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Mandalay posted:Me too. Programmers make a shitload more and work less hours than small business operators, I've learned. Assuming that you work for a good company, know what you're doing, have a steady product, have a good manager, have good upper management, know to ask for a good salary, live in an area with a high COL, etc. You also don't get much in the way of rewards for working your butt off compared to owning your own business, although the risk of losing your shirt isn't there.
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Feb 11, 2013 23:07
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've actually got a professor who keeps saying that the buttons on crosswalks are just there for superstitious reasons, and the buttons don't actually work.
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Feb 14, 2013 00:14
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Ok can someone actually please explain german crosswalks? I kept "pressing" the "buttons" but have no idea what it did and felt like an idiot every time. But when I stopped doing it sometimes I'd see other people touching them too, other stupid tourists or is there some sort of secret to it all? At some intersections I actually felt fairly confused and unsafe by how un-intuitive the process was.
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Feb 14, 2013 00:22
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Mandalay posted:You can upgrade stops in CiM by just building over with the fancier stop. e.g. place a bus stop with shelter on top of bus stop with just a sign. We call that "BRT". 
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Feb 14, 2013 02:58
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Crackpipe posted:We call that "BRT".
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Feb 14, 2013 03:54
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Varance posted:Sounds like you're talking about Tampa... or is "Bus Regular Transit" spreading like some kind of plague? It's spreading: http://www.flickr.com/photos/woneffe/4353721063/ To top it off - 60' buses on a good day. 40' buses when it snows. (they bought articulated buses with rear-wheel drive... whoops).
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Feb 14, 2013 06:21
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Baronjutter posted:Ok can someone actually please explain german crosswalks? I kept "pressing" the "buttons" but have no idea what it did and felt like an idiot every time. But when I stopped doing it sometimes I'd see other people touching them too, other stupid tourists or is there some sort of secret to it all? At some intersections I actually felt fairly confused and unsafe by how un-intuitive the process was. edit: I'll alert a German thread to this pressing issue.
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Feb 14, 2013 15:17
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Baronjutter posted:Ok can someone actually please explain german crosswalks? I kept "pressing" the "buttons" but have no idea what it did and felt like an idiot every time. But when I stopped doing it sometimes I'd see other people touching them too, other stupid tourists or is there some sort of secret to it all? At some intersections I actually felt fairly confused and unsafe by how un-intuitive the process was. The fun part is that it's not really consistent. Some, mostly older ones, have a button that actually switch the lights. Then there are the newer ones where pressing the button will only add the beeping for blind people but not actually change the waiting time. Sometimes it's both. If there's a button, people here will usually press it, just in case it might make the lights switch faster. Or they just cross if there are no cars in sight 
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Feb 14, 2013 15:36
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Entropist posted:I think people hit all of them just in case, I've seen Germans do that too, unless they know the place well I guess. Well it depends on the purpose of the traffic light, some lights are on a set schedule or get controlled centrally. Those can have buttons to increase the noise/activate it for blind people. Some Trafic lights only change their colors IF the button is pressed, but you only see that lights on low traffic areas. Personally I got one On demand Traffic light on my daily route which is only used to allow people cross the street at a Busstop close to a big furniture store (IKEA). It's only needed during the evenings when traffic picks up AND a lot of people may arrive at the Bus stop. To sum it up: Never not press the button.
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Feb 14, 2013 16:31
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What he said. Just press the button. On high traffic crossings the lights will be on a set timer no matter if you press the button or not, but that can also change depending on the time of day.
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Feb 14, 2013 16:37
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Crackpipe posted:It's spreading: http://www.flickr.com/photos/woneffe/4353721063/ To be fair there are some actual grade-separated and tunneled (!) portions of the Silver Line near South station. But yes I imagine the Silver Line west of South station is some kind of clusterfuck. Five different branches of a short BRT line (last time I was there, 2-3 years ago).
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Feb 14, 2013 18:39
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Mandalay posted:To be fair there are some actual grade-separated and tunneled (!) portions of the Silver Line near South station. The Silver Line tunnel is so narrow that buses traversing it actually go slower than they do in mixed traffic. The average tunnel speed is 14 mph. It cost over $700 million to build.
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Feb 14, 2013 21:09
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Crackpipe posted:The Silver Line tunnel is so narrow that buses traversing it actually go slower than they do in mixed traffic. The average tunnel speed is 14 mph. It cost over $700 million to build. Wow. Traffic Engineer, how did they gently caress that up so badly?
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Feb 14, 2013 22:05
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That's insane, how does a gently caress up that bad even happen? Did they switch to larger equipment after it was planned or something?
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Feb 14, 2013 22:12
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1. It's Massachusetts 2. It was part of The Big Dig i.e: Corruption and incompetence. I should also mention that ruts began forming in the concrete almost immediately. Spalling followed. They started patching it a few years after the concrete began shedding aggregate. The roadway is always wet, regardless of the weather. The ride quality has a charming, dirt road feel. On top of this, the buses in the underground segment had to be hybrid models that run on both overhead electric wires and diesel fuel. All of the custom design work and bug-fixing essentially bankrupted the manufacturer. The added equipment also takes up a lot of space. Which means less passenger room. Fantastic job, all-around. Crackpipe fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Feb 14, 2013 |
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Feb 14, 2013 22:31
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So ... they didn't just buy the ones that places like Switzerland have been using for decades then?
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Feb 14, 2013 22:54
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Wolfsbane posted:So ... they didn't just buy the ones that places like Switzerland have been using for decades then? It's illegal to buy foreign-built transit vehicles with Federal money. A Swiss company would've had to build a factory in MA to make only 32 buses or something.
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Feb 14, 2013 23:06
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I understand the reasoning for "Buy American" rules, but it ends up creating some serious horseshit when it comes to transit. And in the few instances when foreign firms take a chance and build a factory to server a growing market, they get hosed (like Talgo in Wisconsin). So we end up with Oregon Ironworks making absolutely awful streetcars because nobody else can do it. Our local light rail line used Bombadier cars made in Canada or France for phase 1, and our phase 2 vehicles are Siemens which I think are made in Germany. Not sure how we're getting away with that.
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Feb 14, 2013 23:25
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You can beg for a Buy American exception. It's rare, but it happens. Both Bombardier and Siemens have a lot of existing infrastructure in the U.S. I'm pretty sure they build the cars in their respective countries and then send them to the U.S. for final assembly. I can't remember if the other players like Kinki do everything here, or just the bare minimum.
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Feb 14, 2013 23:31
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Yeah there's some ways you can get around it. Ship the thing in a few parts and then it's AMERICAN JOBS building trains, the raw materials were just imported from other countries. The raw materials being "a finished train" and "some stickers that needed to be applied". Ok not that bad but sometimes it's nearly at that level.
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Feb 14, 2013 23:39
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I think the bodies/frames of the some of the new NYC subway cars are made in Brazil and get all the seats, transmission, etc added on in the States. Though I am only going by a segment of a show aired on Science Channel.
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Feb 15, 2013 00:19
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FISHMANPET posted:I understand the reasoning for "Buy American" rules, but it ends up creating some serious horseshit when it comes to transit. To be fair, if your choice is between light rail Siemens and anything else, you probably want to go with 'anything else': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combino quote:On March 12, 2004, Siemens admitted to problems concerning the stability of the car bodies and, as a precautionary measure, instructed all public transportation services to take all Combinos with a service distance of more than 120,000 kilometres (74,565 mi) out of service. Torsion forces generated in S-curves were much higher than anticipated, leading to cracks around the articulations between the car modules. Subsequently, hairline cracks were found in the joints of the aluminium bodies, which could cause the roof to collapse in the case of an accident. (...)The cost of the rebuild programme was put at €400m.
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Feb 15, 2013 02:17
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Terminal Entropy posted:I think the bodies/frames of the some of the new NYC subway cars are made in Brazil and get all the seats, transmission, etc added on in the States. Though I am only going by a segment of a show aired on Science Channel. This is correct. The same is true of virtually all of the foreign transit vehicle manufacturers - they create the base vehicle in their home country and ship it to the States for buildout (seats, lighting, power plant, etc.). As an example, Bombardier Bi-Level Cars are partially built in Thunder Bay, Ontario and are shipped to Plattsburgh, New York for assembly. This is what they look like during the transition between plants:  (Florida/SunRail, Ontario/GO Transit)  The same technique is used for Nova, New Flyer and (previously) Orion transit buses - Canadian built, American assembled. Canadian and European transit manufactures have been eating American companies alive in the transit vehicle market for decades now, ever since Flxible (defective products), Budd (sold out to Bombardier) and GM (dumb management) left the market. The only big players in the US are Gillig and MCI - and both cater to a very narrow category of products (low floors and coaches, respectively). ElDorado, Neoplan and NABI are... just as bad as Flxible before it folded. In the rail space, there is NO viable producer, which is why you see companies like Siemens and Alstom getting waivers left and right. ----------------- True story: all of Bombardier's highly successful product designs (Bi-Level coaches, Vancouver's SkyTrain cars, NYC's R142 subway cars, Toronto's T1 subway cars, etc.) were acquired from Adtranz, Budd and UTDC. Their modern in-house designed stuff from the last two decades has been terrible poo poo, which is why you see lots of Siemens, Kawasaki, Mitsubishi and Alstom popping up around the States - Bombardier is on their way out of the market if they stop getting sweetheart deals from Toronto. Varance fucked around with this message at 04:57 on Feb 15, 2013 |
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Feb 15, 2013 02:34
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Baronjutter posted:Yeah there's some ways you can get around it. Ship the thing in a few parts and then it's AMERICAN JOBS building trains, the raw materials were just imported from other countries. The raw materials being "a finished train" and "some stickers that needed to be applied". Ok not that bad but sometimes it's nearly at that level. https://www.acquisition.gov/far/01-07/html/Subpart_25_4.html There's another special piece of legislation that deals JUST with mass transit that I'm not so up on, though.
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Feb 15, 2013 02:35
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Crackpipe posted:1. It's Massachusetts I really wish I'd been able to sit in on the "Big Dig Lessons Learned" presentation at URI. Unfortunately, I had an awards ceremony for French at the same time, and I followed the free pizza. I've only ridden the Silver Line once, on the way to Logan to fly out to France, and it was back when the tunnel ceilings were collapsing so the bus had to take some weird detour. My impression of Boston's transportation infrastructure is, on the whole, quite negative. Hell, once I waited for nearly an hour at Quincy Adams for the T, and ended up half an hour late for Blue Man Group. Do you know what they do when you show up late for BMG?
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Feb 15, 2013 03:07
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Hadn't heard much of anything about The Big Dig since watching its episode of Extreme Engineering around a decade ago on Discovery Channel, so I looked it up on Wikipedia to read about the problems that have been mentioned in the thread. Parts of it read like a divine comedy:quote:Further investigation revealed that the fixture's mounting apparatus had failed, due to galvanic corrosion of incompatible metals, caused by having aluminum in direct contact with stainless steel, in the presence of salt water. 
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Feb 15, 2013 03:38
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John Dough posted:To be fair, if your choice is between light rail Siemens and anything else, you probably want to go with 'anything else': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combino Welp, our Type I trains were Bombadier Flexity Swifts, and our new Type II cars are Siemens S70/Avanto. Glad to see we're buying cars that in Europe are built to travel along with full size trains.
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Feb 15, 2013 03:49
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Cichlidae posted:Hell, once I waited for nearly an hour at Quincy Adams for the T, and ended up half an hour late for Blue Man Group. Do you know what they do when you show up late for BMG?  ...?
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Feb 15, 2013 03:50
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Hahaha, everyone tells me I'm a dead ringer for David Cross. Guess I know what I'm doing for Halloween this year.
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Feb 15, 2013 04:08
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Cichlidae posted:Do you know what they do when you show up late for BMG? I recall you bringing this up earlier. So what does happen when you show up late for the blue man group..?
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Feb 15, 2013 04:56
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Remember a while back when we were talking about road illusions? While they've been around since the 2004 MUTCD, painting interstate shields onto roadways is all the rage now. We just installed our first set in Florida, in the I-4/I-75 interchange. While I don't take pictures while driving at 70 MPH, it looks similar to the ones used in California, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, etc, but with a greater degree of optical illusion and reflective paint. Something like these, which were installed in San Diego late last year:  The ones we painted tend to pop a bit better than the ones in the picture. It's almost like having a heads-up display in your car... though I do have to wonder how well the old people will take it. Varance fucked around with this message at 05:42 on Feb 15, 2013 |
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Feb 15, 2013 05:38
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"No way man, I'm not driving anymore, I am playing a game now, gnarly  "Exchange roads for I-10 and I-17 through Phoenix have the respective numbers painted on the highway in a similar fashion, which is really nice.
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Feb 15, 2013 05:53
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Cichlidae posted:I really wish I'd been able to sit in on the "Big Dig Lessons Learned" presentation at URI. Unfortunately, I had an awards ceremony for French at the same time, and I followed the free pizza. The detour you took was the ramp that leads directly from the Silver Line busway to the Ted Williams Tunnel / Logan Airport. Unfortunately, once the hosed tunnel was "fixed" (I don't trust their work at all) and the detour was no longer necessary, the State Police have said they don't want anyone else using it. Despite the fact they didn't actually build it. So now the buses have to leave the busway and drive 1/3 of the way back the way the came to get on the highway to Logan. The MBTA also wants to spent tens of millions to dig a bus tunnel under this intersection a few feet away because right now they have to wait up to 5 minutes with no oncoming traffic. There are loop sensors. The Department of Transportation steadfastly refuses to even consider reprogramming the light controller. So buses will keep on waiting until they can find a massive sum of money they don't need to fix it.
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Feb 15, 2013 06:18
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mamosodiumku posted:I recall you bringing this up earlier. So what does happen when you show up late for the blue man group..? They bring you out in front of everyone, parade you down the aisle, play the "You're late!" song, and berate you for paying hundreds of bucks for tickets and then missing half the performance. Varance posted:Remember a while back when we were talking about road illusions? Yeah, Sweden's used similar markings. I wonder how they look while you're in motion. Varance posted:While they've been around since the 2004 MUTCD, painting interstate shields onto roadways is all the rage now. We just installed our first set in Florida, in the I-4/I-75 interchange. While I don't take pictures while driving at 70 MPH, it looks similar to the ones used in California, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, etc, but with a greater degree of optical illusion and reflective paint. I love those. The only ones we've installed in Connecticut so far were temporary, meant to replace a sign support we'd torn down on the Bulkeley Bridge. They're gone now, but people seemed to really appreciate them - especially the elderly. Crackpipe posted:The detour you took was the ramp that leads directly from the Silver Line busway to the Ted Williams Tunnel / Logan Airport. That's our MBTA! I see the mismanagement hasn't changed with the MassDOT merge, eh?
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Feb 15, 2013 13:29
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Cichlidae posted:
Honestly they should be mandatory or something. It's really nice when you're going through an intersection more complex then just a ramp on the right, especially if they start the guide markings a couple of miles ahead of the complex one.
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Feb 15, 2013 16:39
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One of the more complicated local interchanges has the shields on the asphalt. It's awesome, and I wish they would do that for anything more complicated than "ramp right".
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Feb 15, 2013 17:09
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I went through I-4/I-75 again today, and they've painted more. There's 3 of them in a row now, on the exit ramps before the directional split. Definitely an improvement and something the state needs to add to other interchanges. I'll try to dig up and/or bribe someone to take a picture sometime next week. For reference, I-4/I-75 is a 2-level turbine interchange. Directly to the west is a mess of highway where I-4 meets US 301 and US 92, which is a hybrid of cloverleaf and basketweave interchange design. The complex at the west end of the image is the Florida State Fair, with the Seminole Hard Rock Casino (4th largest in the US) located between I-4 and US 92, to the north of the fair. Both interchanges were well designed and maintain A/B LOS over a decade later (even during the fair, which is on right now), but can be confusing for non-locals to navigate. For example, you can get spun around in the opposite direction if you take the cloverleaf by accident and use the next ramp to get back on the interstate - intentional, as US 92 passes through the I-75 turbine with no interchange. I'm hoping we'll get some road decals through there soon. 
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Feb 16, 2013 02:24
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Terminal Entropy posted:Hadn't heard much of anything about The Big Dig since watching its episode of Extreme Engineering around a decade ago on Discovery Channel, so I looked it up on Wikipedia to read about the problems that have been mentioned in the thread. Parts of it read like a divine comedy: Would you believe that the statue of an engineering fraternity (can't recall which one) in front of my Alma Mater is constructed of a bronze head on an iron bar with a steel bolt adjoining them? Oh, and it's base has burst because of galvanic corrosion? Seriously guys you're a loving engineering fraternity and you choose three incompatible metals for your loving statue!?!?
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Feb 16, 2013 20:18
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Some pretty cool research done in Massachusetts. It's not just bad things there!! Understanding Road Usage Patterns in Urban Areas
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Feb 18, 2013 15:31
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I've just gotten into this thread and I don't know if you guys can help me with one doubt I've had for a long time. Sorry if this has been asked before. I'm currently living in Mexico City, one of the largest/crowded cities in the world and all that poo poo. The current government is implementing a public transportation system named METROBUS, which is basically get rid of all the public buses in the most used avuenues in the city (usually very large ones that go from North-South, East-West) and replace it with a very large two cart bus that has one lane exclusively assigned to it on each direction. It has designed stops and is eco-friendly. As the name implies, it is like a metro/subway system with buses. Many people here think that it was a terrible idea because it takes one lane off from the standard 3 on each direction, so cars have only 2 lanes to work with, and that this system is always overcrowded at peak hours, so it is normal to wait for the 3rd of 4th bus to arrive to finally get in. There are currently 4 lines working as of now, but the long term plan is to add another 4 in the near future. The government has not released any information to back up this plan that I know of, and many people believe corruption is involved in here. Is this really viable for a large city like Mexico City? I know I'm not giving much information on this but maybe you have seen this system work on another large city. This is only one of the reasons why my comutes are 1+ hours at peak time. And don't get me started on the rest of the problems that my beloved third world city has.
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Feb 18, 2013 18:22
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