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Devor posted:I work with structural engineers, and it drives them loving nuts when people get up in arms about stuff that "looks" bad. There was a show centered on that idea where some guy went around and documented problems with America's crumbling infrastructure. He would do stuff like shove his arm through a hole in the webbing of a steel I-beam. I mean, yeah, that is not ideal, but since bridges get routine inspections, it's probably not in a place that matters, or else they would have remediated it. Not gonna disagree with your main point (yeah obviously things can look bad but still be perfectly safe), but I seem to remember Obama mentioning recently in a speech how 70 000 bridges in the US aren't maintained properly. So it's perfectly possible when the guy sees something that seems structurally unsound that either the necessary routine inspection didn't happen (because no money), or the inspection did happen, the fault was noticed, but wasn't fixed (because no money).
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Jan 26, 2014 06:30
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Too many government agencies are reactive instead of proactive - they'll replace it when it fails instead of preventing the failure in the first place. At the agency I work for, I have to constantly harp on critical maintenance issues for weeks before someone authorizes a fix out of annoyance. Varance fucked around with this message at 07:09 on Jan 26, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 07:06
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Dancer posted:Not gonna disagree with your main point (yeah obviously things can look bad but still be perfectly safe), but I seem to remember Obama mentioning recently in a speech how 70 000 bridges in the US aren't maintained properly. So it's perfectly possible when the guy sees something that seems structurally unsound that either the necessary routine inspection didn't happen (because no money), or the inspection did happen, the fault was noticed, but wasn't fixed (because no money). I know the show he's talking about, though I can't remember the name, and I remember the part he's talking about, and that bridge had actually been closed to traffic.
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Jan 26, 2014 07:11
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Varance posted:Too many government agencies are reactive instead of proactive - they'll replace it when it fails instead of preventing the failure in the first place. This is invariably because they aren't given the money to be proactive. If an agency lets on that they have enough funding around to spend on things that aren't immediate problems, then that's considered waste/surplus and it's stripped out of their budget to patch up some other hole.
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Jan 26, 2014 20:13
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Kaal posted:This is invariably because they aren't given the money to be proactive. If an agency lets on that they have enough funding around to spend on things that aren't immediate problems, then that's considered waste/surplus and it's stripped out of their budget to patch up some other hole. Personal financial factors aside, that's a big part of why the top tier talent that wants to be there invariably moves to private sector out of frustration, and why the guys who are there for ages are willing to let stuff happen out of complacency without saying a word. Varance fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Jan 27, 2014 |
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Jan 26, 2014 21:31
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Cichlidae posted:Yeah, that's pretty nasty. If it's not a critical part of the structure, though, it's not a big deal. Hell, the old Jamestown Bridge didn't have piers anymore: the concrete spalled completely off them, so there was nothing but a few strands of rusty rebar holding the bridge up. What are your feelings on the Mount Hope Bridge? I'm waiting for that Erector Set to fall down one of these days, and probably while I'm on it.
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Jan 26, 2014 23:17
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Kaal posted:This is invariably because they aren't given the money to be proactive. If an agency lets on that they have enough funding around to spend on things that aren't immediate problems, then that's considered waste/surplus and it's stripped out of their budget to patch up some other hole. This is absolutely true. In 2001, AASHTO came up with new guidelines on wind loadings for overhead sign supports. This necessitated a complete redesign of our sign supports. They cost a quarter mil apiece to put up, and we have thousands around the state, so we didn't replace all those now-flawed signs. Most of them are still up, and won't be replaced until their most recent inspection shows that they need to be taken down ASAP. One support by my house is pretty nasty, and I avoid driving under it. But until one falls over and crushes someone, nobody will even CONSIDER dropping hundreds of millions to fix the problem. Heck, AASHTO might come up with new standards tomorrow and require everything be redone again. It's nigh-impossible to keep up. rigeek posted:What are your feelings on the Mount Hope Bridge? I'm waiting for that Erector Set to fall down one of these days, and probably while I'm on it. I really hope it doesn't; I grew up in Bristol and Portsmouth and it's like a family member to me. But considering that it was built all hosed up, and remains hosed up... well, maybe RIDOT's decision to reinstate tolls will lower the traffic a bit, at least, or (this is a long shot) actually pay for its maintenance. A decade ago, they wrapped its cables in titanium, so those shouldn't be an issue, but the deck's been in awful shape since I was a kid. When RIDOT starts building its replacement, you'll know that it should've been torn down ten years prior, so check their 10-year capital improvement plan!
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Jan 27, 2014 00:53
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Cichlidae posted:This is absolutely true. In 2001, AASHTO came up with new guidelines on wind loadings for overhead sign supports. I don't give a poo poo about your wind loadings https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAk0hKDM354
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Jan 27, 2014 01:17
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Devor posted:I don't give a poo poo about your wind loadings I remember that day. That's southbound Deerfoot Trail in Calgary, Alberta if anyone is curious. e: also, it's important that you watch till the end, because in the last 3 seconds you can actually see a huge chunk of the sign fall off. Pretty sure they were already working on replacing the signs on that road though; ones further south were already complete I think, and that one got a rush job after that little incident. But still tons of that same sign posting all over the city, just not on the highway. PittTheElder fucked around with this message at 07:07 on Jan 28, 2014 |
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Jan 27, 2014 23:24
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Woo, here we go. An excellent example of Florida's well-maintained bridges.  To be fair, this was supposed to be rebuilt as a DDI by now. People whining about how confusing/dangerous DDIs supposedly are (protip: they're not) resulted in the project being perpetually pushed back. And now the bridge is falling apart.
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Jan 28, 2014 01:56
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Okay, can someone explain this one to me? Last year, the government here in the Netherlands decided to completely switch off the street lights on a lot of empty stretches of highway. This saves €600 000 per year in electricity costs, although there is a slightly increased risk in road accidents. Makes sense, so far. Because of safety regulations, street lights have to be turned on whenever there are nightly road works and also near traffic accidents if they're blocking part of the road. Now, the national road maintenance agency has released a statement, saying that this costs a lot of money, because every time they need to hire a contractor who goes there and has to turn on the street lights manually. They estimate that the extra costs because of this are €2 MILLION per year. So, their conclusion is that turning the lights off costs way, way more than leaving them on all night, every night. But 2 million? That is quite an incredible number. For just turning a bunch of lights on. What the hell. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 11:45 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 11:43
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Carbon dioxide posted:But 2 million? That is quite an incredible number. For just turning a bunch of lights on. What the hell. Obviously, they need to invest in a remote light control system. The budget? 2 million € should go pretty far... I can imagine that the cost goes up a lot because if they want any kind of response time, the contractor will have to keep technicians on stand-by in every nook of the country. Might be cheaper to give the training and authority over the lights to each local fire or police department, for emergency use only? Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 13:20
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Carbon dioxide posted:But 2 million? That is quite an incredible number. For just turning a bunch of lights on. What the hell. Contractors cost money, and every time they went out they had to do so at night, which probably drove up the price some more (overtime). Then there's the 'problem' of doing maintenance at night whenever possible, or rather pretty much all the time, in order not to impede daytime traffic. This really isn't a problem at all though, since all the congestion that's been avoided this way would have cost more than the paltry €2m outlay in wasted time alone. Still, it could have been avoided had the policy change been shot down (something I'd liked to have seen happen myself), but in the end that's a political issue. I don't want to defend the way Rijkswaterstaat functions too much here, they've lost pretty much all their direct in-house maintenance capabilities and this drives up costs in all kinds of ways, but the comment by the ANWB - why switch off the lights for cost reasons when you'd actually lose money on the proposition - is unjustified IMO. The documents which the newspaper (het AD) base this story off supposedly show that only half of the freeway kms in question were affected by the issue, the other half can be managed remotely, and in june this year at the latest contractors won't be needed anymore since they're doing away with the remaining manual switches. You ought to have mentioned this yourself really, since it means that the policy change will have paid itself back in couple of years (wrt the road authority's budget at least). Hippie Hedgehog posted:Might be cheaper to give the training and authority over the lights to each local fire or police department, for emergency use only? Probably not. They only traced the cost last september, and it'll be fixed within a year, so imagine loads of emergency responders needing extra training in order to do something with an electrical system within the same timeframe. Plus you'd only address the issue during emergencies, switching the lights on and off when doing maintenance is both predictable enough to not need dudes on call every night, and probably somehow tacked on to the existing roadworks contracts anyway. Koesj fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 13:54
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Koesj posted:Then there's the 'problem' of doing maintenance at night whenever possible, or rather pretty much all the time, in order not to impede daytime traffic. This really isn't a problem at all though, since all the congestion that's been avoided this way would have cost more than the paltry €2m outlay in wasted time alone. Well then good news! They're going to do more maintenance during daytime because of budget cuts. e: http://www.rws.nl/actueel/bezuinigingen_rijkswaterstaat/index.aspx#v5 SixFigureSandwich fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 14:11
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I'm surprised they only save 660,000. That seems barely worth it, considering having street lights on is generally a good thing.
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Jan 30, 2014 14:25
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Koesj posted:You ought to have mentioned this yourself really, since it means that the policy change will have paid itself back in couple of years (wrt the road authority's budget at least). I'm sorry, I had another source which did say it is possible to automate the remaining switches but that would cost a huge amount of money. Guessing that was an exaggeration, then. --- One other complaint about the change I heard is that if you are driving along a road without street lights and you drive into a road work area, you're suddenly staring into bright lights and you're blinded for some seconds, which is dangerous. But honestly, on some of the newer roads we never even had street lights at all, and if you just drive into a town you run into the same problem. So it's not as if it's a new thing that was suddenly caused by this policy change.
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Jan 30, 2014 14:50
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Carbon dioxide posted:Okay, can someone explain this one to me? 
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Jan 30, 2014 23:00
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I really hate driving at night anywhere without proper lights, if you can't put up a light don't put up a road!
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Jan 30, 2014 23:08
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The enormous amount of highway street lights were installed a few decades ago, when money was plenty and fuel for the power plants was cheap. I feel it was more a luxury thing than anything else. I mean, put down plenty of those reflector poles at the sides of the road and make sure everyone is sensible enough to use their headlights and you can drive fine in the dark.
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Jan 30, 2014 23:08
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Yeah highways with tons of reflectors and things are ok, but around where I live there's tons of "rural" (see: rural 50 years ago, now fairly dense suburbia) areas that actually fight against getting street lights or sidewalks because they'd "lose their rural charm" so instead you're stuck driving on these hilly winding roads being blinded every time a car in the opposing lane crests over a hill.
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Jan 31, 2014 00:28
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If I learned one thing from project 82-300, it's that you cannot rely on police to do anything, ever, even if it's just flicking a switch to change a green arrow to a red X. Cops will not turn on street lights for you.
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Jan 31, 2014 02:54
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Well, there's also light pollution for a start.
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Jan 31, 2014 04:02
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The Deadly Hume posted:Well, there's also light pollution for a start. In Florida, where there are known turtle breeding areas on the beach, they put these shade dealies on the street lights so they cast their light only straight down, so the baby turtles don't get confused when they hatch and crawl away from the ocean. It fucks up the photometrics, but I guess it's good that baby turtles die slightly less. Edit: I guess nesting areas, not breeding areas.
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Jan 31, 2014 04:08
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The Deadly Hume posted:Well, there's also light pollution for a start. Actually the big unlit area that seems like it's built-up enough to have streetlights is all around a hill with an observatory at the top, that's probably something to do with it.
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Jan 31, 2014 18:35
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Baronjutter posted:Actually the big unlit area that seems like it's built-up enough to have streetlights is all around a hill with an observatory at the top, that's probably something to do with it. Something that's kinda awesome is that the entire big island of Hawaii has minimal streetlights, and low-intensity streetlights at that, because there's a bunch of the world's most important observatories on top of the Mauna Kea mountain that is in the middle of the island.
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Jan 31, 2014 19:39
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City of Tampa has started switching out our traditional HPS street lighting for low-intensity LED. City's starting to get progressive.  Edit: Huge transportation push now, too. Plenty of emphasis on modernizing roads, but the main content is focused on LRT, BRT, ferry and mixed-use trail. Both sides trying to pass it before Interstate construction is finished, so that congestion is still pissing people off by the time they get to the polls. Varance fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Feb 1, 2014 |
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Feb 1, 2014 00:33
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Oh, by the way: I'm a professor now. An adjunct professor, technically, but it's all the same to me. It's almost all grad students in the class, so they're all around my age or older, which was actually a big relief. I don't think I could even relate to teenagers anymore.
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Feb 3, 2014 13:12
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If there's anything I've heard from my friends doing TA work, it's that they love drinking with their students.
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Feb 3, 2014 20:09
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I first posted about this in 2012, but our national road authority is a bit further along in their plans to rebuild the Rijnsweerd interchange near Utrecht these days - an already pretty advanced road junction by European standards which is going to have way better capacity for turning traffic going by their latest diagrams (pdf). There's some discussion (in Dutch) and a schematic of the existing layout on the first four pages, and three alternatives for the rebuild on pages 5-6-7, with the option of having the A27 mainline either under or over the A28 spur. Also mostly older people in the pictures, a key feature of participatory planning in this country.
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Feb 5, 2014 14:53
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Koesj posted:I first posted about this in 2012, but our national road authority is a bit further along in their plans to rebuild the Rijnsweerd interchange near Utrecht these days - an already pretty advanced road junction by European standards which is going to have way better capacity for turning traffic going by their latest diagrams (pdf). There's some discussion (in Dutch) and a schematic of the existing layout on the first four pages, and three alternatives for the rebuild on pages 5-6-7, with the option of having the A27 mainline either under or over the A28 spur. Old people at public hearings is the standard no matter where you are. It's a bit upsetting, really, because they have the least stake in the project: they probably won't even live to see it built. They also complain the loudest and can sink your project the easiest. I love all the nearby roads named after intellectuals, by the way.
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Feb 5, 2014 16:17
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When I used to work architecture any and all public hearings are old people and they are against everything. Also every community association is a small clique of old people who do their best to grand-stand about how they represent the community but make sure they dont have a website and hold all their meetings at like 10am on week days so only other old retired people can participate. I don't know why old people get so worked up about this poo poo. Want to build a 4 story apartment on a block of 4 story apartments? Get ready for litterally 50+ old people at the "community consultation meeting" screaming about how this will clog the streets with traffic, it's too tall, and the city is growing too fast and they moved here 60 years ago to get AWAY from the big city and now we're becoming like newyork!" It's also always the same group of olds too. They just have nothing better to do than get "involved" in local politics. I remember one old lady who basically lives at city hall and just goes up to speak any time the public can, always to rant about how the city is growing too fast and we need to preserve our way of life. It was a project to widen a road in order to add bike lanes and actually slow the street down, but she spoke for a good 10 min ranting against this "highway" and "why do we need more lanes maybe we need to stop all the development" and finally at the end the mayor was like "you understand the additional lanes are bike lanes right?" and she just paused for a moment then said "Oh well I support this project but they need to make what it's about more clear" and sat down. They don't even listen to the presentations. They just know someone wants to build something new or change something and get mad.
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Feb 5, 2014 19:07
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I'm always imagining that all community meetings are similar to the public forums in Parks & Recreation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng_-HgRfGBY
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Feb 5, 2014 20:28
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I'm at work so can't watch that with sound but I can clearly hear what they are all saying because I've been in that meeting many many times. "This new pedestrian bridge is a good idea but I think the money could be better spent on an interactive native plant garden for the blind so I'm against it!" "I understand this meeting is about the new traffic signal for the shopping centre, and I don't live near the area, but I'd just like to raise the point that all these flashing lights and signs use electricity and I'm wondering, who pays for this all?" "Another condo project? What we need in this city is a community performance arts centre, I'm against ANY money spent building more buildings I don't need!" "I moved here from Toronto to get AWAY from skyscrapers and now they want to build them here!?" (in response to a 10 story building between two 40+ year old 20 story buildings) "Has a study been done how this will effect local wildlife?" (downtown project in a vacant concrete lot) "We need to take the buses and bikes off the street, traffic is already bad enough!" "Bike lanes! bike lanes! bike lanes! We are taking away lanes that seniors and the disabled need to get around and replacing with them lanes only the fit can use. This is clear discrimination and we are prepared to file a human rights case against the city! Also parking is too expensive and seniors need parking! You are trapping us in our homes and denying us the shops and services we need to survive!" (general protests against the city wanting to encourage more cycling and walking vs driving) All actual things I've heard at meetings
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Feb 5, 2014 21:09
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John Dough posted:I'm always imagining that all community meetings are similar to the public forums in Parks & Recreation. This is 300% accurate, though Parks & Rec doesn't quite convey the stifling boredom and mundanity of it all. Also, in any city council committee you've also got a few folks sitting at the big table who are attempting petty power politics, while others are incompetently navigating Robert's Rules (aka government oppression and censorship of MY civil liberties). And anything related to a school will have hundreds of people standing around with signs being concerned and upset, while their kids rocket around the place and their babies cry.
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Feb 5, 2014 21:09
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Baronjutter posted:They just have nothing better to do than get "involved" in local politics. We have a winner folks.
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Feb 5, 2014 21:25
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Baronjutter posted:When I used to work architecture any and all public hearings are old people and they are against everything. I went to my local monthly civic association meetings for a year to see what my community was up to. For 11 months of the year, it was nothing. One month, a Vietnamese man wanted to build a house about 6 inches too close to his property line, so he needed a variance. The city wanted to hear from our civic association about how they felt about the variance. I have never seen so many angry, racist, greyhaired white people in my neighborhood, and they all showed up to bitch over 6 inches on a lot to which none of them even abutted an abutter.
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Feb 5, 2014 21:34
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A transit expert weighed in on this today:quote:But the most interesting barriers to all-day service arise through our transit decision-making process, especially transit agencies' eagerness to respond to public comments. It takes time to understand and comment on a transit issue, or to plug into an advocacy group, so it's almost a tautology that transit agencies hear disproportionately from time-rich people, such as seniors and the non-working disabled, rather than from busy people. All-day frequent transit can be very successful, but the people who benefit most rarely speak up to demand it. They're too busy. http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2014/02/real-barriers-abundant-all-day-transit-service/8298/
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Feb 6, 2014 21:51
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Wait, all-day service is not the norm? I thought the article would be about the need for 24/h service. Here it's a big controversy that the system doesn't run late enough so drunks getting out of clubs and stuff at 1-2 have no options. It's absolutely essential a transit system runs frequently and reliably. Only a certain sort of "time rich" people have time to deal with schedules and taking the time to exactly plan their travels via transit when transit runs infrequently or with confusing routes. A good system means you just go to the stop and a vehicle comes within a short wait and you can count on this. If your traffic infrastructure, density, and funding tools have led to an environment that can not support this it has no business to exist and needs to be purged in the coming transiholocaust. If taking transit feels like planning air travel it's a failed system. It should feel more like a moving sidewalk. You just jump on and off and know it's always there. Basically a good transit system should be more convenient than driving. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 22:13
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You are missing the point of the comment--transit service caters to time rich people disproprtionally because transit agencies are eager to respond to public comments.
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Feb 6, 2014 22:39
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Yeah it's the same story everywhere, only a certain subset of people have time to complain about transit, or join their community association, or go to a public hearing. And sadly those people are generally crazy, have insane pet-issues, and don't come close to representing anything near the norm. Also the one thing those people do reliably is vote. Which comes back to my disgust with "youth" or any normal people who have passions to fix our cities and then don't vote. They'll rant and rave about rich old rich nimby's having too much influence, then I'll ask if they voted in the municipal election and "Oh I didn't know that was today, also I don't know any of the candidates they're all the same anyways". They'll bitch about getting passed up by full buses due to transit cut-backs and I'll ask if they wrote a letter or shot off some emails, nope, "what's the point". They'll complain bitterly about social justice issues and the homeless, but "Oh I'm seeing a really good show tonight" when I tell them about the public hearing to support that great farm for homeless people with a 70% success rate that's being shut down by a rich neighbouring church. Guess why that street through that rich neighbourhood didn't get bike lanes, because the residents complained they wanted to keep it 4 lanes and they reliably vote. Guess why that other street got bike lanes, because the residents wrote letters and lobbied for it. Guess why your over-loaded bus isn't getting more service, yet service is expanding into that suburb full of old people. Because they actually wrote letters, and they actually vote. Honestly I think the whole idea of "community consultation" and poo poo in every decision "local government" tends to make is fairly useless. I think leaders should make decisions based on actual data and not the 7 angry seniors that came to the public hearing out of a district of 10,000 people. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Feb 6, 2014 |
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Feb 6, 2014 22:42
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