing with my weekend.
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Dec 21, 2012 14:16
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Cichlidae posted:A quick cross-over from the Comic Strip Megathread today: Considering the traffic and construction at this time of the day on the Waterbury road he'd continue straight then take the I4 and save half an hour.
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Dec 21, 2012 14:27
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some texas redneck posted:Am I being too This is a pretty common thing, though it's not always so obvious. I have a good little example. This is the intersection of New Park Avenue and Flatbush Avenue. You can see some Busway construction on the southeast corner of the intersection; a bus station is going there, and Flatbush Ave is going to be elevated over the track. The line between West Hartford and Hartford runs north-south, just to the east of the intersection. West Hartford owns and maintains the signal, since it's all town roads. During the Busway design, we had to look at the grade crossing to the south, where Oakwood Avenue crosses the tracks. The Busway is going in right next to the tracks, and we had to analyze the need for pre-emption at the Oakwood - New Park Avenue signal. Pre-empting the one signal is easy enough, but the question is whether traffic from the two downstream signals would back up, which would mean cars turning off Oakwood would have nowhere to go, even if the signal were green. We ran the whole area through Synchro, as we normally do, to see how bad the backups would be in 2030. As expected, New Park Ave was bumper-to-bumper. Just to make sure the simulation was realistic, we loaded it with today's numbers. It still backed up, thanks to the signal at Flatbush. One problem, though: New Park Avenue doesn't really back up. So now we had a mystery! Turns out, West Hartford times the signal to prioritize traffic leaving the town. Flatbush Ave WB gets less green time than optimal, and New Park Ave gets more, which means no congestion in West Hartford and plenty in Hartford. Incidentally, we also installed railroad pre-emption at that signal years ago, and they disconnected it, which is pretty drat unethical.
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Dec 22, 2012 04:16
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In the case of these intersections, one is timed so that east/west traffic gets the same green time, with a dedicated left turn signal east/west (north/south are on their own individual phases). North/south (which isn't nearly as busy) doesn't get as much time as east/west, which is understandable. The intersection 1/4 of a mile west of this one prioritizes north/south traffic (as the tollroad runs north/south), but all of the timings appear to make sense, it's just a really loving busy area. There's a ton of businesses and homes in the area, on both sides of the border, so there's no real reason to prioritize in one direction. There's another intersection nearby that makes me want to kick babies though. To turn left, you have to have a green arrow, in all directions. No biggie, north/south is the busier road and gets plenty of time for everything. East/west is still a 6 lane road (just like the north/south), but you get a green arrow just long enough for 2 cars to get through before it goes to yellow, which just results in a shitload of rear-end collisions at that intersection (and a shitload of people running the light). It's not on the border with the next city, it's just setup in a way that doesn't make much sense to me. At least 1/4 of the delivery orders into my store will send one of our drivers through that intersection (store is SW of it, so you have to turn left to get back), and there's no real way to get around going through that light.  Volmarias posted:Someone cut back on funding. They are regretting this. Doesn't explain why lights in far lower traffic areas got fixed first - those areas were also further from the city core. The light right in front of my store was fixed within 30 minutes, the two a mile away (one of the busiest roads in Dallas) were flashing for about 20 hours.
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Dec 22, 2012 09:08
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some texas redneck posted:
It was a sim city joke 
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Dec 22, 2012 16:05
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Near sighted transportation project implementations resulting from contractor ignorance, nepotism, lack of review or political motives burden citizens throughout the lifespan of the design. Inefficient designs waste time and money, and those of us who understand good infrastructure standards must communicate the importance back to the top. One of these days I'll do a write-up on the northwest Houston area, because the following run rampant there:
Even switching to LED lighting and flashing many intersections at night would save energy and allow the city to shift money toward more creative improvements. It's simply a practical application of technology and standards for the better. grillster fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Dec 23, 2012 |
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Dec 23, 2012 06:08
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