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NihilismNow posted:Dutch cities are finding out you can only push this so far before people just don't come to your city center anymore and go to the nice shopping center with the free parking. Haarlem recently reintroduced on street parking for cars in a part of the city (they actually removed bicycle parking to make space for it) at the request of the shopkeepers in that street. Is there an article or something talking about this?
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May 27, 2014 18:03
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We've got a couple of big parking lots around he edge of the city center, and the entire center is walking / bikes / buses only, yet on nice days the streets are so crowded you can't really ride your bike in the road. Guess it depends somewhat on the city.
Ika fucked around with this message at 11:41 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 27, 2014 21:02
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Michigan Lefts. It seems to me that they're a great idea, cutting wait times at traffic lights, But I've been missing them more and more for the way they seem to clear up traffic at major intersections in the Detroit area versus waiting forever to move at all here in Denver.
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May 28, 2014 02:36
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Speleothing posted:Michigan Lefts. I've always been partial to the jughandle, but I'm sure growing up in New Jersey had something to with it. However, they can easily cause confusion for
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May 28, 2014 02:48
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Speleothing posted:Michigan Lefts. 
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May 28, 2014 03:42
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I will never understand how people can not understand a jughandle when everyone's used a freeway interchange before.
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May 28, 2014 03:50
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Nintendo Kid posted:I will never understand how people can not understand a jughandle when everyone's used a freeway interchange before. We have to cater to the stupidest possible drivers. The ones who only passed their exams by dumb luck. As for the parking spaces, I don't think it's possible to get rid of on-street parking, no matter who owns it, without risking a lawsuit. Best case scenario, they'll settle with you. Worst, they'll torpedo your project. Now for another discussion topic (as if we needed more): I was wondering today how traffic engineering contributes to gentrification and if our streetscape projects are really helping people, or just driving them deeper into poverty. This probably isn't something I should lose sleep over, but I like to be ethical, y'know?
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May 28, 2014 04:03
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Have you guys ever watched "Canada's Worst Driver" ? Pretty excellent program at showing the sort of people that are on the road. Terrifying really. Seriously just check out the most recent season or two, it's all on youtube and it's all good TV. They desperately try to teach terrible drivers how to drive better but they either have attitude problems or have to be retarded. What infuriates me the most is NONE of them should have their license. They don't know any street signs, they don't know how to use their mirrors, they don't know the most basic rules of the road. Who the gently caress is giving them licenses???
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May 28, 2014 04:22
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My wife watched a DMV employee help a blind old lady pass the vision test, so I'd guess them.
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May 28, 2014 04:26
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nm posted:What I do like in LA is that the toll lanes are free for 3 passengers and motorcycles, reduced cost for 2 persons, and full cost for 1. They use some fancy transponder and monitor it otherwise like other carpool lanes. I cannot disagree more. They're converting previously free-for-all HOV lanes into this bullshit toll/HOV combo that claims to be free for HOV purposes but really isn't. $40 for the required transponder and $1/month for "maintenance" (reduced just last month; used to be $3/month). If you're someone like me who drives around LA just a few times a year, the "free" carpool lanes cost more than if I just paid the drat toll at an old-fashioned toll both. gently caress taking preexisting, taxpayer-built roads and closing them off to the general public.
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May 28, 2014 09:20
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Cichlidae posted:We have to cater to the stupidest possible drivers. The ones who only passed their exams by dumb luck. Hey, I only passed my driving test because the instructor took pity on me, and I can navigate a jughandle just fine. They're so loving useful. I frequently turn parking lots and corner stores into illegal jughandles because gently caress you traffic engineers in this state not knowing how useful jughandles are. ...maybe that's why i should have failed my driving test, but i'm trying to make a left on a street with next to no traffic having to wait for a green light when nothings coming? screw that, the parking lot across the street makes a nice hosed up sort of jughandle.
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May 28, 2014 13:52
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Cichlidae posted:Now for another discussion topic (as if we needed more): I was wondering today how traffic engineering contributes to gentrification and if our streetscape projects are really helping people, or just driving them deeper into poverty. This probably isn't something I should lose sleep over, but I like to be ethical, y'know? Here in Chicago, it seems like the traffic engineering comes after other gentrification factors, like chain stores. A good example is in Wicker Park, where they are finally rebuilding Wolcott & Milwaukee into a more pedestrian friendly configuration. This is years after the Urban Outfitters and American Apparels of the world displaced the little vegan cafes and dive bars, and is needed in this now pedestrian- and bike-heavy stretch.
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May 28, 2014 15:42
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Cichlidae posted:As for the parking spaces, I don't think it's possible to get rid of on-street parking, no matter who owns it, without risking a lawsuit. Best case scenario, they'll settle with you. Worst, they'll torpedo your project. In Vancouver, they are in the process of converting a narrow road that had turned into an arterial route into neighbourhood street and a bikeway by blocking off parts of the road. In the process, they are losing some on-street parking. There were a bunch of threatened lawsuits (not actually to do with the parking, so much as with changes in traffic flow, IIRC), but nothing came of them. Do you know of any cases where a lawsuit over lost street parking has been successful? Cichlidae posted:Now for another discussion topic (as if we needed more): I was wondering today how traffic engineering contributes to gentrification and if our streetscape projects are really helping people, or just driving them deeper into poverty. This probably isn't something I should lose sleep over, but I like to be ethical, y'know? There's a vaguely related thread in DnD. In terms of poverty, some of the voices in that thread with a more direct perspective would be Mugrim (works with non-profits directly helping the poor) and DR ZIMBARDO (union organiser). At least, they have a better perspective than the goony "self-driving cars will fix everything" response of a lot of the other posters. But a lot of the issues are well beyond the control of traffic engineers themselves: car subsidisation, fuel subsidisation, zoning decisions creating sprawl, disincentivising (or outright banning) of public transit / walking / cycling, etc. Fifty to ninety years ago, however, when the science fiction dream of mega-highways was all the rage, I do believe traffic engineers did a lot to screw things up for the poor. More recently, there are still issues. You should read the articles I linked in my earlier post. Here's one quote, at least giving some people's perspective: Pedestrian advocate posted:Knowing the issues it's impossible not to be an advocate. It's not something to be ashamed of - to be an advocate for pedestrians. I'm called an advocate but that's because my ideas haven't been accepted yet. We don't call traffic engineers advocates for automobiles. We call them experts in moving automobiles when in fact they are advocates as much as I'm an advocate. I think it's an irrelevant distinction and one that is used to question the expertise of people who take a common sense and human-based approach to planning From the UK article: UK article posted:[Ernest] Marples even intensified the reorganization of public space by not only cooperating more closely with the governmental Transport and Road Research Laboratory but also by establishing within the ministry a special Traffic
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May 28, 2014 18:24
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Remember that driving exams differ a whole lot between countries. For instance, here in Holland, most people take something between 20 - 50 hours of (expensive) practical lessons. They have a theoretical exam about the rules of the road. One of its parts is getting 10 seconds to look at a picture of a traffic situation and pressing the right multiple choice button. You'll fail if you get more than a few out of many questions wrong. Then there's the practical exam, which amounts to driving through some diverse traffic for an hour, and they can and often will fail you on any single mistake. We have wild stories about driving exams in third world countries such as the United States, where, apparently, someone just has to drive forward a bit, drive backwards a bit, drive around a corner, and stop their car, and they'll get their license.
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May 28, 2014 21:17
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Lead out in cuffs posted:In Vancouver, they are in the process of converting a narrow road that had turned into an arterial route into neighbourhood street and a bikeway by blocking off parts of the road. In the process, they are losing some on-street parking. There were a bunch of threatened lawsuits (not actually to do with the parking, so much as with changes in traffic flow, IIRC), but nothing came of them. Do you know of any cases where a lawsuit over lost street parking has been successful? I've only heard stories, for the most part. The rights-of-way guys mostly handle that. But when we took a couple parking spaces in a dirt lot for the Ellington roundabout, the owner demanded upward of 100 grand for them. Not sure how the case turned out, because the results never come back to the engineers aside from "we got the parking spaces." ----- I'm making diagrams for a public meeting. Do these intuitively make sense to you guys?  
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May 29, 2014 00:42
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Cichlidae posted:I'm making diagrams for a public meeting. Do these intuitively make sense to you guys? Where does the remaining 1% go? Let's talk about whether .99=1 for 15 minutes, and then do it again when someone comes in late and has to get caught up. Kaal fucked around with this message at 01:07 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 01:02
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Kaal posted:Where does the remaining 1% go? Let's talk about whether .99=1 for 15 minutes, and then do it again when someone comes in late and has to get caught up. What is the probability that any two lines in an infinite plane will intersect? And if someone brings up that they only add to 0.99, I'll have to do my best not to mention that all our data is based of a single day of helicopter observations and I'd be happy if it was within 20% of the actual value.
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May 29, 2014 01:06
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Cichlidae posted:What is the probability that any two lines in an infinite plane will intersect? Hahaha, I really hope that's how you respond. If I were covering the public session I'd probably make a quip about fatal accidents to my fellow journalists. Also, my interpretation is that the morning commuters are using the eastbound interstate for the respective destinations according to the 22/44/33 ratio, and the evening commuters are using the westbound interstate similarly. It's a bit hard to see Hartford symbol at a distance, and the directional arrows confused me for a minute, but it made sense pretty quickly. My first question would be why are the two numbers not roughly equal, so hopefully that's what you want to talk about. Kaal fucked around with this message at 01:13 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 01:08
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Carbon dioxide posted:Remember that driving exams differ a whole lot between countries. Licensing for commercial drivers in the US is like what you described, so we at least make sure people who drive a bus full of passengers and the heavy industrial stuff aren't terrible. Some of it is also just as strict: screw up a CDL pretrip, especially the brake check, and your test is immediately over. gently caress up an alley dock test by leaving the back end of the box ("hitting the dock") and you're pretty much done. Failing to stop properly at a railroad crossing with hazmat/passenger is another instant fail. Running a red is a fail (even a rolling stop on a right turn). Rollbacks are an instant fail. Curbing the vehicle is an instant fail. Licensing for a basic car is indeed a joke. Down here in Florida, don't even mention making driver license restrictions tougher or you will be voted out of office/fired via complaints by old people that have been driving for 50+ years and wouldn't have it any other way (even if they can't see or hold a brake pedal steady). My Grandmother is over 80 years old, blind in one eye, almost blind in the other and still gets a license renewal every year. Varance fucked around with this message at 01:34 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 01:22
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When people talk about safe driving in the US they're probably talking about buying a sufficiently large vehicle and comprehensive insurance package to survive any impact by being bigger than their opponent. I wish I were joking.
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May 29, 2014 01:29
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Kaal posted:When people talk about safe driving in the US they're probably talking about buying a sufficiently large vehicle and comprehensive insurance package to survive any impact by being bigger than their opponent. I wish I were joking. Varance fucked around with this message at 01:39 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 01:35
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Varance posted:I drive 10+ ton transit buses on a regular basis and I still don't feel safe on the road because bad/unconfident drivers do exactly this. I think that it says a lot about American society that police-style push bars have become a trendy thing for guys to put on their massive poo poo-kicking trucks. Meanwhile they've been banned throughout the European Union because car-mounted rams are incredibly unsafe.
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May 29, 2014 01:45
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Varance posted:Licensing for commercial drivers in the US is like what you described, so we at least make sure people who drive a bus full of passengers and the heavy industrial stuff aren't terrible. Some of it is also just as strict: screw up a CDL pretrip, especially the brake check, and your test is immediately over. gently caress up an alley dock test by leaving the back end of the box ("hitting the dock") and you're pretty much done. Failing to stop properly at a railroad crossing with hazmat/passenger is another instant fail. Running a red is a fail (even a rolling stop on a right turn). Rollbacks are an instant fail. Curbing the vehicle is an instant fail.
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May 29, 2014 02:24
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Entropist posted:Heh, those are basics. Failure reasons here are things like entering a driveway slightly too aggressively, not checking both mirrors and the blind spot before turning on the indicator, positioning yourself badly on a crossing when waiting to turn somewhere or, apparently according to a friend, taking the wrong exit on a large traffic circle. It's pretty strict. All of those were on my driver's test in New Jersey.
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May 29, 2014 02:35
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Saw a proposed redesign where all the street parking was slanted and designated as back-in only. So slanted backwards from normal. I guess it helps with pulling out blind into traffic but I've never seen that before.
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May 29, 2014 02:41
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smackfu posted:Saw a proposed redesign where all the street parking was slanted and designated as back-in only. So slanted backwards from normal. I guess it helps with pulling out blind into traffic but I've never seen that before. Back-in angled parking is particularly safer for bicyclists. And for pulling out in general, too.
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May 29, 2014 03:27
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Cichlidae posted:
No, sorry. You're just barfing numbers at us, and I think that bottom image is an upside down squid. Also, "Morning Peak/Evening Peak" doesn't say anything. Peak what? Peak volume? Peak accidents? Peak speed? Consider talking to a designer about this, this can be hard to do. Volmarias fucked around with this message at 03:49 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 03:46
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Volmarias posted:No, sorry. You're just barfing numbers at us, and I think that bottom image is an upside down squid. Also, "Morning Peak/Evening Peak" doesn't say anything. Peak what? Peak volume? Peak accidents? Peak speed? It needs more pizzazz, how about some animated glitter?
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May 29, 2014 03:50
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Peanut President posted:It needs more pizzazz, how about some animated glitter? To be fair I asked myself the same questions. Percent of what? When? Devoid of context (which of course I assume you would have) those visuals don't really tell me anything.
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May 29, 2014 04:05
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Entropist posted:Heh, those are basics. Failure reasons here are things like entering a driveway slightly too aggressively, not checking both mirrors and the blind spot before turning on the indicator, positioning yourself badly on a crossing when waiting to turn somewhere or, apparently according to a friend, taking the wrong exit on a large traffic circle. It's pretty strict.  There's a whole host of other reasons you can fail a CDL exam, including any motion that could theoretically cause an accident. Failing to signal, failing to check mirrors, driving down a street with a truck restriction, failing to remember what the weight limit on the bridge you just crossed was, failing to remember the color of the car that was parked on the shoulder, hitting a low hanging branch, etc.. Getting out more than an acceptable number of times/knocking over cones/running over lines/pulling up over and over during the backing tests will also work toward your failure. In Florida, CDL examiners can also ask you questions about laws specific to your driver license, which you already had to know to get the permit. What is the maximum quantity of hazmat that you can carry on a passenger vehicle designed for more than 15 occupants? (In FL, 500 pounds total, no more than 100 pounds per class of material, with no poisonous liquids/gases, explosives or radioactives) Varance fucked around with this message at 05:53 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 05:42
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Cichlidae posted:I'm making diagrams for a public meeting. Do these intuitively make sense to you guys? On the one hand, these make total sense to me. On the other hand, I argue about plots for a living.
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May 29, 2014 05:57
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Kaal posted:Is there an article or something talking about this? I've got a bunch of short articles in Dutch about the individual things i mention (reintroduction of parking in center of haarlem, and other towns, expensive parking garage plan). But no nice long English language article. It is really a combination of things i read over the past months. You can find a lot of articles about the Amsterdam parking garage, a few about reintroducing parking in Haarlem. The small towns reintroducing free parking requires you to read Dutch regional newspapers though.
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May 29, 2014 10:06
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Volmarias posted:No, sorry. You're just barfing numbers at us, and I think that bottom image is an upside down squid. Also, "Morning Peak/Evening Peak" doesn't say anything. Peak what? Peak volume? Peak accidents? Peak speed? Yeah, it is tricky. At least I'm going to be standing next to the thing for 4 hours explaining what it means, but I'd like to have to explain as little as possible. And they'll be on a big display talking about traffic volumes, so that should handle the context a bit - but how can I make things more clear? Change the labels?
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May 29, 2014 12:19
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I would replace the hartford seal with the word "HARTFORD." People won't be able to understand the seal from 10 feet away.
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May 29, 2014 12:31
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Color code, size proportionally, or just do SOMETHING with that road graphic. What is the thesis your project is arguing? You're going to expand X, how will that effect these numbers? I have no context to care about these charts, which could be part of the problem. Do you need two slides here? Seriously though, make friends with your art department. They do this all day for a living.
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May 29, 2014 12:41
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smackfu posted:I would replace the hartford seal with the word "HARTFORD." People won't be able to understand the seal from 10 feet away. Alternately: A Whalers logo. At least I know I'd love that poo poo if I were at your presentation.
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May 29, 2014 14:00
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Volmarias posted:Color code, size proportionally, or just do SOMETHING with that road graphic. I have some very nice detailed graphs for true O-Ds, color-coded and scaled with volume, but I'm not supposed to show them to the public because they're too complex. And honestly, the charts aren't meant to SHOW or PROVE anything. We're going to be standing beside these all night long and will just be pointing to them for reference. I can't give numbers, because they're too complicated to show with a single slide. Out of the 38,348 trips in Hartford in the PM peak, 12,996 cross the West Hartford town line heading westbound on I-84, and of those, 4,342 come from I-84 WB east of the River, 3,816 come from I-91 North or South, and 4,460 come from the on-ramps from Trumbull, High, Asylum, Capitol, and Sisson. I have 4 huge matrices of numbers that I need to synthesize down to something people will understand in two seconds. And what art department? I might be the only person in the company who knows how to use Photoshop. We're all engineers. Totally replacing the Hartford logo and putting some more captions, though. This will be on a big map of volumes, so I'd hope they could make the connection, but never underestimate stupidity. Edit:  
Cichlidae fucked around with this message at 18:34 on May 29, 2014 |
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May 29, 2014 18:14
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We have a public meeting coming up on the 17th: http://i84hartford.com/whats-new.html If you want to come, please do! We're going to have a lot to show you, and there will be plenty of opportunities to voice your concerns. Please bring me food, because I'm going to be there all afternoon and evening with nothing to eat. And if you're the type to stir up debate, ask when Flower Street is going to be back open, or whether we're putting tolls on I-84 to pay for the Busway.
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Jun 4, 2014 13:55
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Cichlidae posted:I have some very nice detailed graphs for true O-Ds, color-coded and scaled with volume, but I'm not supposed to show them to the public because they're too complex. And honestly, the charts aren't meant to SHOW or PROVE anything. We're going to be standing beside these all night long and will just be pointing to them for reference. Knowing nothing about traffic flow, but having made many plots to illustrate complex ideas, I'll share my $0.02. You need to start with an idea of what message you want to get across. All I get from these are that the three groups of I84 drivers are roughly equal, and I'm not sure what to do with that information. Is the idea that some of those routes are over capacity, or are there choke points where some of the routes cross or merge? If so, why not illustrate that? You could show the big arrow squeezing into a proportionately smaller channel, for example. How much value is lost productivity from delays compared to the cost of fixing it? Also, if done right, you can actually get a lot of data onto a graphic and still make it easy to take away key points. For example this energy production and consumption chart:  It's very easy to then highlight whatever you want highlighted and easy for people to understand with minimal guidance. For example, more than half our energy is wasted, or we use more than twice the energy in our cars than in our homes, power transmission losses are huge, or any number of other take away messages.
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Jun 4, 2014 22:36
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What is rejected energy? Just energy lost to heat ?
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