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virtual256 posted:http://kuow.org/post/seattle-s-crosswalk-chirps-being-killed-rapid-ticks I don't know about the MUTCD, but rapid ticking meaning "walk" is in line with much of Europe. That can only be advantageous. Do they also tick more slowly on "don't walk"? One cool feature you'll find on Swedish crosswalks, at least, is dynamic volume. So at noisy times (lots of traffic) the ticking is louder, allowing the blind to find the crosswalk even in rush hour. At night, they're quiet enough not to bother neighbors. A fun trick it to hit the little box a couple of times and hear the ticking get really loud as a response. Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 17:11 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 16:53
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| # ? May 17, 2024 14:33 |
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Baronjutter posted:Also to be fair for most american cities no amount of bike infra is going to fix things, everything is just too sprawlig and spread out. You could put an awesome dutch cycle path down every single major street in america and only see a small increase in cycling. Well you'd see a huge relative increase but it would be like 1% to 4% or something. American development just isn't suited to anything but cars, it's been purposefully built to be hard or impossible to adapt to any other "transport paradigm". So what do you do? Just give up? Well that's not an option either. The US is though seeing a huge rise in transit usage, it's really a new golden age for transit and cities in the US and that's with most places being horribly resistant to expanding transit (See: Vancouver WA). Put some actual heavy government push behind this and it will only get better. You won't be able to adapt or save most of the US's built-up land but you'll be able to create some pretty awesome urban enclaves full of transit and bikes. When fuel prices get worse and worse along with the economy there's going to potentially be a huge divide between the efficient productive cities and the sprawling suburbs and country where the jobs will dry up and people won't be able to afford to get around. I could see vast swaths of suburbs abandoned detroit style, becoming huge low-density ghettos. There will be no money to maintain the roads and highways in those areas, things will crumble.
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Mar 12, 2014 16:57
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:A fun trick it to hit the little box a couple of times and hear the ticking get really loud as a response. So if you yell at the box for long enough, it will start yelling back. Just like my fellow motorists!
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Mar 12, 2014 17:30
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Subways always have to slow down when in a tunnel, subways HATE being in a tunnel.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:34
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596. gently caress. Yes.
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Mar 12, 2014 17:58
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virtual256 posted:http://kuow.org/post/seattle-s-crosswalk-chirps-being-killed-rapid-ticks We've had these kind of crossing indicators here in Australia for as long as I can remember. Those chirp/cuckoo sounds are really ambiguous and it's amazing to me that SDOT has only just reached this conclusion.
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Mar 12, 2014 19:49
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thehustler posted:596. 604 
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Mar 12, 2014 20:42
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I don't know about the MUTCD, but rapid ticking meaning "walk" is in line with much of Europe. That can only be advantageous. Switching to ticking is not just good for the blind, but it also creates lots of jobs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS_T02KNZnc
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Mar 12, 2014 23:14
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They sound awful, when I first encountered them in europe I thought there was some horrible broken machine grinding its gears, or that the signal system was shorting out. Nope, that's just how it sounds. If they can adjust the volume that would be great. We have these horrible pedestrian crossing buttons that make an incredibly loud chirp when you press them. I don't know why they need to chirp, you can tell when you press a button, but they drive locals nuts because all night you just hear this loud beep. Because of course every time you press a button it beeps and people, specially kids, love to just hammer on it until they get their walk signal. Also that youtube is absolutely adorable. Dude love make ped clicks. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 23:26 on Mar 12, 2014 |
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Mar 12, 2014 23:17
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James The 1st posted:You can see the positive affects of transit in Dallas. Pretty much everywhere the DART light rail is built is having major mutiuse developments being built. What's really cool is that many of these areas were once considered dead, but they are now thriving. I have to plug this just because I'm working for them, but don't forget the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority in uptown Dallas. The city abandoned their streetcar system in 1956. In the '80s, somebody found original rails that had been paved over on McKinney Avenue and decided to rebuild a couple of original early 20th streetcars (two of which were from Dallas to begin with) and run them as a cool little museum/tourist attraction. Today, the area is absolutely BOOMING. MATA has four operating cars available, an additional one being rebuilt (it got hit by a cement truck last summer), and a sixth one they bought from Brussels that they're holding off on until they can build another car barn. They're also working on and extension that should be open later this year that will provide a second direct connection to DART light rail and busses. I'm returning to MATA after a hiatus on March 31 and I'm so excited by all of this growth!
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Mar 13, 2014 19:32
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Blue Moonlight posted:Trimet and Friends are dealing with the same tinfoil hat nonsense in Oregon right now. Opponents of public transit in Tigard have managed to get something on the ballot that, if approved by voters, would require the City of Tigard to rebuff any plans to add dedicated bus lanes, light rail, or commuter rail until it was approved by popular vote and send letters annually to public officials stating that they are not interested in such projects. Supposedly backed by conservative groups, which means that it's unlikely to pass around here, but Washington doesn't have a monopoly on this kind of crazy. It passed.
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Mar 14, 2014 02:22
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Hedera Helix posted:It passed. I'd like to say I'm surprised, but really, I guess I'm not. It was drat close - there was a 220 vote spread. The joys of 34% voter turnout. Thinking back on it, I can recall a number of times over the last few years where the Tigard City Council has been criticized for acting somewhat capriciously in pursuing city goals - the most recent examples I can think of include green space, pedestrian/bike paths, and paying for a chunk of Lake Oswego's upgraded water facilities in exchange for a share of the water they produce (I recall that getting a lot of people riled up, but it seemed to be the definition of being stuck between a rock and a hard place; Tigard wasn't going to get more water cheaply no matter what option they picked - there was even a substantial rate hike that wasn't even part of the expansion plan - and at least they have a stake in something with the Lake Oswego plan). To be entirely honest, though, I don't know how they'd expand lightrail into Tigard. They'd either have to approach from downtown Portland (along which the only option is Barbur Boulevard/I-5, both of which being severely space-limited) or from Beaverton (which they might be able to do if they extended it down the WES commuter rail corridor in some fashion, but that's shared with industrial rail use and doesn't have a lot of applicable stops along the way, plus it'd further neuter WES' raison d'être.). Once they got there, they wouldn't have many ways to go without some pretty serious land purchase, eminent domain, or reduction of traffic capacity along Highway 99, and good luck there. They might be able to provide service to the Tigard Triangle and downtown "proper" Tigard, but that'd be about as in-depth as I think it could go, and those aren't really the areas people necessarily need the stops.
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Mar 14, 2014 10:34
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 Is this legal? I thought there were rules on signs that look like official traffic signs.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:06
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Baronjutter posted:
Whether it's legal or not, it's awesome.
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Mar 14, 2014 16:13
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Baronjutter posted:
I would say that they could have their permit revoked by ITD for that sign, based on this rule (from googling it looked like Idaho) quote:Signs may also be prohibited if they are visible from interstate or primary highways and are:
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Mar 14, 2014 17:26
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Blue Moonlight posted:To be entirely honest, though, I don't know how they'd expand lightrail into Tigard. They'd either have to approach from downtown Portland (along which the only option is Barbur Boulevard/I-5, both of which being severely space-limited) or from Beaverton (which they might be able to do if they extended it down the WES commuter rail corridor in some fashion, but that's shared with industrial rail use and doesn't have a lot of applicable stops along the way, plus it'd further neuter WES' raison d'être.). Once they got there, they wouldn't have many ways to go without some pretty serious land purchase, eminent domain, or reduction of traffic capacity along Highway 99, and good luck there. They might be able to provide service to the Tigard Triangle and downtown "proper" Tigard, but that'd be about as in-depth as I think it could go, and those aren't really the areas people necessarily need the stops. Actually, they were planning on running along 72nd ave to Tualatin, bypassing central Tigard entirely. Not that it stopped some jackass from sending out mailers warning of  TRAINS down 99-W, nor did it stop people from believing it.
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Mar 14, 2014 18:35
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After spending a week in training for planning software, I've come to the following conclusions: - SimCity4 is unironically the best traffic modeling software out there. - All those carefully compiled numbers I get from the Planning department are almost completely bullshit. - The bigger and more complex your model, the less accurate it will be. - If your calculated mode choice matches the survey data for 30% of participants, you're doing a great job. I know so much more than I did a week ago, but I'm so much less confident in my work. There are so many intrinsic flaws in the process, I feel like I'd be better off just applying the usual 0.2% growth rate to all the volumes in a network. ----- Gamechat: I'll give it a shot when I've had some time to rest. I used some crazy subway schemes in Cities in Motion 2 (also a better planning/modeling program than any professional software out there), so I wonder how well they'll work in another program. ----- Audible ped signals: They're a touchy subject, because a good portion of the blind community categorically rejects them. They're seen as condescending and insulting, especially the "bird call" tones. Personally, I don't see it that way, but just keep it in mind if you ever discuss it with someone heavily invested in the issue. Machine gun tones are pretty drat good, both for the locator tone (steady, slow tapping) and for the walk signal, combined with a vibrating, arrow-embossed button. The only thing better is a voice message telling you what the current state of the light is, which street you are crossing, and which direction. I saw plenty in Orléans while I was over in Europe. We don't install many voice messages (mostly because Maintenance doesn't know how to program them.) All of our modern audible ped signals have automated volume adjustment. It can be a bit tricky when you have two of them on the same pole (a different button is required for each crossing direction!), and the two will try to out-compete each other in volume. Can be avoided with good programming. I like to knock on the faceplate a few times and listen to them ramp up the volume to make sure they're working. With the voice messages, the button shouts 'wait' each time you press it, so you can lay down some smooth beats between that and the locator tone across the street. Wai-wai-w-w-w-w-w-wait! Beep! W-wait! W-wait! W-wai-w-wait! Beep! Baronjutter posted:
Connecticut bans any sign that resembles a traffic sign, or has words like "SLOW" or "STOP," within 1500' of the road (IIRC). I don't think it's often enforced.
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Mar 15, 2014 03:54
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Why would the blind community reject auditory queues? Would they prefer some sort of vibration system they feel with their feat? Smell based? Hot and cold?
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Mar 15, 2014 07:01
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Baronjutter posted:Why would the blind community reject auditory queues? Would they prefer some sort of vibration system they feel with their feat? Smell based? Hot and cold? I think the auditory cues are pretty decent for normal people, too, once you figure out what they mean. People are so loving distracted by looking at their phones or whatever that I think having an additional source of information is a good thing. It would be nice if they actually talked about what the auditory signals mean, mind you; I only figured it out because I heard them and decided to work out the meaning from context.
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Mar 15, 2014 09:10
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Baronjutter posted:Why would the blind community reject auditory queues? Would they prefer some sort of vibration system they feel with their feat? Smell based? Hot and cold? They prefer to go without special cues. Blind pedestrians are trained to listen to traffic noises and determine on their own when to go. This is why they hate hybrids and electric cars. There are two major blind advocacy groups in the US. One is all for APS and just about anything we can do to help them out, and the other wants to be treated like any other pedestrian.
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Mar 15, 2014 13:53
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Over here it's just a slow ticking noise if it's red, ticking fast if it's green and like a heartbeat if it's about to turn red.
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Mar 15, 2014 14:45
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Auditory messages are just so much more elegant of a solution than beeping systems. They're becoming more common here in Oregon, though many of them just say "Wait" and "Walk Sign is On" rather than including the cross-street location, and I so prefer them. They're great for helping blind pedestrians, but they're equally useful for directing children who might cross the street early or late.
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Mar 15, 2014 20:48
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Kaal posted:Auditory messages are just so much more elegant of a solution than beeping systems. They're becoming more common here in Oregon, though many of them just say "Wait" and "Walk Sign is On" rather than including the cross-street location, and I so prefer them. So you propose discriminating against non-English speakers? I thought Oregon was supposed to be progressive.
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Mar 15, 2014 20:50
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Devor posted:So you propose discriminating against non-English speakers? I thought Oregon was supposed to be progressive. They have them alternating in Spanish too in areas with significant Spanish-speaking populations. Just like our buses and tram systems. The trick is doing it in a way that isn't distracting.
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Mar 15, 2014 20:51
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Devor posted:So you propose discriminating against non-English speakers? Dude it's easier to learn like 3 words then to try to decode patterns of beeps and boops.
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Mar 16, 2014 00:16
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Hermsgervørden posted:
Also, gently caress whoever thought concrete was a good road medium. Nothing like swearing you have a flat tire all the drat time because of stupid gaps in the pavement. Also, pot holes capable of eating cars. (not kidding, my boss wound up hitting a pot hole just right and wound up destroying the rear sub assembly of his car)
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Mar 16, 2014 00:41
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AA is for Quitters posted:Holy poo poo dude, this is fantastic. You hate concrete, you hate asphalt. You can drive on cobblestones like Jesus intended, then.
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Mar 16, 2014 00:57
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Channel a lava flow into a prepared tranch, hire workers to smooth it out as it cools, and create a road of pure obsidian. 
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Mar 16, 2014 04:16
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Genius. A literal death trap in the winter I suspect
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Mar 16, 2014 04:19
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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AA is for Quitters posted:Holy poo poo dude, this is fantastic. If only there was a magic material that could handle midwest winters...
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Mar 16, 2014 04:20
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PittTheElder posted:Genius. Oh but what a way to go!
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Mar 16, 2014 04:30
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Haifisch posted:Hell, some of the asphalt roads here have spontaneously formed their own speed bumps from bits where the pavement hiked up for whatever reason. Frost heave! Water gets in the subgrade, then the freeze-thaw expansion and contraction just fucks everything up.
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Mar 16, 2014 04:39
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure the cities around here will be going crazy with road work once spring hits. I have never seen as many potholes as I have this winter in Tennessee, it has been hell on the roads.
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Mar 16, 2014 07:56
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Volmarias posted:Channel a lava flow into a prepared tranch, hire workers to smooth it out as it cools, and create a road of pure obsidian. A Dwarf Fortress post.
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Mar 16, 2014 16:57
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Opals25 posted:Yeah, I'm pretty sure the cities around here will be going crazy with road work once spring hits. I have never seen as many potholes as I have this winter in Tennessee, it has been hell on the roads. Its been insane this winter for sure. The section of I-40 I drive on to work has gone from being nice and smooth to a pothole filled mess over Jan and Feb. They've already had to fill in the worst ones at least 4-5 times so far this year. Sad thing is most of it was only repaved just a few years ago but it basically needs to be completely redone already with how bad it is now.
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Mar 16, 2014 17:20
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FatCow posted:A Dwarf Fortress post. I was going to say the same thing. For the class I teach, I made an exam problem about pothole patching. The correct answer was that, for this specific spot, they couldn't patch until 9 pm to avoid mucking up traffic. Later that week, they closed 2 lanes at that exact spot - in the middle of the day. 15-mile queues. It's nice when lessons line up with real life, isn't it?
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Mar 16, 2014 17:42
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Cichlidae posted:I was going to say the same thing. I fuckin' a toadaso! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhFHIlwCSq0
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Mar 16, 2014 18:22
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Install Windows posted:Dude it's easier to learn like 3 words then to try to decode patterns of beeps and boops. Well, the ticking patterns are pretty universal though (the beeps and boops, not so much). So any blind globetrotters will have it easier if you conform and use ticking.
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Mar 17, 2014 12:46
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Well, the ticking patterns are pretty universal though (the beeps and boops, not so much). So any blind globetrotters will have it easier if you conform and use ticking. The ticking patterns could be universal if they were used consisntently, but I've heard ticking patterns used in a few cities in the US and each time they seemed barely related to each other.
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Mar 17, 2014 16:10
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Yo Scott Oglesby, I know you're out there somewhere. What do you (and any other readers) think of this? Screening report – potential bypass routes around Hartford Interstate 84 in Hartford now carries more than three times as much traffic as it was originally designed to take. While much of the overflow is due to the steady growth of traffic volumes between the 1975 design year and today, the deeper issue is that I-84 was not meant to be the sole East-West route through the Hartford area, nor even through downtown. Hartford’s current freeways were only intended to be the first few links in a broad web of freeways comprised of dozens of routes. There is no single best way to arrange a road network, but the two most often used structures are orthogonal and radial. An orthogonal network encompasses a grid of parallel routes at right angles – that is, either East-West or North-South. It provides the benefits of redundancy and straightforward expansion: if any link is cut, whether by a traffic incident, construction, or permanently, the surrounding routes can accommodate the redirected traffic. In addition, if the city expands, the grid can be continued in any direction indefinitely. Los Angeles and Miami, for example, are based on an orthogonal grid, which complements and contributes to their expansive, decentralized growth. The second main route layout is radial. This resembles a spider web of radial routes, leading into and out of the city, and circumferential routes, going around the city in a roughly circular pattern. Radial routes are focused around a single central business district, accommodating the daily inbound and outbound flow very efficiently with a densely connected center and a looser, more spread out periphery. In addition, the circumferential routes provide better connection between suburbs and a simple way for through vehicles to bypass the central business district. Boston and Baltimore are examples of a radial highway network. Half a century ago, Connecticut’s highway planners drew up plans for a radial network of freeways centered on Hartford. Along with multiple radial routes stretching out from the city, many of which were eventually built, their plans proposed multiple rings around the city – providing, for example, direct routes between Bloomfield and Rocky Hill, Portland and Manchester, and between Windsor Locks and Tolland. Other than a few isolated stretches, these circumferential routes were never completed. This isn’t to say that the never-built routes were appropriate for a city of Hartford’s size, or that their environmental, social, or economic impacts wouldn’t have outweighed the mobility benefits. The simple fact is that Hartford’s existing freeways were never meant to be the sole routes through the city; their design reflects a plan that never came to fruition. Despite several reconstruction projects since its original construction, I-84 still bears the unmistakable signs of these canceled freeways: exits 45, 46, and 48 in Hartford, as well as 43 in West Hartford, and 56 in East Hartford, were all built for freeway-freeway connections but now serve local roads. Of those circumferential routes that do exist, none complete more than a quarter loop around Hartford. I-691, originally planned to be a full freeway between Waterbury and Willimantic, would have taken a path roughly parallel to Connecticut 66. Instead, it covers only a quarter that distance, stopping at I-91 in Meriden. Farther north, Connecticut 9 and 72 provide a similar connection between I-84 and I-91, including part of what would have been built as Interstate 291. I-291 itself, originally envisioned – and partially built – as a three-quarter loop around the city, only covers a small stretch of its proposed circumference. Route 3 across the Putnam Bridge was to have been extended into Manchester as Interstate 491, providing a much-needed connection between I-91 North and I-84 East. The Conland-Whitehead Highway, today just a stub to downtown, would have been a bypass around it, connecting to I-84 at the Capitol Avenue ramps and signed as Interstate 484. Along with these partially built routes are a dozen more that were designed, but never made it into construction. If the capacity of I-84 is reduced, either in construction or permanently, then the bypass capability of the surrounding freeway network is critical. While it is assumed that some local traffic can divert or change modes to avoid congestion, through traffic has few such options. A traveler going from New Haven to Springfield, for example, has no good path around Hartford during either peak hour. A vehicle going from Danbury to Boston is similarly short on alternate routes. These dilemmas apply equally to buses, carpools, and tractor-trailers. While CT 9 or I-691 may seem like good bypass routes, they are ultimately limited by the roads they connect: unless a trip’s origin and destination are both southwest of Hartford, the vehicle will eventually have to pass through heavily congested parts of Hartford or Middletown. CT 3 and CT 15, a partial bypass to the southeast, are both throttled at their interchanges with I-91, and by their river crossings: the Charter Oak and Putnam Bridges. In Windsor, I-291 provides a bypass for vehicles northeast of Hartford, but again runs into congestion on I-91. We cannot expect these existing routes to carry much more traffic during peak hours. What, then, of the unbuilt freeways? From a traffic perspective, the most effective option would be the completion of I-291 through Bloomfield and West Hartford. The northwest quarter currently has no bypass capability, and such a freeway could cut down immensely on through traffic by routing it to the north of the city. This segment was extensively studied from the 1930s to 1973, along several alignments and with different cross-sections, but all plans for the freeway were officially canceled once it became clear that the environmental impacts and costs were too extensive. If I-291 couldn’t be built in the early 1970s, at the height of Connecticut’s freeway construction era, it is inconceivable that it could be constructed now. Construction costs have grown disproportionately in the past few decades. The environmental issues are just as pressing as ever: any feasible alignment would bring it close to the protected waters of the West Hartford Reservoirs, or send it through the Metacomet Ridge to the west, home to unique microclimates and endangered species. In addition, in the intervening four decades, housing density and costs have ballooned in this area. Right-of-way acquisition alone would be costly, and that’s not even considering the political impossibility of forcing a freeway through some of the wealthiest backyards in the Capitol Region. A somewhat less effective bypass might link Connecticut 2 to I-84 or I-384 in East Hartford or Manchester. The current connection between CT 2 and I-84 sends traffic through the ‘Mixmaster’ interchange just east of the Bulkeley Bridge, where only one lane in each direction is provided for these movements. Route 2 in East Hartford is one of Connecticut’s oldest freeways, and would need to be substantially upgraded to move more traffic. Even then, the two river crossings south of Hartford, the Putnam and Charter Oak Bridges, are already operating at capacity. The interchanges of CT 3 and CT 15 with I-91 would have to be revisited as well; they currently experience congestion during peak hours, and so any increased throughput would require widening and additional lanes. A direct connection between I-91 and I-384 was originally proposed as I-491. Crossing over the Putnam Bridge, I-491 would have cut through East Hartford and touched down at the junction of I-384 and I-84. The design was controversial, even in the 1960s, as East Hartford already hosted three freeways (with two more planned), as well as what was then the largest interchange in the state. By 1970, the project was effectively shelved, and then canceled altogether in 1973. The current Putnam Bridge was only intended to carry westbound traffic on I-491; a twin would have been built alongside it to carry the other half. CT 3 is the only segment of I-491 that was built. If I-491 were considered again today, it would face the same problems that it did half a century ago. The proposed corridor follows Porter Brook and its wetlands. The freeway would either heavily impact them, or run through the adjacent housing developments. In addition, unlike I-291, the interchanges on both ends of I-491 would need to be completely rebuilt. The existing trumpet interchange at CT 2 would need to be converted to add another leg. The complex, 3-mile-long interchange between I-84, I-384, and I-291, built to modern standards, would need to be upgraded and reconfigured. And an additional cost would come from I-91, which would have to be widened from an improved CT 3 interchange southward to I-691, through a densely populated area; this would likely also require rebuilding its interchanges with CT 9 in Cromwell and I-691 in Meriden. The bypass options for through traffic around Hartford are not nonexistent, but they are vanishingly small. The major upgrades necessary to provide a feasible alternate route would cost far more than the replacement of the Aetna Viaduct itself, and result in heavy impacts to both sensitive environments and local citizens. We must expect that the lion’s share of through traffic on I-84 will remain there, regardless of what form the road takes.
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Mar 17, 2014 22:18
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