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The world's largest TBM, digging a tunnel under Seattle, has hit an obstruction it can't penetrate, and has been stalled for 2 weeks. Will be interesting to find out what it is. http://www.outsideonline.com/news-f...gn=facebookpost
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Dec 23, 2013 00:08
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| # ? May 23, 2024 19:06 |
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Seattle is going to sell out of tinfoil. Buy Alcoa.
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Dec 23, 2013 00:43
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Glad to see you are happy at your new job. That thing under Seattle is probably just some leftover glacial debris.
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Dec 23, 2013 01:31
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It's the other end of the space needle 
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Dec 23, 2013 01:38
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grover posted:The world's largest TBM, digging a tunnel under Seattle, has hit an obstruction it can't penetrate, and has been stalled for 2 weeks. Will be interesting to find out what it is.
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Dec 23, 2013 02:36
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will_colorado posted:Glad to see you are happy at your new job. That thing under Seattle is probably just some leftover glacial debris. I really wonder how hard they tried to bore through it. If they've got carbide tips, they should be able to make headway on anything, if only at a very slow rate. It should also produce debris. Would be amazing if it's really a gigantic diamond, though. I'd love to see the diamond market tank.
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Dec 23, 2013 13:07
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The mole-people are gonna be pissed.
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Dec 23, 2013 13:13
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cheese-cube posted:The mole-people are gonna be pissed. Behold, the Underminer! It dwarfs your pitful borer!
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Dec 23, 2013 15:07
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I have an intersection near me that has been bugging me for a long time. There is a left turn lane with a left-turn arrow light at a stoplight on a road near me. There is no road on the left, only the right. There are houses and driveways on the left but who would get their own private drive left turn lane? The light is decently newish, it is newer than the houses there, which were built in the late 50s/early 60s. There was never a road to make a left turn onto. So what is the lane and signal for? I don't know if posting the intersection is allowed. Here is a bunch of pics from different angles. There is no road behind the house, it is a canal with a paved footpath. http://imgur.com/a/oyBP5 Any ideas? Can someone just bug the city enough to get their own left turn signal and lane? 
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Dec 26, 2013 21:07
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altazakin posted:I have an intersection near me that has been bugging me for a long time. There is a left turn lane with a left-turn arrow light at a stoplight on a road near me. There is no road on the left, only the right. There are houses and driveways on the left but who would get their own private drive left turn lane? The light is decently newish, it is newer than the houses there, which were built in the late 50s/early 60s. There was never a road to make a left turn onto. So what is the lane and signal for? I don't know if posting the intersection is allowed. Here is a bunch of pics from different angles. There is no road behind the house, it is a canal with a paved footpath. http://imgur.com/a/oyBP5 Any ideas? Can someone just bug the city enough to get their own left turn signal and lane? In the first photo, if you look just a little upstream you can see that that center lane is marked as a two-way left turn lane, so the lane part of the question is that the pavement and lane width was already there, the pavement marking left turn arrow just clarifies that it's a left turn lane at the intersection. As far as the left signal arrow, that does seem like overkill. But if the signal has a sensor so that it doesn't fire off unless necessary, it wouldn't negatively effect operations. It probably is a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease - perhaps when they were designing that intersection, they needed to acquire some property from that homeowner, and he asked for that as a condition of selling.
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Dec 26, 2013 21:22
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So this circle is supposedly slated for a makeover soon. Maps link It's come up before in this thread for being terrible (the article's title shares it's nickname, Suicide Circle, which is also funny because it rarely causes fatal accidents. Just lots of fender benders) and it's a huge sore on that area. I will drive around it whenever possible and so will anyone else who doesn't have to. Hopefully proper signage, sign placement, education, and routing will turn it into a proper roundabout. I do love this quote from the Trib article that perfectly captures this thread: quote:"As a country, we're sometimes late to adopt," said Brian Ray, senior principle engineer at Kittelson and Associates, a firm that has led roundabout research projects for the Federal Highway Administration. Also,  at some serious Stockholm-syndrome poo poo going on:quote:In the past, IDOT proposed adding stoplights to each entry point or closing off access to the circle from State or Broadway streets. But each time, residents voiced opposition. A defining landmark of awfulness. Like a giant boil. Thwomp fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Dec 26, 2013 |
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Dec 26, 2013 21:51
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altazakin posted:I have an intersection near me that has been bugging me for a long time. There is a left turn lane with a left-turn arrow light at a stoplight on a road near me. There is no road on the left, only the right. There are houses and driveways on the left but who would get their own private drive left turn lane? The light is decently newish, it is newer than the houses there, which were built in the late 50s/early 60s. There was never a road to make a left turn onto. So what is the lane and signal for? I don't know if posting the intersection is allowed. Here is a bunch of pics from different angles. There is no road behind the house, it is a canal with a paved footpath. http://imgur.com/a/oyBP5 Any ideas? Can someone just bug the city enough to get their own left turn signal and lane? When there's a single left turn lane, you end up with:  And that's a big problem, because it opens you up to head-on accidents if you follow the centerline. So you bump the centerline out, and:  Now it looks like you have two receiving lanes, and you'll end up with sideswipes and blockages. So you paint an island to make it more clear:  And unfortunately, it's illegal to cross a painted island, so you've blocked off all left-turning access to and from those driveways. Now, you can paint it a little differently (and Maintenance will hate you and never re-paint it):  Isn't that UGLY? Jeez! Just put in a left turn lane (or a TWLTL). On a benefit/cost basis, it's worth it, too. If you have more than a couple left turns into a driveway in the peak hour, and a couple hundred oncoming cars, you're better off putting it in - especially when the pavement is already there, and you're only paying for paint. Thwomp posted:So this circle is supposedly slated for a makeover soon. Here's one we fixed up a few years back: http://binged.it/1cV3UO2 Rhode Island has just been restriping their rotaries into turbo roundabouts. Cheap and effective.
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Dec 27, 2013 05:07
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That works really well. You kind full up though matey.
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Dec 27, 2013 17:21
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Not sure if this will work, can't figure out how to get a direct street view link: https://www.google.com/maps/preview...m7wQQ!2e0&fid=5 Every time I come home (this is near my parents' house), they've beefed up this intersection. Made the stop sign bigger, added pavement markings, or made the blinking red "flashier". It's getting ridiculous. Since this 2011 street view capture, the stop signs are now even bigger, and the pavement markings now include a big painted STOP on the road. The worst is the blinking red though, since it now looks like a police siren. I must have driven through there a million times, I still ocassionally do a double take and think for a second that I'm being pulled over. If I lived on the corner, I would seriously look into suing the town. They can pretty much never again open their blinds. Who wants to buy a house in a quiet suburb with a 24/7 flashing blinding light right outside? I have to wonder, why don't they make it a full signaled intersection? With a sensor in the pavement, cars on the main road could have green most of the time anyway.
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Dec 27, 2013 18:08
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SurgicalOntologist posted:Not sure if this will work, can't figure out how to get a direct street view link: They really ought to clear out a few trees around the intersection, I think. They probably have a lot of T-bones due to poor line of sight.
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Dec 27, 2013 20:25
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SurgicalOntologist posted:Not sure if this will work, can't figure out how to get a direct street view link: To put in a signal, the intersection must meet one of the warrants from the MUTCD listed here: http://mutcd.fhwa.dot.gov/htm/2009/part4/part4c.htm If they put in a signal that didn't meet one of those warrants, and there was an accident (for example a rear-end collision for someone stopped at the light), it would be more difficult for the engineer to defend against a lawsuit [You put in a light where there shouldn't have been one!]. Note that Warrant 7 is for crash history - but it still requires a couple other conditions before it would be warranted.
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Dec 27, 2013 23:43
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Oh hmm perhaps there's a risk of rear-end collisions since one of the major-street approaches is downhill and coming around a corner.
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Dec 28, 2013 00:27
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Thank you, Cichlidae!
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Dec 28, 2013 01:06
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Cichlidae posted:When there's a single left turn lane, you end up with: I've seen all of these on US 13 and US 113, but US 13 feels like a wierd fusion of 'medium US route," with "4 lane turbo highway/Modern 6 lane superexpressway" Question, what is the difference between an Interstate and a US Route?
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Dec 28, 2013 03:08
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Ryand-Smith posted:I've seen all of these on US 13 and US 113, but US 13 feels like a wierd fusion of 'medium US route," with "4 lane turbo highway/Modern 6 lane superexpressway" Interstates have minimum design standards - controlled access, laid out to support a certain speed, grade limits, etc. US routes don't and can be anything from a two lane road with crossing roads up to multi lane controlled access.
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Dec 28, 2013 03:17
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That intersection looks totally normal, I don't understand why people are blowing through the stop sign. Looks like an absolutely typical rural intersection. I'm not even seeing a visibility problem here, looks totaly fine once you're at the stop line. There's even street lamps! I've nearly blown through some rural stop signs in the middle of the night when they have no lights, but I'm not seeing any excuse here for anyone to miss this huge stop sign. Is it like the only stop sign in the area or something?
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Dec 28, 2013 03:18
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It's not even all that rural, there are lots of bigger intersections around. Most of the traffic is coming to/from Route 9, one mile up Oak Hill Rd (to the left in the street view shot). Route 9 is a big 4-lane road with heavy commercial development for miles east to Boston and west to Worcester, traffic lights all over the place. In other directions, there's a stop sign at pretty much every intersection and a few traffic lights as well. I'm with you in assuming that they keep adding stuff to the intersection because of accidents, though I can't say for sure. Personally, I saw a major accident there like 20 years ago from the rear window of a school bus, and was involved in a minor accident as a passenger maybe 10 years ago when a friend forgot to look both ways (seriously). Visibility to the south isn't all that great, traffic on Oak St is fairly speedy, and inching up to the intersection can be dangerous on ice since there's a bit of a downhill slope, but still the whole blinding blinking light thing seems like overkill.
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Dec 28, 2013 06:54
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Presents!
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Dec 28, 2013 08:08
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EoRaptor posted:Presents! That's pretty much me as a kid. I was so disappointed none of my HotWheels kits had multi-lane setups and traffic signals. These days, I pretty much get paid to play SimCity all day, so it makes up for my childhood.
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Dec 28, 2013 17:10
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Cichlidae posted:These days, I pretty much get paid to play SimCity all day, so it makes up for my childhood. I was just thinking that this thread is sorely lacking giant alien death-walkers and asteroid impacts. Make it so, Cichlidae.
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Dec 28, 2013 22:08
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Ryand-Smith posted:I've seen all of these on US 13 and US 113, but US 13 feels like a wierd fusion of 'medium US route," with "4 lane turbo highway/Modern 6 lane superexpressway" US Routes are state maintained roads with routes determined in broad strokes nationally, and have been in existence since 1926, with most of them having been designated on roughly the same paths ever since. New ones do get created from time, usually spurs or loops of existing routes with a numbering system identical to that used for interstates used to designate them. They can vary from 2 lane raods that are only open seasonally all the way up to full on modern freeways. Usually upgraded US routes will only maintain their US route designation if they stay within rather short lengths, it's rare to find US Routes that are full freeway standard for over like 100 miles and haven't been subsumed into an Interstate route. Interstate routes are state maintained but with a much higher amount of direct federal funding, especially when first built, have been around since 1956, are almost always built to rather stringent freeway standards (excepting instances of incorporating already built freeways that may be substantially under standard into a general route, particularly through the middle of cities; and one off oddities like how I-180 in Wyoming is just a surface arterial spur into Cheyenne etc). Many Interstate Highways are built along existing US routes, often completely eliminating the entire route or significant parts of them at completion. The US Route network currently covers 157,724 miles while the Interstate network covers 47,182 miles, although many of these route miles are shared in concurrencies. Incidentally there's currently no I-50 or I-60 due to the wish to avoid having an Interstate and US Route of the same number in the same states, and due to the way the numbering works 50 and 60 would conflict. This is also why US 40 and US 80 no longer extend all the way into California. Though there's still a few cases where a US route and an Interstate route of the same number exist in the same state.
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Dec 28, 2013 22:30
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Install Windows posted:Incidentally there's currently no I-50 or I-60 due to the wish to avoid having an Interstate and US Route of the same number in the same states, and due to the way the numbering works 50 and 60 would conflict. This is also why US 40 and US 80 no longer extend all the way into California. Though there's still a few cases where a US route and an Interstate route of the same number exist in the same state. This is also why the numbers go in opposite directions. Interstates increase in number from west to east and south to north, while US Routes increase in number from east to west and north to south. Thus, you get I-95 and US-1 running roughly the same route along the east coast.
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Dec 29, 2013 03:34
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Kakairo posted:This is also why the numbers go in opposite directions. Interstates increase in number from west to east and south to north, while US Routes increase in number from east to west and north to south. Thus, you get I-95 and US-1 running roughly the same route along the east coast.  I had never thought of this before. That's awesome.
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Dec 29, 2013 08:59
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More highway-numbering trivia: Major north-south US highways end in 1; major north-south interstates end in 5. AASHTO and FHWA don't really care about not having Interstates and US routes with the same number intersect or overlap anymore, as I-74 is planned to intersect and replace US 74 in North Carolina and the rather lengthy freeway portion of US 41 in Wisconsin will additionally be numbered I-41 next year. US 400, US 412, and US 425 were created in the 80s and 90s on existing highways and don't fit into the numbering scheme at all.
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Dec 29, 2013 21:36
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Oh god, Road Numbering Systems 
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Dec 29, 2013 23:54
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Spaghetti ramp project is almost done.  This is the electronic toll gantry: 
Varance fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 00:07
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Varance posted:Spaghetti ramp project is almost done. I was down your way at Christmas and the Himes exit shifting to the left sure did nasty things to traffic on southbound 275.
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Dec 30, 2013 00:19
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Dominus Vobiscum posted:I was down your way at Christmas and the Himes exit shifting to the left sure did nasty things to traffic on southbound 275. It's been like that since Armenia/Howard moved left. All Himes did was make the delay last longer. The entire project is a drat mess. For example, they've got traffic going 65MPH next to unfinished L-wall without temporary K-rail in place. Can't wait until someone get impaled on the rebar. Every single interstate and expressway in Hillsborough is congestion-hosed by construction right now. If I have to go through a construction zone, I take a local road instead. Varance fucked around with this message at 00:46 on Dec 30, 2013 |
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Dec 30, 2013 00:21
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Did a lot of highway driving this past weekend and wondered about the placement of passing zones. There are some places along the route (winding through mountains) I took where a no passing zone ceased to exist for only what seemed like a hundred feet or so, and at 55 mph it went by in a blink. What is the metric for allowing passing? Is it N number of seconds of visibility at posted speed?, and since it would be real hard to pass within the zone only, is that metric from the end or the start of the zone?
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Dec 30, 2013 17:41
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Qwijib0 posted:Did a lot of highway driving this past weekend and wondered about the placement of passing zones. There are some places along the route (winding through mountains) I took where a no passing zone ceased to exist for only what seemed like a hundred feet or so, and at 55 mph it went by in a blink. What is the metric for allowing passing? Is it N number of seconds of visibility at posted speed?, and since it would be real hard to pass within the zone only, is that metric from the end or the start of the zone? Passing zones, at least in most states, just mark the boundaries of where you're permitted to start passing. If there's only a few hundred feet of passing marker, you're allowed to move out and then back in past the zone. And presumably since its a mountainous area, the short zone is more intended for getting around someone who is otherwise required to go slower than normal, like a heavy truck trying to get uphill or the like.
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Dec 30, 2013 18:07
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How is it decided where to put lights along a highway? I drove I-84 from Hartford to Waterbury at night recently and noticed that the streetlights seemed to appear at random locations. Putting them at mergers/ramps for visibility makes sense, but what about just along the road between exits? Is it a periodic thing for better visibility? Can towns request them to improve safety or opt out to reduce light pollution?
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Dec 30, 2013 18:50
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Large bridges tend to have their own lighting, and there's several of them on that stretch of 84.
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Dec 30, 2013 19:56
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Qwijib0 posted:Did a lot of highway driving this past weekend and wondered about the placement of passing zones. There are some places along the route (winding through mountains) I took where a no passing zone ceased to exist for only what seemed like a hundred feet or so, and at 55 mph it went by in a blink. What is the metric for allowing passing? Is it N number of seconds of visibility at posted speed?, and since it would be real hard to pass within the zone only, is that metric from the end or the start of the zone? They're entirely based on sight distance. When the road is laid out, engineers look at the profile and decide where the measured sight distance is below the passing sight distance. Everywhere else becomes a passing zone (unless there's an intersection or other contraindication nearby). i barely GNU her! posted:How is it decided where to put lights along a highway? I drove I-84 from Hartford to Waterbury at night recently and noticed that the streetlights seemed to appear at random locations. Putting them at mergers/ramps for visibility makes sense, but what about just along the road between exits? Is it a periodic thing for better visibility? Can towns request them to improve safety or opt out to reduce light pollution? Just like for signals, lighting has its own warrants. It's not something I've ever worked with (ConnDOT has its own unit for illumination), but from what I understand, it was primarily based on critical locations where there were a lot of accidents.
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Dec 30, 2013 22:29
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So this got proposed. Yeah, I'm sure nothing can possibly go wrong. Though, if they integrated it with an electrification and signal upgrade, and included built in maintenance platforms, they might get some long term savings there. Hate to be living track side, though.
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Dec 31, 2013 03:27
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| # ? May 23, 2024 19:06 |
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Ok, so I just saw this for the first time, but wtf is going on here! https://goo.gl/maps/iljqX
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Dec 31, 2013 09:15
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