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We took a tour of the Q Bridge construction site in New Haven today. Pretty amazing to see from underneath. They're building a new bridge, overlapped with where the old bridge was, and reconstructing a massive intersection of two interstates. Looks nice and neat in the finished renderings, but the amount of work needed to get from A to B is crazy. Shame the bridge is kind of ugly. Blame the nearby airport for the stubby towers. http://www.i95newhaven.com/
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Jun 27, 2014 00:25
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Baronjutter posted:Maybe if they could actually accurately project demand rather than just always say the sky is falling and we need 50 trillion in new highways people would trust engineers better for long term projects that aren't just funding grabs or self-fulling car-obsessed prophesies. We don't project all that high at all. Our 2040 projections are just 6% higher than existing conditions. About 0.5% or so annual growth, and since the economy's picked back up, so are our ADTs: they've already rebounded beyond 2008 levels, at least around here. It's much more likely that we experienced a short-term dip, and that the inevitable growth will continue. Plus, we can't plan for negative growth, that's just really really bad decision-making. Flat growth, ok, but even our current volumes in Hartford are 3x the design volumes. So if anything, the planners way back when didn't shoot high enough. It is generally acknowledged, though, that projections are plus or minus 30%. Like I said, SimCity is a better traffic predictor than a lot of the software we use.
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Jun 27, 2014 00:38
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Why is the gas tax a flat amount and not a percentage like a lot of other taxes?
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Jun 27, 2014 00:45
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Roflex posted:Why is the gas tax a flat amount and not a percentage like a lot of other taxes? Because it's easier that way, and it means that massive swings in gas prices don't leave the government short of money.
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Jun 27, 2014 00:52
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Nintendo Kid posted:Because it's easier that way, and it means that massive swings in gas prices don't leave the government short of money. They could always follow the postage stamp model and scale it for inflation.
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Jun 27, 2014 01:25
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The arguments about VMT remind me a bit of climate change skeptics. If you really want a sustained decrease in VMT, fix land use first. Despite Chuck Marohn's protestations, engineers aren't rushing out to add capacity everywhere. We're hardly able to rebuild 50+ year old roads that are beyond their service life.
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Jun 27, 2014 01:28
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Dominus Vobiscum posted:The arguments about VMT remind me a bit of climate change skeptics. If you really want a sustained decrease in VMT, fix land use first. Yeah, volumes have grown what, 10-20x faster than road capacity over the last few decades?
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Jun 27, 2014 01:52
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Cichlidae posted:They could always follow the postage stamp model and scale it for inflation. That's not how the postage stamp model works, it rarely relates to inflation.
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Jun 27, 2014 02:27
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Why can't they have a simple formula where you take the tax base of an area and thus the budget of the transport department and say "this is how many roads you can have" based on the construction and LIFETIME upkeep of said infrastructure and if anyone wants new roads or bitches about old roads falling apart you just hit them in the face with that formula and ask them to increase funding or shut the gently caress up?
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Jun 27, 2014 02:33
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Nintendo Kid posted:That's not how the postage stamp model works, it rarely relates to inflation. I know it's not locked to inflation, but look how closely it keeps up: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_postage_rates I use known stamp prices from my childhood as a quick way to estimate inflation, and it works pretty well  Edit: Baronjutter posted:Why can't they have a simple formula where you take the tax base of an area and thus the budget of the transport department and say "this is how many roads you can have" based on the construction and LIFETIME upkeep of said infrastructure and if anyone wants new roads or bitches about old roads falling apart you just hit them in the face with that formula and ask them to increase funding or shut the gently caress up? What would you consider to be 'lifetime' in this case? We design our infrastructure to last anywhere from 20-100 years. Cichlidae fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 02:34
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Baronjutter posted:Why can't they have a simple formula where you take the tax base of an area and thus the budget of the transport department and say "this is how many roads you can have" based on the construction and LIFETIME upkeep of said infrastructure and if anyone wants new roads or bitches about old roads falling apart you just hit them in the face with that formula and ask them to increase funding or shut the gently caress up? This kind of system is why America collectively has one of the worst school systems in the developed world. Funding should be apportioned based on need, not ability to pay.
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Jun 27, 2014 02:40
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Cichlidae posted:What would you consider to be 'lifetime' in this case? We design our infrastructure to last anywhere from 20-100 years. The cost to build it, the cost to maintain it, and the eventual cost to demolish and replace it. All budgeted in advance and planned for. Cradle to the grave budgeting. No deferred upkeep, no scrambles to beg for funding to replace something that needs replacing. New construction can't touch the budget of maintaining what already is built. Also do the math and see if spending more for something designed to last longer will be cheaper in the long run. /\ Oh god no not like that. No "sorry poor black neighbourhood you don't get your roads repaved because you don't pay enough taxes to deserve it" poo poo. When I said regional I meant like state wide or even bigger. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 02:47
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Baronjutter posted:Why can't they have a simple formula where you take the tax base of an area and thus the budget of the transport department and say "this is how many roads you can have" based on the construction and LIFETIME upkeep of said infrastructure and if anyone wants new roads or bitches about old roads falling apart you just hit them in the face with that formula and ask them to increase funding or shut the gently caress up? We used to do that, it was called the 19th century. Consequently all infrastructure was poo poo so why the hell would you want to bring it back? Not to mention many places have barely done any major new construction in years, sometimes decades to begin with. Baronjutter posted:
There's a shitload of poor states and even regions and they already have poo poo roads. Why make them worse?
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Jun 27, 2014 03:18
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Ugh all this talk of gas tax reminds me of this horrible ballot initiative that some idiots are trying to get on the ballot here in MA: http://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_Automatic_Gas_Tax_Increase_Repeal_Initiative_%282014%29 Because God forbid the amount of revenue paying for our transportation system should rise proportionally to the costs of paying for our transportation system  If any of you guys are fellow Massachusetts residents, please please please vote against this.
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Jun 27, 2014 03:19
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Baronjutter posted:The cost to build it, the cost to maintain it, and the eventual cost to demolish and replace it. All budgeted in advance and planned for. Cradle to the grave budgeting. No deferred upkeep, no scrambles to beg for funding to replace something that needs replacing. New construction can't touch the budget of maintaining what already is built. Also do the math and see if spending more for something designed to last longer will be cheaper in the long run. Because fat trusts whose full returns that aren't actually due until decades after the politician "borrowing" from them is dead never end poorly, am I right? Politicians would never raid those for short term interests and then say "welp" about paying it back down the line.
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Jun 27, 2014 03:39
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I guess keep building unsustainable infrastructure with no financial plan for its long term upkeep let alone future replacement, keep not addressing land use and just keeping adding more lanes to solve everything. Keep enabling sprawl on low tax or unincorporated land that can't or won't pay taxes for its own infrastructure. When those chickens come home to roost it's going to get real bad. It's already starting in some places. Bridges and overpasses way past their life spans, things that shouldn't be crumbling falling apart because of years of deferred maintenance. In many ways it's the highways and engineers that hosed them selves. You build these huge expensive highways to open up land outside cities to sprawl, land that has suddenly become very attractive because now developers can build huge tracts of land just outside city limits and not have to pay those outrageous city taxes. Great, now your tax base is diluted but the amount of infrastructure costs per person has shot up and these people fight any attempt to actually pay their fair share or taxes, none of them having any concept of how insanely subsidized their lifestyles are (generally the same people who bitch about government handouts and think its they who are subsidizing the rest of america). Of course if the worst of sprawl paid their fair share, they'd not be so attractive in the first place. So make places pay their fair share and you've solved both the land use problem and the funding problem at the same time. Of course such a sudden change would absolutely gently caress the poor more than anyone else so not a good thing to do suddenly. Just like a big increase in gas tax fucks the poor most of all. Already in places the poor are having to live in the furthest suburbs with no transit, no sidewalks, and they simply can't afford a car let alone gas and insurance. Can you imagine living somewhere like suburban Atlanta without a car? Having to walk miles to work on the shoulder of a highway? It's absolutely hosed and getting worse rapidly. The solution? Clearly rambling incoherently on a wide variety of tangents related to infrastructure. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Jun 27, 2014 |
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Jun 27, 2014 05:14
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Basically what you're talking about has little to no relation to America in the 21st century.
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Jun 27, 2014 13:01
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Baronjutter posted:The solution? Clearly rambling incoherently on a wide variety of tangents related to infrastructure. Well I'm glad that you have us covered then.
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Jun 27, 2014 13:05
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They're doing a rapid double interstate bridge replacement this weekend, starting at 5 PM. The live cams are pretty cool. http://www.earthcam.net/projects/ctdot/interstate84/
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Jun 27, 2014 15:58
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So, apparently, after years of talks, they decided to put a net under the Golden Gate Bridge to catch suicide jumpers. My source doesn't happen to link to an English language article, so just google it if you want. Some facts in the article: - Every year 30 people jump to their deaths there. - Every year an additional 70 people are prevented from jumping because officials can stop them in time. - 98% of people jumping off the bridge actually die. Reasons to not build the net are: - It costed 35 million 1930's dollars to build the bridge. It costs 76 million 2014's dollars to build the net. According to opponents, this makes the net 'more expensive' than the bridge itself. - The net would make the bridge look less pretty. - People would find another way to kill themselves. I think the reason to build it is rather obvious: no more Golden Gate Bridge suicides. Now, it's going to get built after all, with $20 million bridge toll money, $7 million from the State of California, and the rest coming from the federal government. The reason I bring this up is because, first of all, a bridge is important traffic infrastructure. Secondly, I wouldn't be surprised if these years of talks were the same kind of citizens vs. politicians vs. engineers discussions that cause so much crap for any public project in the United States (and to a lesser extent, elsewhere).
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Jun 28, 2014 06:19
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Countdown for someone to land in sue the state for injuries suffered, or die and have their family sue for the net not being suicide proof. That or just a load of seagulls caught in it.
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Jun 28, 2014 06:50
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Carbon dioxide posted:- It costed 35 million 1930's dollars to build the bridge. It costs 76 million 2014's dollars to build the net. According to opponents, this makes the net 'more expensive' than the bridge itself.  Personally spending 76 million on a net strikes me as a pretty wasteful way to reduce suicides, but boy is that ever a lovely argument.
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Jun 28, 2014 08:17
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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People have a right to commit suicide in a iconic location. Now they have to jump from a lesser known bridge. Or is the US going to equip all bridges (that haven't collapsed yet) with suicide nets?
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Jun 28, 2014 08:59
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NihilismNow posted:People have a right to commit suicide in a iconic location. Now they have to jump from a lesser known bridge. Or is the US going to equip all bridges (that haven't collapsed yet) with suicide nets? Nice troll. Anyway, I'd assume that it's expensive for the Golden Gate Bridge operators, the police, etc etc etc to deal with jumpers and the aftermath. If you want to off yourself, it's much cheaper and easier for everyone for you to slit your wrists in the bathtub. Additionally, given the value of human life, catching 10 people who didn't realize that there was a net and could be treated for depression, etc. would probably pay for the cost to society.
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Jun 28, 2014 17:45
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Volmarias posted:Additionally, given the value of human life, catching 10 people who didn't realize that there was a net and could be treated for depression, etc. would probably pay for the cost to society. That's for a average person though, depressed people are worth significantly less. Also wouldn't the corpses just wash out to sea? Doesn't seem like much cleanup there where you are going to have to retrieve people from your net manually and then give them your expensive depression treatment and hope that you can cure enough of them for them to generate enough revenue to offset the cost of the net, damage to the iconic image of the golden gate bridge and money spent on retrieving them from the net and the depression treatment. That is without taking into account that the uncureable cases will surely inflict further costs on society. What kind of dollar value should be put on damage to the bridge brand?
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Jun 28, 2014 19:53
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I know you're trolling, but other places have thought this through, and I'm sure they can incorporate something. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_Veil
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Jun 28, 2014 20:02
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Dominus Vobiscum posted:I know you're trolling, but other places have thought this through, and I'm sure they can incorporate something. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminous_Veil I'm not trolling. Your link proves my point exactly. That viaduct is now extremely ugly, it was not a very famous viaduct so i guess the damage is smaller than if you were to do something like that to the golden gate bridge. Do you honestly think people who were going to jump off that viaduct just gave up and went home and decided to get some therapy? No they jumped in front of a train, or from another bridge. Meanwhile public space is just a little bit uglier. Maybe if you are designing a new bridge you can take suicide resistance into account but suicide proofing all public spaces seems next to impossible. Just because those suicides didn't happen at that specific site does not mean any suicides were prevented or even that they were less disruptive to society (for example if they chose to jump in front of a train instead of jumping from a bridge). Unless there is actual proof that making "romantic" suicide locations inaccessible prevents suicide?
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Jun 28, 2014 20:18
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 So ugly. Do you seriously think that the Golden Gate Bridge's "brand" is going to be ruined by a net that you'll likely barely be able to see from a distance? This country pisses away $76 million or more a day on frivolous things and killing people around the world. That's a pretty low cost to prevent even a portion of 20+ people who jump off the bridge each year from killing themselves. To attempt to steer this back on topic, any $76 million highway project that prevented 20 deaths a year would more than meet a cost/benefit analysis.
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Jun 28, 2014 20:36
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Dominus Vobiscum posted:To attempt to steer this back on topic, any $76 million highway project that prevented 20 deaths a year would more than meet a cost/benefit analysis. Except that it doesn't. From your own example: quote:"The overwhelming answer is ‘Oh yes, it works... at the Bloor Viaduct'," reports Dr. Anthony Levitt, chief psychiatrist at Sunnybrook.
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Jun 28, 2014 21:13
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Clearly, the answer is to install suicide booths on every corner. Then we will truly be living in the future. 
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Jun 28, 2014 21:19
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Concern trolling is still trolling. Hedera Helix posted:Clearly, the answer is to install suicide booths on every corner. Then we will truly be living in the future. If you ask the right people, they'd tell you cars are suicide/homicide booths on wheels. Anyway, from the people who made Streetmix, there is now Transitmix. It's currently bus-only, but it works with OpenStreetMap and you can make fantasy bus systems for wherever you want to, with peak/off-peak/weekend headway adjustments and cost estimates. Hopefully they will code in light and heavy rail soon, so I can drop fantasy subway/elevated networks all over America.
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Jun 28, 2014 21:26
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Some Californian VA docs took a fairly comprehensive look at the Golden Gate suicide net issue, and came out pretty strongly in favor of it. Basically their conclusion was that would-be jumpers would still choose other places to leap from, but most places have a much lower fatality rate than the GGB.: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23261913quote:Abstract
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Jun 29, 2014 00:14
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poo poo, they just put barriers on the side of a river bridge here just to stop kids jumping from it for fun.
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Jun 29, 2014 00:19
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I don't understand why they're going to the trouble of installing a net instead of putting up a simple but strong inward curving fence you can't climb over.
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Jun 29, 2014 01:58
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Nintendo Kid posted:I don't understand why they're going to the trouble of installing a net instead of putting up a simple but strong inward curving fence you can't climb over. Depending on budget, however, it's more likely to look like this in the end: 
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Jun 29, 2014 02:26
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Nintendo Kid posted:I don't understand why they're going to the trouble of installing a net instead of putting up a simple but strong inward curving fence you can't climb over. So that they don't obstruct the view from the bridge? It is a scenic overview for the tourists.
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Jun 29, 2014 02:49
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Christ guys, life is depressing enough already. Let's talk about something a bit cheerier. http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-i84-highway-closure-southington-20140627,0,6637569.story The ABC is going well. They typically allot a good deal more time than they need for these things, so it's not surprising to see things working so smoothly, but I think we've all been a bit nervous about this project since it's the first in the state.
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Jun 29, 2014 04:30
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Are they building it the same way as that Vancouver replacement video we had posted in the thread a few months ago? Where they just slide in the new bridge for minimum delays (but way higher costs) ?
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Jun 29, 2014 05:24
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dupersaurus posted:So that they don't obstruct the view from the bridge? It is a scenic overview for the tourists. Those don't obstruct the view from the bridges they're on. A net would obstruct just as much.
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Jun 29, 2014 05:27
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loving hell everybody shut up about bridge suicides. Don't bite some random trolling to derail Cichlidae's awesome thread.
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Jun 29, 2014 09:58
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