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Varance posted:Yep. Kill through access on one of the roads, problem solved. Works on pretty much any intersection when you want to simplify things. In Baltimore they're turning a pair of one-way major roads into two-way roads. The response to questions about the additional congestion was basically that people will find other roads to drive on. It's not like downtown traffic is all that good to begin with.
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Jan 4, 2015 04:14
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Devor posted:In Baltimore they're turning a pair of one-way major roads into two-way roads. The response to questions about the additional congestion was basically that people will find other roads to drive on. It's not like downtown traffic is all that good to begin with. Here's an example, from Columbus Dr in Tampa. From Republica de Cuba to 45th St, the road functions as an eastbound corridor, with 17th/18th/19th Ave running westbound. Columbus will become this: http://www.planhillsborough.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Columbus-before-and-after.pdf 17th/18th/19th will become this: http://www.planhillsborough.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/17-18-19_Before-After.pdf The overall design on 17/18/19 will be the same as 21st Ave from 45th St to 50th St, but a bit nicer and with bicycle accommodations: https://www.google.com/maps/@27.9704495,-82.405934,3a,75y,280.28h,76.87t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sSewq8QGRQuelCyjRvw99-g!2e0 There are an number of other roads that are going to be receiving this treatment, the big ones being Tampa St/Highland Ave and Florida Ave (the US 41 business route, north of the I-275 viaduct). Both will go two lane bi-directional instead of the current three lane one-way race track, with Florida Ave being the main drag and Tampa St/Highland Ave the bike ROW. Same with Tyler and Cass. That said, we're also converting other roads into one-way throughfares where they make sense. Instead of the current awkward-as-hell alignment through the Channelside district, Channelside and Brorein/Cumberland (AKA Platt and Cleveland, further west) will become continuous one-way routes for their entire length. Brorein/Cumberland will also be reconfigured to be a continuous street all the way through the CBD, with the current jog removed and redeveloped. Varance fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Jan 4, 2015 |
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Jan 4, 2015 04:38
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dexter6 posted:Speaking of "don't block the box", I always get screwed out of 3+ light cycles at this intersection before I give up and decide I'm going to block the box. The main problem stems from the Whole foods, where the queue for parking always spills out on to Clarendon Blvd. http://www.arlnow.com/2014/12/31/whole-foods-parking-snarls-clarendon-traffic  
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Jan 5, 2015 04:21
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dexter6 posted:Hey! The issue I brought up was just posted about on a local blog with some great pics: This seems like an *amazing* source of revenue for your local police department. At least for the first few days until people get used to not entering the intersection when they don't have a clear path to the exit.
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Jan 5, 2015 04:44
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Follow-up to my last post: We're starting construction on our 21st St/22nd St project in Ybor City (Tampa) today. Road diet to add bike lanes, plus the addition of on-street parking, granite curbs, wider hexagonal brick sidewalks and a bunch of fancy lightposts. And a new water main, since everything will be ripped up anyway. Trucks got a new interstate bypass on-ramp, so we're basically kicking them out of Ybor in favor of walkability. The final configuration of both streets will be like this, but one way and lanes shifted left to accommodate a bike lane instead of left-side parking. Varance fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Jan 5, 2015 |
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Jan 5, 2015 16:28
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That's funny I was just reading some stuff on removing one-ways. http://www.citylab.com/commute/2013/01/case-against-one-way-streets/4549/ I know as a pedestrian I actually rather like one-way streets, I find them easier to cross as you only have to worry about one direction, but people do seem to drive faster on them. A 4 lane one-way street feels much more like a highway vs that same street width as a two-way.
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Jan 5, 2015 20:00
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  My little intersection is coming along. I'm absolutely dreading signalling it. I doubt I'll have lit signals let alone any sort of fancy arduino controlled system but I need to at the very least install a light to stop traffic to let bikes/trams/humans cross the street. Everything's built to dutch cycle standards but north american road markings. Did I gently caress anything obvious up? I tossed a pen in because a lot of people are shocked at just how tiny this poo poo is.
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Jan 6, 2015 06:52
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That intersection somewhat reminded me of this one, which I cross regularly: (maps link, the roads drawn there are a bit weird, check satellite view instead.) Quick and dirty drawing. I haven't included the sidewalks. First thing you might see is that the big east-west road isn't very car friendly. There's a wide bus road, but only a small one-way car lane. They don't seem to want too many cars in the city centre. Secondly, the bike path at the railway crossing is completely separate from the car and bus lanes, and both cycling directions are on one side of the road. The bike path has its own short railway crossing barriers. This is quite common in the Netherlands, although the situation in Baronjutter's model occurs as well. Third, that weird diagonal bike crossing for eastbound bicycles. That's rather unusual. It works, though, because bikes get their own traffic light time, during which there should be no other traffic on the intersection. Finally, as far as I know, there's some connection between the traffic light system and the railway signals/barriers system. When the railway barriers close, all of the traffic lights will turn red and stay that way until the train has passed. Carbon dioxide fucked around with this message at 10:32 on Jan 6, 2015 |
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Jan 6, 2015 10:30
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Here's a good list of urban planning articles from 2014. Not all of them are about traffic issues, but they're all fascinating reads anyway. In particular, the "fall of planning expertise" one brings to mind the recent speedbump/poorly planned bike infrastructure chat:quote:Capitulation by decision makers to community groups over experts on transit projects, for example, can be directly responsible for increased costs and lower performance. Similarly, when a high-rise development that would inject hundreds of units to a neighborhood is defeated, it can contribute to increases in the cost of housing over the long term.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:02
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Here's a write-up of one-way streets I found in an article about a local project to get rid of them:quote:Travers, city traffic engineer Neetu Singh, and consultant Sarah Lewis (at right in photo above) laid out the problems in a transportation department conference room on Thursday: Personally I think the biggest advantage is that when you are looking for street parking, it's a lot easier with smaller blocks.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:51
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While on the topic of one way roads, how common is turning a two way street into a one way for just one block? I ask because it seems that just for the block Im on the ROW is barely two narrow for a two way street (with on street parking), and want to know why couldnt they just take some room from the greenspaces between the street and sidewalk.
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Jan 7, 2015 00:54
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Communist Zombie posted:While on the topic of one way roads, how common is turning a two way street into a one way for just one block? I ask because it seems that just for the block Im on the ROW is barely two narrow for a two way street (with on street parking), and want to know why couldnt they just take some room from the greenspaces between the street and sidewalk. When this is done, the purpose is usually to discourage use of that road by non-local traffic. Particularly if it's a residential area.
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Jan 7, 2015 04:08
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Devor posted:When this is done, the purpose is usually to discourage use of that road by non-local traffic. Particularly if it's a residential area. Yep, and it usually alternates direction every block or two so that you can't use it as a through street.
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Jan 7, 2015 05:35
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https://translate.google.nl/transla...t-text=&act=url Badly translated article, but that's a pretty uh, interesting intersection. Just a big paved rectangle.
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Jan 13, 2015 18:15
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I used to commute across that thing for a few months! You definitely had to be careful there but mostly to watch for other cars. The roads are aligned in such a way to maximize the possibility of conflicts it seems, including conflicts with traffic crossing in the opposite direction as yourself. You don't know how they will take the S-curve on the square. I might have even posted about it before. It also has benches around the edges, like a village square, and there's food stands there sometimes. People sit on the benches and cyclists take a break on them, though only at certain times when the weather is nice. Most of the time it was abandoned and you'd just drive across it as fast as is safe...
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Jan 13, 2015 18:51
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I wonder what the capacity of a completely unmarked, unsigned, unsignalized intersection is. And what happens when you get in an accident? How do cops (and insurance companies) assign blame?
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Jan 14, 2015 01:45
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Cichlidae posted:I wonder what the capacity of a completely unmarked, unsigned, unsignalized intersection is. And what happens when you get in an accident? How do cops (and insurance companies) assign blame? To be fair there's plenty of those in suburban neighborhoods.
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Jan 14, 2015 01:48
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Nintendo Kid posted:To be fair there's plenty of those in suburban neighborhoods. There might be, but none I've designed. I've put up an excessive number of stop signs so that I don't get in legal trouble. Also, most of those uncontrolled intersections are on private roadways, which (until 2009) didn't have to follow any kind of uniform traffic control system.
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Jan 14, 2015 02:24
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Cichlidae posted:I wonder what the capacity of a completely unmarked, unsigned, unsignalized intersection is. And what happens when you get in an accident? How do cops (and insurance companies) assign blame? Higher than you'd expect  The blame goes to the engineer.
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Jan 14, 2015 02:28
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I wish we had some european insurance goons to explain how their systems differ so much that they can have all this nicer infrastructure. Here where we have a provincial insurance system the #1 driving force behind basically all infrastructure spending is reducing insurance risk. That often aligns with increasing safety, but sometimes not.
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Jan 14, 2015 02:28
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I know a lot of Europeans have car insurance where the insurance is tied to a specific driver and specific car combination, for some reason.
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Jan 14, 2015 02:30
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Why does the US have so few traffic circles, aka Roundabouts? Is it just that most of the country never had them so they didn't spread, the people were confused by them, or is there a better reason? I also live in Washington DC and we have a far amount of roundabouts. And on the subject of roundabouts, here is a video of a batshit one in the UK.  http://youtu.be/D22BOOGbpFMAnd I might as well ask, are there any goonie traffic engineers in DC now since TRB (Transportation Research Board) Annual Meeting is going on in town?  edit: fixed stupid poo poo. IndianaZoidberg fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Jan 14, 2015 |
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Jan 14, 2015 04:22
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Roundabouts are only suitable for a certain range and kind of traffic situations, and also many early designs worked terribly.
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Jan 14, 2015 04:24
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Nintendo Kid posted:Roundabouts are only suitable for a certain range and kind of traffic situations, and also many early designs worked terribly. Like in Washington DC! Dupont Circle which I would call a traffic circle since it's enormous and doesn't actually function as a roundabout. Modern roundabouts are becoming very common, though. Here's a bunch in a row that are pretty new https://maps.google.com/maps?q=md+2...,+Maryland&z=16
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Jan 14, 2015 04:30
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Devor posted:Like in Washington DC! Dupont Circle which I would call a traffic circle since it's enormous and doesn't actually function as a roundabout. Well Dupont Circle is a bit out of scope, it was built back in the early 1870s and is little changed since then. It definitely wasn't designed with motor vehicles in mind.
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Jan 14, 2015 04:47
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Roundabouts were terrifying dangerous european things in north american until pretty recently, but there seems to be a boom of them lately. They're becoming very common in new construction and a lot of over-burdened 4-way stops have been replaces by them, where space permits. In some areas people flip out and crash into each other but traffic engineers have decided it's worth it for north americans to get used to them.
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Jan 14, 2015 05:02
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Baronjutter posted:Roundabouts were terrifying dangerous european things in north american until pretty recently, but there seems to be a boom of them lately. They're becoming very common in new construction and a lot of over-burdened 4-way stops have been replaces by them, where space permits. In some areas people flip out and crash into each other but traffic engineers have decided it's worth it for north americans to get used to them. I wish my university would get the message. There is a single exit from campus near the student parking lots, and there is a stop sign on that road. In the morning and the afternoon, almost all of the traffic is going in a single direction, but everyone has to stop, so the whole thing gets backed up all the way back to the parking lot.
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Jan 14, 2015 06:29
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Just today I went through a fairly nasty 2 lane roundabout that has 5 entrances, and is right on the intersection of some major arterial roads and a new industrial area. It gets a lot of trucks, and a lot of crashes. A panelbeaters shop has set up right next to the intersection, apparently it generates a decent amount of work for them.
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Jan 14, 2015 07:09
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VostokProgram posted:I wish my university would get the message. There is a single exit from campus near the student parking lots, and there is a stop sign on that road. In the morning and the afternoon, almost all of the traffic is going in a single direction, but everyone has to stop, so the whole thing gets backed up all the way back to the parking lot. Do you go to UConn? This describes pretty well the intersection of N Eagleville Rd and Hunting Lodge Rd. Strangely enough, there is a roundabout around the corner on Hunting Lodge Rd, however it seems to be entirely unnecessary at a completely non-descript 3-way intersection with little traffic (https://goo.gl/maps/rycNp). Not that I mind it. In other UConn transportation news they're building an extension of Hillside Rd up to Rt. 44 which will really help the traffic in that area. On the one hand, I'm excited. On the other hand, if I'm still here when it opens something has gone horribly wrong.
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Jan 14, 2015 07:10
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2-lane roundabouts still scare the poo poo out of me for some reason. Just hug the right lane and I'll get through it. Ok traffic or transit engineers, I got a situation. 2 lane road with a tram sharing the lanes. I have to put a stop in, how horrible is that situation? I guess no better or worse than the same situation where a bus doesn't have space for a pull-in at a stop on a 2 lane road. I know as a driver getting stuck behind a bus stopping at every stop is absolute torture (add in a bike "taking the lane" for extra hell) but I can't think of any other way to solve the situation without a super awkward and dangerous angled set of lanes going around the tram stop, basically making the road 4 lanes wide for a brief moment. If this is the only stop on the road, just a single bottle-neck, and the road widens later with no more tram stops blocking traffic, how horrible is that?
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Jan 14, 2015 07:24
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Car insurance is obligatory here, and tied to a specific car. I don't know if that's unusual or not.Cichlidae posted:I wonder what the capacity of a completely unmarked, unsigned, unsignalized intersection is. And what happens when you get in an accident? How do cops (and insurance companies) assign blame? Well, we do have the priorité a droit / right priority rule which is like the basis of everything. On the unmarked intersection that was posted before, that'd be your main rule to obey. It works great really.
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Jan 14, 2015 08:18
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I was driving around today in downtown Hillsboro, a suburb of Portland, OR, and I definitely made the mistake of being overly trusting that there would be adequate signage for their back and forth mish-mash of one ways, two-ways, blind turns, and mixed-size blocks. Good loving grief. I went from a standard two-way, to a one-way grid with long blocks, took a left that had no paint tracks and presumably nothing more than an easily-missed sign and found myself driving the wrong way on a five lane street, fortunately got over into my lane, then took another left and found that the road had split into two with some kind of metro transit lanes running down the middle (again with minimal indicators). I figured out that I had to pull all the way to the right, only to discover that there was 10 blocks of no left turns. I took a right and immediately found myself in a residential suburb. I pulled over, punched in directions out of town into my GPS, and vowed to never go back to that wretchedly designed place. Lately, I've been getting on a bit of a "One Ways Are Bad" trip, and that really sealed the deal.
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Jan 14, 2015 09:35
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Lobsterpillar posted:Just today I went through a fairly nasty 2 lane roundabout that has 5 entrances, and is right on the intersection of some major arterial roads and a new industrial area. It gets a lot of trucks, and a lot of crashes. A panelbeaters shop has set up right next to the intersection, apparently it generates a decent amount of work for them. 2 land roundabouts are horrible and Belgium is starting to phase them out.
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Jan 14, 2015 10:20
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It's the bane of driving in the Middle East: 2, 3, 4, and even 5-lane roundabouts 
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Jan 14, 2015 10:40
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Fragrag posted:2 land roundabouts are horrible and Belgium is starting to phase them out. Turbo roundabouts are pretty cool, though.
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Jan 14, 2015 12:06
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SurgicalOntologist posted:Do you go to UConn? This describes pretty well the intersection of N Eagleville Rd and Hunting Lodge Rd. Strangely enough, there is a roundabout around the corner on Hunting Lodge Rd, however it seems to be entirely unnecessary at a completely non-descript 3-way intersection with little traffic (https://goo.gl/maps/rycNp). Not that I mind it. No, I'm in California. How much does a roundabout cost vs. signalizing? Maybe I should start a petition to fix this intersection.
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Jan 14, 2015 20:27
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Baronjutter posted:I wish we had some european insurance goons to explain how their systems differ so much that they can have all this nicer infrastructure. Here where we have a provincial insurance system the #1 driving force behind basically all infrastructure spending is reducing insurance risk. That often aligns with increasing safety, but sometimes not. Liability seems to work completely differently, based on the number of trams that go right through plazas where people can just cross the tracks wherever whenever they want. Meanwhile the light rail that runs through my University has stop lights every 50 feet.
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Jan 14, 2015 20:53
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VostokProgram posted:No, I'm in California. It mostly depends on whether the right-of-way has to be obtained, but basically, a signal will cost $100,000 and a roundabout will cost $1,000,000. The roundabout has a lower operations cost, though, and a much lower accident cost.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:16
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FISHMANPET posted:Liability seems to work completely differently, based on the number of trams that go right through plazas where people can just cross the tracks wherever whenever they want. Meanwhile the light rail that runs through my University has stop lights every 50 feet. I sometimes want to start an A/T or finance thread or something on this. It seem to be a super key issue that no one, even urban planners i talk to, really know. "Oh we just can't do that here... insurance... liability, uh I don't really know how europe can do it I guess it's different??" . My wife works in insurance and was doing a ton of research on how the Russian and Ukrainian insurance systems work so she can better explain things to her russian clients (she gets them all sent to her since she speaks russian) but that's just the lowest level car stuff, not like city-level liability. The insurance system in Russia is really hosed and awful though and explains why every minor accident results in traffic being blocked for hours. It's the police that settle liability and fault, so you have to sit there and wait for the police, you can't just exchange info and then give your statement to your insurance companies who then decide fault and then go do some subrogation.
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Jan 14, 2015 23:22
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It used to be the same in the UAE, with the added deterrent that you can't get your car fixed at a licensed dealer without the necessary green/red police liability statement - no, not even out of pocket. Nowadays though, when both cars in an accident are still able to drive, they make you go to a police station to get the paperwork done. Which clears the road of holdups at least, but afterwards you enter the glorious world of arab language bureaucracy. This adds to an interlocking system of perpetually bad road experiences: Horrendous city planning - gated communities plus superblocks plus extreme Euclidian zoning (archipelagos of healthcare, media, academic, logistical, etc. 'cities') plus no walkability (temperatures) - leads to eight lane arterials and twelve lane freeways in a place where you need to go a long way to get anywhere every day, but where having the occasional unavoidable accident means you just lost multiple days of work. Gas at a buck a gallon, rapid economic and population growth, a huge annual turnover in population, and therefore a ton of (at least locally) first-time drivers; people stress the gently caress out, and the result is one of the supposedly worst accident rates in the world. Koesj fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Jan 15, 2015 |
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Jan 15, 2015 02:03
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