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They widened the road and then put the lines back where they were originally making the widened road ineffective.
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Sep 10, 2013 21:12
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Koesj posted:Imagine if they hadn't done the spiraling trick and that bridge had to touch down somewhere half a kilometer inland. I'd say the hassle of clearing out a smallish block is a lot less than securing the ROW for a longass corridor, communist country or not. That's a fair point. I should have been more specific, when I said "huge" in my mind I meant how tall and imposing the thing is, less about the plot it sits on. When you drive into the thing and look across at three levels of traffic just spiraling along and then two other levels crossing below you with open sky above it's pretty impressive. You make a good point, I think the reason it's the way it is has to do with them squeezing in a ringroad parallel to a bridge that is built super tall to let ships pass underneath. The thing is cool.
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Sep 10, 2013 21:17
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sincx fucked around with this message at 06:32 on Mar 23, 2021 |
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Sep 10, 2013 21:46
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Lead out in cuffs posted:I'm curious as to why you think a $70 fine is high? I'm pretty sure nearly all of that would be swallowed up by administrative costs. (1 dollar/mph over)^2 sounds OK, though -- $100 for 10 over, $400 for 20 over, and probably not bothering to prosecute for much less. That all said, I'm pretty sure nobody gets fined for going 1mph (or even 5mph) over the limit, as it can be (and is) argued in court that it's within the measurement error of the apparatus.
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Sep 10, 2013 23:34
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Pook Good Mook posted:I checked for this as best I could but being that it's a huge topic apologies if it's been covered: I think it's very elegant. Good luck getting that kind of elevation gain without taking up more space; circles are pretty darn efficient. Devor posted:I'm a bit confused as to what I'm supposed to be seeing here. I should have clarified: that's a ways past the work zone. I don't have any pictures from the immediate area. The part that was redone is fresh asphalt, whereas that's clearly old. People are driving on the fresh asphalt (which is good) but then getting confused when the pavement ends. They're having the same issue on another one of my projects, and we had to stick out a bunch of drums to channelize them properly. Another unrelated picture: This is what rural signs look like.  Lead out in cuffs posted:I'm curious as to why you think a $70 fine is high? Presumably, with automated enforcement, you'd handle things the same way open electronic tolling or automated parking is done. Get a bill at the end of the month (or year) with the fines you've racked up, or pay them automatically by credit card or debit. Everything's headed that way, so it's only a matter of time. But I don't want to get a $70 ticket every time I pass a speeding camera when they're all over the place.
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Sep 11, 2013 03:12
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The Lincoln Tunnel Helix works really well too: The full 360 degrees are completed within the tunnel itself. The Helix structure starts at about 175 feet elevation coming off of the Bergen Hill, drops down to 13 feet elevation at the toll plaza, and completes within the tunnel at about 50 feet underground (with the bottom point of the tunnel coming at about 97 feet under).
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Sep 11, 2013 03:46
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Interesting and entertaining video about unreasonably low speed limits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BKdbxX1pDw What specific references should I be citing to my local governments when bitching about unreasonably low speed limits violating federal guidelines, etc? Anyone have a nice canned paragraph with specific MUTCD references we can fill-in-the-blanks on and shoot off to the appropriate engineers? grover fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Sep 14, 2013 |
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Sep 14, 2013 22:13
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How common are casualties in road crew workers, from getting run over? I get a feeling that it must happen all the time. Anyway, here's a Swedish robotic arm that paints road markings. Apologies for the Google translation, but I think you can make sense of most of it. http://translate.google.se/translat...icle3759897.ece quote:Longitudinal lines on the roadway have long been painted with machines. But arrows, speed limits and pedestrian crossings have been painted entirely by hand. Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Sep 15, 2013 |
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Sep 15, 2013 08:44
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grover posted:What specific references should I be citing to my local governments when bitching about unreasonably low speed limits violating federal guidelines, etc? Anyone have a nice canned paragraph with specific MUTCD references we can fill-in-the-blanks on and shoot off to the appropriate engineers? MUTCD sez: Section 2B.13 Speed Limit Sign (R2-1) Standard: 01 Speed zones (other than statutory speed limits) shall only be established on the basis of an engineering study that has been performed in accordance with traffic engineering practices. The engineering study shall include an analysis of the current speed distribution of free-flowing vehicles. 12 When a speed limit within a speed zone is posted, it should be within 5 mph of the 85th-percentile speed of free-flowing traffic. 13 Speed studies for signalized intersection approaches should be taken outside the influence area of the traffic control signal, which is generally considered to be approximately 1/2 mile, to avoid obtaining skewed results for the 85th-percentile speed. Support: 14 Advance warning signs and other traffic control devices to attract the motorist's attention to a signalized intersection are usually more effective than a reduced speed limit zone. Hippie Hedgehog posted:How common are casualties in road crew workers, from getting run over? I get a feeling that it must happen all the time. In the US in 2012, there were 130 road worker fatalities, which is pretty typical. None of those was in Connecticut, but we had one in 2011, when one of our maintainers (Dan DiNardi) got killed. Of those 130, 23 were maintenance workers, which is somewhat higher than normal. You can get all the gruesome details here: http://www.workzonesafety.org/files/documents/crash_data/2003-2012_worker_fatalities.pdf As to the road painting machine, it's worth noting here that almost all of our painting operations are done with either small maintenance crews or contractors. Smaller contractors will almost always stick with handwork rather than get a more expensive piece of equipment. They tend to treat safety as secondary, especially when they have temporary / unregistered workers. The larger contractors, I can see them going with something like this, as long as it works faster than a couple humans. As for Maintenance, they'd probably pick one up on a trial basis, but generally only use it in very dangerous locations. Sticking an extra crash truck behind the work truck is a lot cheaper.
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Sep 16, 2013 00:47
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 ... whoops! That's 17 signal heads and 4 road signs on the ground from an afternoon thunderstorm. Varance fucked around with this message at 00:57 on Sep 16, 2013 |
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Sep 16, 2013 00:50
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Re road worker fatalities, here's a couple of good adverts which those posts reminded me about : UK one first, which is pretty hard hitting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVPYQ0dKKk8 And then this one from America, which is surprisingly hard hitting compared to the tame poo poo you usually have there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNuE4hbUDag I like road safety adverts a lot and will take this opportunity to pimp my YouTube channel again, which is full of them. As well as some other stuff but ignore the other stuff. Just start from the earliest upload.
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Sep 16, 2013 09:35
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Cichlidae posted:MUTCD sez: Does this have any legal weight? Or can his council just say "well that's nice but we're going to continue with our revenue generation techniques, thanks."
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Sep 16, 2013 13:25
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"Well, you caught us, and possibly recommended corrective action, but I'm Tom Sawyer and I've proceduralized an official sign certification sticker with my name on it in size + 1 em, bitches."Varance posted:
Hanging them all from a cable like that doesn't make sense in a windy environment. grillster fucked around with this message at 15:58 on Sep 16, 2013 |
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Sep 16, 2013 15:54
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Volmarias posted:Does this have any legal weight? Or can his council just say "well that's nice but we're going to continue with our revenue generation techniques, thanks." I'm sure it doesn't. The legislative branch always has the right to overrule these things. The only way it would hold weight is if the Federal government started cracking down on local governments to adhere to the rules.
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Sep 16, 2013 20:06
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Volmarias posted:Does this have any legal weight? Or can his council just say "well that's nice but we're going to continue with our revenue generation techniques, thanks." You could chase that buck as long as you like. The MUTCD is considered the definitive document in civil trials, to the point where noncompliance will almost immediately put you at fault. In criminal trials, I have no idea, but it is a very strongly worded document and should be treated like a Bible for just about any matter. ----- My boss stopped by this afternoon with a surprise for me! Oh joy!  "Hey, the Busway consultants redesigned a bunch of the signals you haven't seen in over a year." "Oh, ok. I thought I'd finally finished with the Busway." "Yeah, and the Commissioner wants them done by Wednesday, since it's already under construction." "Ah. I have a day and a half to fully review a handful of signals for a project that officially graduated from the design phase two years ago." "Yup! Have fun!" "Oh well. How bad can they be?"  Yes, Hamilton Street crosses a signalized industrial driveway, the Amtrak access road, 2 lines of high speed rail, and the Busway, all within 150 feet. Another 150 feet past is a cross road that really should be signalized, but it's impossible to make the signals work. A couple hundred feet to each side of this plan are even more signals, one of which is with the area's main arterial. Because of the grade crossing, we have to make this road the artery instead of the big road, which isn't going to do wonders for traffic.
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Sep 16, 2013 22:20
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Cichlidae posted:Yes, Hamilton Street crosses a signalized industrial driveway, the Amtrak access road, 2 lines of high speed rail, and the Busway, all within 150 feet. Another 150 feet past is a cross road that really should be signalized, but it's impossible to make the signals work. A couple hundred feet to each side of this plan are even more signals, one of which is with the area's main arterial. Because of the grade crossing, we have to make this road the artery instead of the big road, which isn't going to do wonders for traffic.
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Sep 17, 2013 01:43
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:As an electrician, I see an awful lot of fairly large conduit in the ground (with spares) and an AWFUL lot of strange wire. 2-14/7? 14/5? Fun times. Is it all 120V signalling wire, or is it just because of the long distances involved that there can't be much voltage drop? Is there something fundamentally wrong with using a few RS-485 busses on 18AWG/STP? Does the 1970s era traffic box not know how to make red light using modern comms? My knowledge of electrical stuff is limited, but I can tell you some about it. It's all 120V, relatively short distance. Each bulb needs its own pair of conductors, and same for each set of loops (they're spliced in series at the handholes.) As for the conduits, I think we go with 2" RMC at a minimum since it's all subterranean and it's a pain in the rear end to pull stuff through. On top of that, the lion's share of the cost is for trenching, not conduit, so there's really no reason not to build yourself some extra headroom. And finally, there's a rule that says you can't have more than a certain percentage of the conduit filled; off the top of my head, it's about half for a 2" RMC. But yeah, everything's basically on its own conductors; there is nothing more than 3 pairs of splice caps inside the signal head.
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Sep 17, 2013 02:32
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Cichlidae posted:You could chase that buck as long as you like. The MUTCD is considered the definitive document in civil trials, to the point where noncompliance will almost immediately put you at fault. In criminal trials, I have no idea, but it is a very strongly worded document and should be treated like a Bible for just about any matter. Just dig the road under the railway and say gently caress it.
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Sep 17, 2013 02:42
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Cichlidae posted:You could chase that buck as long as you like. The MUTCD is considered the definitive document in civil trials, to the point where noncompliance will almost immediately put you at fault. In criminal trials, I have no idea, but it is a very strongly worded document and should be treated like a Bible for just about any matter. Are diagrams usually this packed? Maybe it's because I'm not an engineer, but this seems to be pretty hard to read. If everything's this close together, is there a way to increase legibility without zooming in a great deal or changing it so that it's no longer to scale? Also, is the crossing seriously at grade 
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Sep 17, 2013 02:49
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Man, you should see some diagrams for PCBs. Even our dual layer ones get kind of nuts, I don't want to know what real multilayed boards must be like to understand. Although the only way you'd ever look at one is on a computer. If you want to see more, you just zoom in.
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Sep 17, 2013 03:06
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Baronjutter posted:Just dig the road under the railway and say gently caress it. Hedera Helix posted:Also, is the crossing seriously at grade Of course it's at grade! And with the 130-foot crossing distance on the southeast leg of the intersection, those tracks serve a valuable purpose - as a pedestrian refuge island, so they don't have to cross all in one go.
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Sep 17, 2013 03:24
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WisconsinHighway.txt: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-09-16/milwaukee-will-fight-slippery-roads-with-cheese-brine quote:Milwaukee might not salt its icy roads this winter. Instead, the city plans to cover its potentially hazardous motorways with cheese brine, the salt-and-water solution used in the production of cheese. The brine, considered a wasteful byproduct, is apparently cheaper and much more abundant than rock salt.
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Sep 17, 2013 04:20
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will_colorado posted:WisconsinHighway.txt: It's actually a fantastic idea even if it sounds really wierd for saying you're throwing cheese brine on the road. Brine works better to keep roadways clean of ice and snow than chunks of salt, and I could see a switch to brine solutions in the future since it takes less salt to get better results. Hedera Helix posted:Are diagrams usually this packed? Maybe it's because I'm not an engineer, but this seems to be pretty hard to read. If everything's this close together, is there a way to increase legibility without zooming in a great deal or changing it so that it's no longer to scale? Generally you have one sheet that covers all of a particular feature - signalization, or utility of one type or another etc. Sometimes this results in a sheet that has next to no freespace and some long leaders. That one is honestly not that bad, but I spend my time putting together plan sets so I may have an unfair advantage reading this stuff.
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Sep 17, 2013 13:35
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They've been using brine solutions (not cheese, but still) up here in the Northeast with varying results.
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Sep 17, 2013 14:03
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Sloober posted:It's actually a fantastic idea even if it sounds really wierd for saying you're throwing cheese brine on the road. Brine works better to keep roadways clean of ice and snow than chunks of salt, and I could see a switch to brine solutions in the future since it takes less salt to get better results. It absolutely makes sense, but "We're using cheese byproducts to keep our roads clear" is basically the most Wisconsin thing ever.
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Sep 17, 2013 14:54
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BrooklynBruiser posted:It absolutely makes sense, but "We're using cheese byproducts to keep our roads clear" is basically the most Wisconsin thing ever. Yes, yes it is. We like our cheese up here. I think NJ is using pickle brine as their cheap alternative.
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Sep 17, 2013 16:50
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Washington DC has been using Beet Juice to pre-treat roadways (so sugar lowers the freezing point instead of a salt). And funny story, they train their engineering staff to drive the beet-juice sprayers / snow plows. Sorry, we'll have to postpone the meeting - the PM was up all night plowing the roads.
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Sep 17, 2013 16:57
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Baronjutter posted:Just dig the road under the railway and say gently caress it. Ah, the YOLO approach to construction.
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Sep 17, 2013 19:54
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Volmarias posted:Ah, the YOLO approach to construction. You Only Build Once: The sad tale of America's infrastructure, and how we could've fixed it fifty years ago By Cichlidae
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Sep 17, 2013 21:00
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Devor posted:Washington DC has been using Beet Juice to pre-treat roadways (so sugar lowers the freezing point instead of a salt). That's how you get ants! 
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Sep 17, 2013 22:11
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Hey Cichlidae, any insight on this project in Bethel? http://bethel.patch.com/groups/around-town/p/dot-to-rebuild-plumtreeswhittleseywalnut-hill-intersection-bridge quote:Reconstruction of the bridge will include reconfiguring the awkward extended intersection of the three roads into a standard four-way intersection. And the intersection in question: 
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Sep 18, 2013 16:38
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Peanut President posted:That's how you get ants! That's the beauty of it; when wintertime rolls around, all the ants simply freeze to death!
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Sep 18, 2013 18:44
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HiHo ChiRho posted:Hey Cichlidae, any insight on this project in Bethel? It's not my district, but looks like a pretty standard intersection realignment with a bridge (culvert, really) thrown into the mix. Nice little project; should make everyone happy.
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Sep 19, 2013 03:44
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Cichlidae posted:It's not my district, but looks like a pretty standard intersection realignment with a bridge (culvert, really) thrown into the mix. Nice little project; should make everyone happy. Yeah you can see how they originally built Whittlesey Dr along the pre-existing gravel road, with the expectation that it could eventually be continued. But the land wasn't developed and so Walnut Dr was built instead to the north where it couldn't align correctly without impinging. The realignment is a good solution.
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Sep 19, 2013 04:57
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To add to the bike/bus/special infrastructure colour chat of a few pages back, I'm currently visiting London, and the bike lanes here come in red, green and blue, depending on the neighbourhood. I've only bus lanes in red so far, though. The blue bike lanes are for the "cycle superhighways", and the colour was quite obviously chosen to match the branding of the corporate sponsor, Barclays Bank  .
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Sep 23, 2013 09:58
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Looks like Metro North is hosed once again. Con Edison feeder cable into the Mt. Vernon substation blew out for unspecified reasons in addition to a feeder being out of service. Electric train service between Grand Central and Stamford is out, Stamford to New Haven is limited service only, system is operating on 1/3 capacity until further notice ("days to weeks" according to the governor.) I-95 and the Parkway are going to be even worse than usual for the next few days to weeks.
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Sep 26, 2013 02:13
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GWBBQ posted:Looks like Metro North is hosed once again. Con Edison feeder cable into the Mt. Vernon substation blew out for unspecified reasons in addition to a feeder being out of service. Electric train service between Grand Central and Stamford is out, Stamford to New Haven is limited service only, system is operating on 1/3 capacity until further notice ("days to weeks" according to the governor.) I-95 and the Parkway are going to be even worse than usual for the next few days to weeks. They can't grab some older diesels temporarily?
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Sep 26, 2013 02:20
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GWBBQ posted:Looks like Metro North is hosed once again. Con Edison feeder cable into the Mt. Vernon substation blew out for unspecified reasons in addition to a feeder being out of service. Electric train service between Grand Central and Stamford is out, Stamford to New Haven is limited service only, system is operating on 1/3 capacity until further notice ("days to weeks" according to the governor.) I-95 and the Parkway are going to be even worse than usual for the next few days to weeks. This is the first time I've looked in this thread in like two weeks and I get to see this!  Thankfully I'm not actually affected unless it lasts more than two weeks. Holy poo poo though, the New Haven line has like 130,000 riders a day. 95 is going to be so bad.
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Sep 26, 2013 02:34
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Baronjutter posted:They can't grab some older diesels temporarily? This is what Amtrak is doing, aside from cancelling Acela trains. Hopefully this will be fixed before Columbus Day weekend, which is my next Amtrak ride to New York.
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Sep 26, 2013 02:41
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Baronjutter posted:They can't grab some older diesels temporarily? There aren't nearly enough diesels available, and perhaps more importantly there isn't the capacity to refuel them quick enough to provide reliable service.
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Sep 26, 2013 05:03
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