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I'd love more completely separate bike paths. Here you can get ticketed for using the sidewalk, or you can take your chances on the main road. The bike lane, if there is one, is the 18" between the curb and the outer lane, where all the gravel and crap gets blown by cars driving by. We have one nominal "bike route" which is a nice 4 mile path separate from anything else, and then 17 miles of "good luck on the six inch shoulder of this windy rural backroad!"
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Nov 27, 2014 03:43
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Javid posted:I'd love more completely separate bike paths. Here you can get ticketed for using the sidewalk, or you can take your chances on the main road. The bike lane, if there is one, is the 18" between the curb and the outer lane, where all the gravel and crap gets blown by cars driving by. Don't forget that after peak hours, there are often parked cars at meters!
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Nov 27, 2014 04:06
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Chicago has a couple bike-only paths (most notably, pretty much the entire lakefront) and it's awesome. In the next couple of years they're working on adding two major bike arteries besides the lakefront -- one up the Chicago river which will connect most of the NW neighborhoods to downtown; and the Bloomington trail, which is taking an abandoned elevated railroad going E/W and converting it to a bike trail. We also got bike shares a couple years ago, and some bike-only lanes through downtown. Our mayor might be incredibly corrupt, but on the upside he's an avid cyclist.
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Nov 27, 2014 08:44
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Just how overtaxed is the K-96 highway in Wichtia Kansas? Basically, K-96 from I-135 to the next two exits west (hillside, and oliver respectively) averages 58,300 cars per day on a four lane stretch of highway. I don't know the theoretical max capacity of a four lane urban highway, but some stretches of the 6 lane highway in the area are as low as 40K (some areas are as high as 100K). Numbers are here: http://www.ksdot.org/Assets/wwwksdotorg/bureaus/burTransPlan/maps/CountMaps/Districts/inset13.PDF Pretty pictures of the problem are here:  Detail of K-96 to I-135 to K-96/I-235/K-254 intersection of doom: (the lower half of this pretty  but most of weird rear end ramps are low traffic) Street view of the lead up to the loop of doom:  It's also worthwhile to note that K-96 just a few miles east of hell goes to minimal traffic, primarily because there are four loving stop lights, two of which last a minute, on the 54/5400 highway between K-96 and civilization. I-35 is a toll road so it's pretty bad rear end to drive on, fells like a ghost town when you're up there with less than 15K cars per day. The last fuckup in my city is the intersection at 54/400 and I-235, a cloverleaf from the '50s with loops rated at a blistering fast 15MPH. gently caress that poo poo, I will drive several miles out of my way to avoid that crap. . . But the intersection is scheduled to be rebuilt soon, construction will take a million years and $  .
Not Wolverine fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Nov 28, 2014 |
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Nov 28, 2014 00:08
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Crotch Fruit posted:Just how overtaxed is the K-96 highway in Wichtia Kansas? Basically, K-96 from I-135 to the next two exits west (hillside, and oliver respectively) averages 58,300 cars per day on a four lane stretch of highway. I don't know the theoretical max capacity of a four lane urban highway, but some stretches of the 6 lane highway in the area are as low as 40K (some areas are as high as 100K). Specific workday figures are probably needed here, since these Annual ADT numbers aren't problematic at all by NW-European standards AFAIK. A freeway with *workday* 60k ADT, and less than 5% heavy vehicles, is equivalent to a bog standard 'rural' connection here in the Netherlands. Yes you'll see peak hour congestion, and accidents will quickly clog up the road, but often not at levels where an expensive widening is called for from a cost/benefit point of view. Here's a quick and dirty capacity calculation done to Dutch standards: code:Four lanes times 2,150 cars per lane per hour maximum, times 16 hours = 138k. Not that it happens very often, but a four lane freeway can theoretically handle almost 140 thousand car equivalents in 16 hours. An I/C score of 0.4 is pretty swell really, not much going on, while 0.7 and upwards is considered problematic in my country. We had (and probably still have) four lane freeway sections hit scores of 0.85+ back in 2005, more than double the amount than K-96 carries. Massive congestion though, some of the highest in the world if you go by INRIX's standards.
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Nov 28, 2014 01:15
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Coo, I still think the area sucks balls primarily because of the Y in K-96 at I-135 (and the 25mph loop to get back to K-96 is a bitch). How would those features effect your judgement of the intersections ability to handle traffic?
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Nov 28, 2014 02:52
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Lead out in cuffs posted:This is from way, way back, but it's been sticking in my head. In BC, our loving provincial government does, quite literally, consider painted shoulders to be bicycle infrastructure.
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Nov 28, 2014 03:59
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Pet peeve: At least two people on every page writing about the local conditions "here". Wherever that is.
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Nov 28, 2014 04:25
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The Independent posted:Commuting is about to get a lot more exciting in London as the “world’s longest urban trampoline” is installed to let people bounce to the office.
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Nov 28, 2014 20:12
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Are there other urban trampolines? I mean, I guess it's still technically the longest one if it's the only one, but still. 
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Nov 28, 2014 20:18
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Haifisch posted:Are there other urban trampolines? I mean, I guess it's still technically the longest one if it's the only one, but still. Well, browsing that SpaceHive website that seems to be part-crowdfunding the trampoline idea, I didn't find any other trampolines, but did find this plan to turn a flyover in central Liverpool into a park. It's actually not a bad idea at all -- really rather a nice example of taking poorly-planned 70s car-centric infrastructure and turning it into a more livable, human-centred space. The location is pretty ideal, too -- right next to a museum, art gallery, library, theatre and a big park. Basically a lot like the High Line in New York. http://www.landscapeinstitute.org/news/Liverpool-hosts-flyover-festival  
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Nov 28, 2014 21:53
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lol http://ktla.com/2014/11/24/exit-sign-on-710-freeway-misspells-olympic-boulevard-as-olimpic/ 
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Nov 28, 2014 22:07
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Well, browsing that SpaceHive website that seems to be part-crowdfunding the trampoline idea, I didn't find any other trampolines, but did find this plan to turn a flyover in central Liverpool into a park. It's actually not a bad idea at all -- really rather a nice example of taking poorly-planned 70s car-centric infrastructure and turning it into a more livable, human-centred space. The location is pretty ideal, too -- right next to a museum, art gallery, library, theatre and a big park. Basically a lot like the High Line in New York. There's a similar plan going on in Rotterdam, where a former railway line (now the Hofbogen will be turned into a park, with the room underneath being used for shops, restaurants, whatever.
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Nov 28, 2014 22:28
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will_colorado posted:lol On that note, I will never get tired of driving into Germany and seeing signs for Wankum.
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Nov 29, 2014 01:43
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Ah, the funny place name thing. Sensible name. 'Hell' is German for pale (beer). The beer is named after the village of loving, Austria. The residents of loving had to replace their frequently stolen village sign (which costs $300 a piece) with a thing embedded in concrete at some point. The worst thing is that there's American news sites around that literally censor the place name and even blur pictures of the sign. Come on...
Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 09:52 on Nov 29, 2014 |
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Nov 29, 2014 09:46
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Jeoh posted:There's a similar plan going on in Rotterdam, where a former railway line (now the Hofbogen will be turned into a park, with the room underneath being used for shops, restaurants, whatever. In Utrecht they are turning the Catherijnebaan into a canal. Catherijnebaan was a piece of old urban highway from the terrible city forming plans of the 60ies where they were going to level most of historic utrecht and replace it with modern buildings and a bunch of urban highways. A few of the buildings were actually built and people in Utrecht agree they are the ugliest buildigns of the city (Hoog Catherijne, Neudeflat). E: Actually it is more acurate to say they are restoring the canal they destroyed to build the Catherijnebaan. NihilismNow fucked around with this message at 14:36 on Nov 29, 2014 |
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Nov 29, 2014 14:33
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It's gonna be a while before that Utrecht project is finished, but the drawings look nice. We're going from this:  To this: 
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Nov 29, 2014 18:29
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I spent the holiday weekend in Phoenix, and god help me, I was actually impressed. They've been keeping up with congestion by building more bypasses around the city, while simultaneously improving the downtown to be a lot more ped-friendly and more comfortable in general. They're pretty much MUTCD compliant. The interstates use AASHTO E modified, and the state-maintained freeways use Clearview. Their new freeways are built with expansions in mind. Gas there is CHEAP AS gently caress, and since it'll probably stay that way for the next decade, Phoenix is going to continue to grow and grow. Won't really help their smog problems or the complete unsustainability of the region as a whole, but hey, it was super easy to get around and I briefly considered moving there because there would be actual work for me to do and houses are cheap.
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Dec 2, 2014 01:26
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Cichlidae posted:I spent the holiday weekend in Phoenix, and god help me, I was actually impressed. They've been keeping up with congestion by building more bypasses around the city, while simultaneously improving the downtown to be a lot more ped-friendly and more comfortable in general. They're pretty much MUTCD compliant. The interstates use AASHTO E modified, and the state-maintained freeways use Clearview. Their new freeways are built with expansions in mind. ADOT in general has their poo poo together despite all the funding cuts.
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Dec 2, 2014 01:45
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Cichlidae posted:I spent the holiday weekend in Phoenix, and god help me, I was actually impressed. They've been keeping up with congestion by building more bypasses around the city, while simultaneously improving the downtown to be a lot more ped-friendly and more comfortable in general. They're pretty much MUTCD compliant. The interstates use AASHTO E modified, and the state-maintained freeways use Clearview. Their new freeways are built with expansions in mind. Your sales tax dollars at work.
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Dec 2, 2014 03:41
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The sales tax wasn't too bad there, honestly, but taxes in general are very low in the US. I'd rather have $10/gallon gas and a 20% VAT on everything so long as education, infrastructure, and healthcare are paid for. There's not much point to a government if it can only cover its own overhead and then some token improvements.
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Dec 2, 2014 04:13
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A flat desert does seem like a pretty ideal place to build roads. No pesky wetlands or hills. Personally I couldn't deal with how every block seems the same as every other block.
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Dec 2, 2014 14:31
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smackfu posted:A flat desert does seem like a pretty ideal place to build roads. No pesky wetlands or hills. I'd think the relatively fast temperature changes at night cause the road to wear down faster than in moderate climates, though.
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Dec 2, 2014 14:58
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http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-ceqa-traffic-mitigations-20141202-story.html Pretty big change out of california, will do a lot for both traffic and land use problems.
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Dec 2, 2014 18:33
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Cichlidae posted:The sales tax wasn't too bad there, honestly, but taxes in general are very low in the US. I'd rather have $10/gallon gas and a 20% VAT on everything so long as education, infrastructure, and healthcare are paid for. There's not much point to a government if it can only cover its own overhead and then some token improvements. The half-percent sales tax has worked quite well for building a functional freeway and arterial grid network, but none of that money goes toward maintenance. It's nice to take the pressure off total reliance on gas tax and dwindling Federal funding, at least. Of course, education funding in Arizona is a total joke, but the roads are nice.
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Dec 2, 2014 19:54
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Chuu posted:Chicago has a couple bike-only paths (most notably, pretty much the entire lakefront) and it's awesome. In the next couple of years they're working on adding two major bike arteries besides the lakefront -- one up the Chicago river which will connect most of the NW neighborhoods to downtown; and the Bloomington trail, which is taking an abandoned elevated railroad going E/W and converting it to a bike trail. We also got bike shares a couple years ago, and some bike-only lanes through downtown. The Lakefront Trail updates are taking forever though! It might be usable in 4 years or so. It is a beautiful path, I love it. Our mayor is fine, by the way. 
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Dec 2, 2014 20:48
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I've got a question for the traffic engineers. I just started a summer job at the local city council and have been asked to try find any research at all on the effect on road safety fixed convex traffic mirrors have. This is difficult to search for because cars also have mirrors, and you get a lot of hits from that. Convex doesn't help refine the search very much either. On the other hand there is a lot of positive information that comes from... mirror manufacturers and installers. So, any traffic engineers have much knowledge of the interesting world of putting mirrors on hairpin bends and seeing if people crash/don't crash?
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Dec 4, 2014 06:32
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Check out the work of your Russian counterparts: 
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Dec 4, 2014 20:02
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Outside of Moscow it seems everywhere in Russia is just paved with mud.
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Dec 4, 2014 23:01
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Lobsterpillar posted:I've got a question for the traffic engineers. I just started a summer job at the local city council and have been asked to try find any research at all on the effect on road safety fixed convex traffic mirrors have. This is difficult to search for because cars also have mirrors, and you get a lot of hits from that. Convex doesn't help refine the search very much either. I don't have anything on hand, but you might want to look at the Highway Safety Manual, if you can get a copy at a library. It contains a ton of research on safety countermeasures. Dick Trauma posted:Check out the work of your Russian counterparts: Was this before or after they drove a bus shelter pile down into a subway station? ----- On a completely different topic, would someone please explain to me what the hell 'sustainability' means in a transportation context? I was looking at the CTfastrak (Busway) website today, and they posted a tweet that said something to the effect of, "Connecticut will finally have sustainable transportation!" At first, I just rolled my eyes, but the more I thought about it, the angrier I got, and now I have to come home and rant about it because I hope at least one of you will understand what I'm going through. So clearly they can't mean that it's going to offset carbon emissions, which is the context I'm most familiar with when people say something's sustainable. Because they're diesel buses driving on an asphalt roadway built with money that should have gone to electrifying the New Haven - Hartford - Springfield passenger rail line. Even if they swap them out for fuel cell or electric buses, their energy is still coming from fossil fuel power plants. I mean, by that metric, electric cars are even more sustainable, and they're a hell of a lot cheaper. And they clearly think that transit in general isn't sustainable, because Connecticut already has the country's most heavily used passenger railroad and a poo poo-ton of bus lines. And it's not a matter of removing vehicle trips, because they're only adding capacity, not removing it, and every bus they take off I-84 is going to let 2 more cars use it. And it's sure as hell not promoting some new way of living, because we're in a state that wants more employees and more jobs, more houses, more cars, more income, more consumer spending, and completely immersed in an economy that shits the bed whenever there's even a hint of growth slowing down, let alone stopping or reversing. But yeah, we spent a bunch of money on a new strip of pavement on top of an old railroad, so we're sustainable now. Great job.
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Dec 4, 2014 23:02
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"Sustainable" means nothing anymore. It's bullshit greenwashing to make people feel better. We're all hosed.
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Dec 4, 2014 23:07
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It obviously means that piece of pavement can be sustained for a long time, without needing repairs.
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Dec 4, 2014 23:13
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It used to mean something, I still see it correctly used all the time, but like all of those terms have been totally captured by lovely marketing folk. If it's ever used like "X is sustainable!" it's bullshit, a thing should be described as either more or less sustainable, or helping sustainability. And it should be clear are we talking about economic sustainability, environmental, social? Taking a transit system in a place with shrinking budgets and increasing efficiency to save money is helping its economic sustainability. Replacing a diesel bus line with an electric tram system would be helping environmental sustainability and probably economic in the long run too. Actually changing land use along transit corridors to allow more density and relax or get rid of parking minimums could do a lot for just about every type of sustainability. But to just flat out say something is "sustainable" is meaningless. The sun isn't sustainable, the universe isn't sustainable. Sustainability is an incredibly relative term.
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Dec 4, 2014 23:21
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I'm so glad someone else agrees. ConnDOT hires firms to do PR and sometimes the buzzword fog becomes impenetrable.
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Dec 4, 2014 23:33
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Buses are sustainable in a general sense because a bunch of people riding a bus is a much more energy-efficient form of transportation compared to all of them driving cars. That is why public transportation is green even when it's a bunch of diesel buses.
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Dec 4, 2014 23:41
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Here's a whole page of sustainability: http://www.dot.gov/mission/sustainability/sustainability-and-transportation-system
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Dec 4, 2014 23:56
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The sustainability...feel it... I'm not feeling anything. You would, though, if it were riding on it, because it's really... it's famous for its sustainability...
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Dec 5, 2014 00:14
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What is this meant to be?
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Dec 5, 2014 01:28
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They made a crosswalk starting from the right but realized it ended in a fence. Then they probably started on the left and thought they could stagger the bars to make it on an angle but hosed up and gave up half way? I don't know, the slavic mind can be very hard to understand at times.
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Dec 5, 2014 01:31
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I imagine crossing the road would be a fraught task, zebra crossing or not.
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Dec 5, 2014 04:48
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