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It looks like somebody's tagged the post too, so obviously their concerns were warranted. We've got this thing here which is pretty much fuckwheelchairusers.jpg  How would they even fix that? Widen the sidewalk there?
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Jun 9, 2015 14:16
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Javid posted:It looks like somebody's tagged the post too, so obviously their concerns were warranted. Move the hydrant back to the grass
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Jun 9, 2015 18:48
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Yeah it shouldn't be hard to move it back a few feet right off the sidewalk. A good chunk of the land beyond the sidewalk might even be city land too, property lines rarely start at the edge of the sidewalk. Speaking of property lines, do you guys hear a lot of drama when people don't understand their property lines and the city wants to widen a sidewalk or something? Happens a lot here. People think their property ends at the sidewalk while the city still owns a meter or a lot more. They garden, they plant flowers, they even plant trees and build fences. Then the city comes and at least warms them that they better move all the flowers they want to save because they're installing a sidewalk, or widening the street for bike lanes or what ever. The people flip as if the city is using eminent domain on them to steal their land and demand compensation. gently caress you that was never your land, you were gardening on city land. In Vancouver there was a big case were a bunch of rich condo and townhouse owners backed onto an abandoned railway right of way. They landscaped, built sheds, treated it like their back yard. Some drama occurred between the railway and the city (city wanted to buy the land, asked for it dirt cheap since it's a ton of land but a fairly narrow useless strip, railway demanded full market value because they were pissed at the city because the last few times the railway practically gave land to the city under the guise of it being used for public projects, the city then turned around and sold it to developers for huge profit). The railway decided to briefly warn the rich folk they were tresspassing and then ran a bulldozer through.
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Jun 9, 2015 19:47
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I hope that's the case here so they can extend this bike path: I'm sure they were thrilled about the sudden bike traffic across their driveway when that went in.
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Jun 9, 2015 20:00
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So Cichlidae, I was driving up 17 to Glastonbury the other day and saw about 10 lycra clad bikers on the way. Now I love bicycling myself so I don't mind them at all. But 17 is pretty narrow in many places. Are there any chances of ever widening it or adding a Glastonbury-Middletown Bike lane/path/trail? There is visibly plenty of room on both sides of 17 and 66, does the state own any of it? I'm guessing it would cost millions of dollars but it would be great.
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Jun 9, 2015 22:24
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The new baseball stadium in Hartford is going to be named Dunkin Donuts Park. Will it be called "the donut hole"? will_colorado fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 18:25
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I apologize in advance for my rudimentary descriptions, I know very little about the topic of urban planning and civil engineering. Up until about a year and a half ago the only places I've lived in were Massachusetts as well as a handful of European countries. As such, winding, narrow roads and largely illogical spaghetti layouts as a result of years of unplanned, organic growth were ingrained into my head as being the norm. In Mass for example it would be entirely within the realm of possibility to drive from my house into Boston (25 miles) using nothing but residential/rural back roads if you felt like it. For the most part if you know the area you're in well you can always find at least 3-4 detours to avoid any sort of traffic situation. I now reside in Northern VA just outside of DC and aside from the soul-crushing, cookie cutter sprawl I've noticed the way roads are laid out, despite looking fairly logical on a map, are in fact incredibly illogical and inefficient and often require you to drive in roundabout ways to get to nearby destinations. I've since learned that this particular style of planning is the norm in many, if not most suburban areas in the US. Specifically what I'm referring to are 'islands' of shopping centers as well as houses in a web of mostly cul-de-sacs surrounded on each side by either boulevards or some sort of highway (not sure if boulevards is the correct term, I'm referring to typically 4 lane roads with a physical division in the middle and controlled intersections every 1/4 to 1/8 mile or so). This design combined with the lack of effective public transport basically forces all cars onto select group of main roads thus creating all sorts of traffic problems. Oftentimes getting from a to b can only be done using 1 specific road, with really no way of cutting through most of these housing 'islands' as they're all disconnected cul-de-sacs and dead ends. Why exactly did this style of development become popular and what justification did engineers at the time use to defend it? From a purely logical standpoint it would seem forcing all cars to travel on a relatively small number of main roads would be a recipe for traffic jams. Was this simply out of laziness or did it stem from residents wanting to keep 'those people' out their neighborhoods? Below is just one example of what I mean, hundreds more exist. Pretend I live at the red dot on Melville Ln and wanted to get to the Fair Lakes Shopping Center, the yellow dot. There'd be no way of doing that other than using Stringfellow Rd off to the west (unless you want to really go out of your way up to rt 50 then 286). If Stringfellow were backed up there'd be no way of cutting through residential back roads to get there as they're completely disconnected despite being right next to one another. MisterTurtle fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 20:25
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MisterTurtle posted:I apologize in advance for my rudimentary descriptions, I know very little about the topic of urban planning and civil engineering. You could walk on the clearly marked pedestrian paths from the residential part to the shopping center though?
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Jun 10, 2015 20:36
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Nintendo Kid posted:You could walk on the clearly marked pedestrian paths from the residential part to the shopping center though?
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Jun 10, 2015 20:42
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MisterTurtle posted:Yes that is an option of course, though trying to walk across some of those roads can be a mission at times. I'm more interested in why designs like this exist when planners know full well probably 95% of trips are going to involve the use of a car. 95% of trips are also not going to be to that one particular shopping center from the one particular residential development. Also the worst case scenario is like you might have to take a whole 6 minutes to get to the center of the shopping plaza instead of 4 with no traffic. Best case scenario if there was a direct connection is like a 3 minute trip for a small fragment of the area population, so what's really the worth of saving a minute every so often for a few dozen folks?
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Jun 10, 2015 20:53
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There was no concept of congestion so they built these perfectly neat and orderly suburbs as a contrast to the chaos of the city with no understanding of how everyone would just be trapped in their car.
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Jun 10, 2015 20:55
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FISHMANPET posted:There was no concept of congestion so they built these perfectly neat and orderly suburbs as a contrast to the chaos of the city with no understanding of how everyone would just be trapped in their car. That part of Virginia was mostly built out in the 80s and 90s dude. It ain't no Levittown.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:02
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Well gently caress if I know. A ton of people still haven't learned their lesson I guess.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:07
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Nintendo Kid posted:95% of trips are also not going to be to that one particular shopping center from the one particular residential development. Also the worst case scenario is like you might have to take a whole 6 minutes to get to the center of the shopping plaza instead of 4 with no traffic. Best case scenario if there was a direct connection is like a 3 minute trip for a small fragment of the area population, so what's really the worth of saving a minute every so often for a few dozen folks?
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Jun 10, 2015 21:07
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MisterTurtle posted:I understand your point. However, I'm wondering why no one ever thought to do a better job of linking up many of these residential roads with one another. As things stand there's hardly any continuity with most of them. If there were decent continuity within these residential areas a significant amount of traffic on roads like Stringfellow could be alleviated as area residents could take alternate routes for short, local trips. That's the whole point, everyone wants to live on a quiet "safe" isolated street, they're designed so there's no through traffic. So you'll have a maze of purposefully inconvenient or dead-end streets leading to a big "car sewer" or stroad which kills tons of people. But they kept building them that way because developers know they can sell houses better if it's on a street without through traffic.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:09
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I think the idea is to segregate the traffic and concentrate it on those major roads, so that the neighborhoods are quiet. I think it's some kind of rebellion against the city and it's perceived problems, perhaps maybe even on a subconscious level. Nevermind that I live in a major city with a very good grid and most of the streets are pretty quiet, you gotta do everything you can to keep anybody that doesn't belong from driving into your neighborhood and parking in your god-given on-street parking space and stealing your children or breaking into your house or something. I mean, honestly, I can understand how someone could end up living in a place like that, but I'm absolutely baffled at someone that looks at that and says "yes this is the ideal that I would like," especially if all the houses are cookie cutter copies of each other. Reminds me of this in a way: http://usa.streetsblog.org/2013/02/28/sprawl-madness-two-houses-share-backyard-separated-by-7-miles-of-roads/ I just can't fathom it.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:13
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Baronjutter posted:That's the whole point, everyone wants to live on a quiet "safe" isolated street, they're designed so there's no through traffic. So you'll have a maze of purposefully inconvenient or dead-end streets leading to a big "car sewer" or stroad which kills tons of people. But they kept building them that way because developers know they can sell houses better if it's on a street without through traffic. Honestly, the existence of this kind of development is like proof number 1 of why most humans are inherently irrational and aren't actually capable of evaluating they myriad of inputs in our modern lives to come to a rational decision.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:14
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MisterTurtle posted:I understand your point. However, I'm wondering why no one ever thought to do a better job of linking up many of these residential roads with one another. As things stand there's hardly any continuity with most of them. If there were decent continuity within these residential areas a significant amount of traffic on roads like Stringfellow could be alleviated as area residents could take alternate routes for short, local trips. They do not want to live on busy roads with people passing through. Also there's rarely a particular need to get from one house to another very fast. Most trips are to work or to shopping, not to a nearby house. And that area you chose to highlight in particular seems to have a decent network of crossing points in the residential areas for walking/biking at that, which is better for kids than if it was roads. Alternate routes really aren't needed when the worst case scenario ends up being you might be delayed one or two minutes on a shopping trip. Going through 25 MPH residential streets isn't going to be much faster, ever. FISHMANPET posted:Honestly, the existence of this kind of development is like proof number 1 of why most humans are inherently irrational and aren't actually capable of evaluating they myriad of inputs in our modern lives to come to a rational decision. I must respectfully disagree. The only real problem it has is that they're quite a way out of the beltway where most of the jobs are, but that part of the country tends to have offices and the like spread all throughout so it's just as likely that of two neighbors there, one only drives 10 minutes to work nearby while the other is taking 30 minutes drive out to the Vienna Metro park and ride or maybe Reston East to get the work in DC or maybe just alexandria/arlington. Nintendo Kid fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Jun 10, 2015 |
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Jun 10, 2015 21:14
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FISHMANPET posted:Honestly, the existence of this kind of development is like proof number 1 of why most humans are inherently irrational and aren't actually capable of evaluating they myriad of inputs in our modern lives to come to a rational decision. Tons of individuals making what is probably a rational choice for them as an individual can very often produce results worse for everyone than a choice made on the collective level. "There are a number of areas where long term politically determined objectives for production can be realistically envisaged: housing, transport, energy sup- ply, communications, tourism, industrial restructuring. In each of these cases, ‘lumpy’ decisions have to be taken. For instance, the shape and form of new housing developments are properly a matter for democratic debate and decision. Or consider the case of personal transportation. Whether a country relies upon private cars or upon public transport is a decision which has huge long-term effects upon a society. And this is a case where the sum of individual private decisions does not necessarily correspond to a socially optimal result. When transport in great industrial cities relied upon the train and the tram, speeds of travel through city centres were higher than they are now. For those who could afford them, the new private cars offered a speed advantage over the tram, since cars did not stop to pick up passengers. But as more and more cars came onto the roads congestion increased, and both cars and public transport got slower as a result. At all times the private car continued to offer a speed advantage over public road transport, so each indi- vidual retained an incentive to go by car. Rising car use took trade away from the buses and trams and services became worse. The end result is dangerous and congested roads, air pollution and longer journey times. Here is an example where a social decision on the shape of the economy may produce results far superior to the aggregate of private decisions" The "aggregate of private decisions" is responsible for a lot of garbage, and people will hold it up as the democratic will of the market or "giving people what they want" even if they would actually prefer overall the results of a social decision.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:24
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M_Gargantua posted:So Cichlidae, I was driving up 17 to Glastonbury the other day and saw about 10 lycra clad bikers on the way. Now I love bicycling myself so I don't mind them at all. But 17 is pretty narrow in many places. Are there any chances of ever widening it or adding a Glastonbury-Middletown Bike lane/path/trail? There is visibly plenty of room on both sides of 17 and 66, does the state own any of it? I'm guessing it would cost millions of dollars but it would be great. Here's some work on the Glastonbury end: http://bikewalkglastonbury.com/resources/maps/ Here's a PDF about extending the Airline trail to Portland, which admittedly isn't the right direction but would be pretty cool: http://www.portlandct.org/portals/12/departments/parkrec/pdf/airlinetrail.pdf
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Jun 10, 2015 21:29
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This isn't even a "city vs suburbs" or "job sprawl" or anything like that problem, it's just "why is this better than a grid" and any minor advantages of this over a grid are vastly outweighed by the immense danger as soon as you exit this secure little enclave. It's been scientifically proven that the human mind will greatly exaggerate the positives of a choice and greatly underestimate the negatives of a choice. We're totally paranoid of strangers coming into our neighborhoods and stealing and raping our kids or murdering us or something like that, so we take this action (move into this land use pattern where I can be sure that if I see a stranger they're here to murder me) and totally just accept that thousands of people die in cars in this country as a fact of life. An interesting blog post by a friend of mine, comparing crime plus traffic deaths in my metro area, which comes to the basic conclusion that it's way more complex than "city = crime ridden, suburb = safe" http://streets.mn/2015/04/24/safety-means-more-than-crime-rates/
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Jun 10, 2015 21:31
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FISHMANPET posted:I think the idea is to segregate the traffic and concentrate it on those major roads, so that the neighborhoods are quiet. I think it's some kind of rebellion against the city and it's perceived problems, perhaps maybe even on a subconscious level. Nevermind that I live in a major city with a very good grid and most of the streets are pretty quiet, you gotta do everything you can to keep anybody that doesn't belong from driving into your neighborhood and parking in your god-given on-street parking space and stealing your children or breaking into your house or something. You're right most of northern VA is soulless sprawl and fortunately I'm only here temporarily; I couldn't fathom buying a house here especially considering what they cost. Spending like $700k on a cookie cutter McMansion only to spend half my life sitting in traffic on 66 or rt 50? Yes please, sign me up. On another note I've noticed in Arlington, a significantly more densely populated city/county right next to DC has generally much lower levels of congestion than the majority of less dense Fairfax county. Much of that I'm sure can be attributed to the fact that 1) many more destinations are within walking distance (plus Metro access) and 2) in general there's excellent continuity with the road network giving people a multitude of options to reach their destination.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:34
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FISHMANPET posted:This isn't even a "city vs suburbs" or "job sprawl" or anything like that problem, it's just "why is this better than a grid" and any minor advantages of this over a grid are vastly outweighed by the immense danger as soon as you exit this secure little enclave. There's no point to a grid when you're in a mostly residential area with large lots and minimal intermixed development, especially when you've got a lot of already existing parks and reserved space that generally breaks up any attempt to impose a grid. Also you don't really need to leave the "enclave" to say, go to school as a kid there. Take note that's in Centreville, which is practically on the fringe of the really built up part of the DC metro area. You go much farther west and development really drops off a ton, I-66 narrows, and all tht. MisterTurtle posted:On another note I've noticed in Arlington, a significantly more densely populated city/county right next to DC has generally much lower levels of congestion than the majority of less dense Fairfax county. Much of that I'm sure can be attributed to the fact that 1) many more destinations are within walking distance (plus Metro access) and 2) in general there's excellent continuity with the road network giving people a multitude of options to reach their destination. Road choice in Arlington is actually quite constrained for most origin and destination pairs. There is connectivity but most of it is effectively useless to you as the person going from A to B - same deal as with most of Manhattan really. Anyway, Arlington has had quite an intensive and comprehensive development plan since 1960, which was specifically intended to shift it from being just another large suburban area to a city center type place in its own right. This was spurred by the county's population growing over 100,000 from 1940 (when it was about 48,000 people) to 160,000 people in the late 50s as the plan was being assembled for final proclamation in mid-1960. Essentially, it was planning similar to what the City of New York had done to provide for development in Queens in the early 20th century.
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Jun 10, 2015 21:48
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Nintendo Kid posted:
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Jun 10, 2015 21:55
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Nintendo Kid posted:Take note that's in Centreville, which is practically on the fringe of the really built up part of the DC metro area. Hahahahahahaha Centerville is practically the middle of suburbia at this point. Gainesville's were it's at these days.
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Jun 10, 2015 22:06
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dupersaurus posted:Hahahahahahaha Out by Gainesville isn't nearly as dense: 
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Jun 10, 2015 22:11
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Nintendo Kid posted:Out by Gainesville isn't nearly as dense: That map is from 2010. There's a staggering number of cookie cutter developments that have popped up around Gaineville over the last 5 years.
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Jun 10, 2015 22:14
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MisterTurtle posted:That map is from 2010. There's a staggering number of cookie cutter developments that have popped up around Gaineville over the last 5 years. Most of which are way less dense or as dense but very spread out as compared to in by Centreville. It's at like the level Centreville itself was at back in say 1991. I had to go through that area plenty over the past 2 years, and was last through at the end of May. Did you even read the word "dense"? Prince William County as a whole has only grown 10% between the census and the mid-2014 survey, as well.
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Jun 10, 2015 22:23
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Nintendo Kid posted:Most of which are way less dense or as dense but very spread out as compared to in by Centreville. It's at like the level Centreville itself was at back in say 1991.
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Jun 10, 2015 22:36
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MisterTurtle posted:Of course it is certainly less dense than Centreville is today, I think the main point is that Centreville is definitely not the fringe of the DC metro area anymore. Stop here. Dude, I said the edge of the highly developed part of the metro from the start. The actual fringe of the whole thing goes all the way out to at least Charles Town, WV and Winchester/Front Royal, VA, to say nothing of how far it goes south.
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Jun 10, 2015 22:55
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As an aside from the weekly  ing, what do the traffic engineers think of the idea of Vision Zero? I ask because Vancouver has adopted it into its Transportation 2040 plan, and a coalition of organisations at the university (including the bike co-op I volunteer with) are talking about lobbying for it on campus as well.
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Jun 11, 2015 04:22
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I know that a lot of NYC bike advocates make fun of it.
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Jun 11, 2015 04:46
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It's made fun of because of the poor way NYC has implemented it, though. NYC is basically "VisionZero, as long as it doesn't inconvenience anybody in a car"
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Jun 11, 2015 04:53
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There are a lot of things you can say about NYC, but "doesn't inconvenience people in cars" really isn't one of them for the past half century.
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Jun 11, 2015 04:57
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smackfu posted:Here's some work on the Glastonbury end: http://bikewalkglastonbury.com/resources/maps/ That guys google map home star is down the street from mine! But I'd love to see the trail extended through Portland. I didnt even know that was a thing. Now I'm going to go talk to people about it. Still would like it more if they added something up 17 to Glastonbury but one piece at a time.
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Jun 11, 2015 04:58
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Denver is adding bicycle only traffic signals along some of the new bike lanes downtown. Have these been seen anywhere else? quote:The signal clearly notes when it’s safe for northbound cyclists to enter the intersection and cars turning right onto 14th from Bannock now have a no-turn-on-red sign to prevent conflicts with turning cyclists.
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Jun 11, 2015 04:59
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will_colorado posted:Denver is adding bicycle only traffic signals along some of the new bike lanes downtown. Have these been seen anywhere else? You mean around the world? I can think of a few places.
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Jun 11, 2015 05:19
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Koesj posted:You mean around the world? I can think of a few places. I think he means the US, or North America more broadly, not the civilised world.  There are a few on some of the separated bike lanes in Vancouver. https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.276678,-123.102215,3a,47y,233.8h,83.96t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1smeyG7Ei5AWYwqXaBjmKCvw!2e0 Good on Denver for doing them too.
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Jun 11, 2015 08:15
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We have them along protected bike lanes here in DC
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Jun 11, 2015 11:47
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We have a couple of those bike signals around our University here in Minneapolis.
FISHMANPET fucked around with this message at 15:53 on Jun 11, 2015 |
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Jun 11, 2015 15:51
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