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Communist Zombie posted:And most of the remaining ten percent is completely hobbled by corrupt/inept management. The Miami metro lost federal funds for expansion when, iirc, they couldnt find what happened to the preliminary money that was given to them. And wont get anymore until they can. The good news is that there's a ton of people retiring from most transit agencies soon, so hopefully the younger generations can sort things out. HART and PSTA (Tampa Bay) actually have a really good crew these days. Too bad the Tea Party is entrenched at the county level on both sides of the bay, which is where the majority of transit funds have to come from in Florida (state laws were passed a couple decades ago in the name of fiscal responsibility to make it a bitch to fund transit). Without a local match... forget it. Varance fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Apr 11, 2016 |
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Apr 11, 2016 03:09
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I just spent a couple days at a training program for incorporating 3D models into construction projects. Really interesting stuff, even if it's not directly relevant to traffic engineering. Traditionally, when an engineer designs a road, they provide a plan (horizontal alignment), profile (vertical alignment), and cross-sections for each roadway. It turns out that these aren't all that useful for the people actually building the road. Many contractors these days have computerized equipment - pavers, graders, and the like. Contractors and inspectors alike are increasingly using GPS and the other three satellite navigation constellations instead of the old types of surveying. There are huge economies to be had this way, but only if they have good data to work with. Meanwhile, in the office, everything is done with CADD these days. That's been the case for a couple decades. In the last handful of years, many agencies have switched to electronic submissions, too, so the designer can do absolutely everything electronically. For the old guys, this is just an easier way to do the same thing: draw up their plans, profiles, and cross-sections. But for the last 30+ years, there has been software that lets the engineer build a 3D model of the site and extract the plan data from that. I know that, at least within our company, every roadway project we do is build on a 3D file from InRoads or Civil3D. But we're still just delivering the plans, profiles, and cross-sections, not the model itself. The justification for this is that the plans are the official, verified design data, and the 3D model is just a tool. Well, it turns out that contractors and inspectors would find the 3D model extremely useful, even if it's "For Information Only." If it's included in the contract, the designer can specify that the plans are the official documents and that the contractor can use the CADD files at their own risk. But here's the trick: if the contractor FOIAs the CADD data, it does not have a disclaimer and the engineer is on the hook for whatever the contractor does with it. On top of that, if the engineer doesn't give the contractor this data, and it results in an error that could've been avoided otherwise, the engineer is on the hook due to the Superior Knowledge Doctrine and can be forced to pay for any resulting remediation. The instructor provided a bunch of legal cases where this had been invoked. So why not provide the contractor and inspector the full set of design data? If it's approximate, say so. If it's not to be used for construction and just for information, say so. Your liability is reduced if you provide it, and the end result will be a better project. Any other engineers (or anyone else, I guess) have experience with this?
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Apr 13, 2016 22:46
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So here's a fun thing: http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/transportation/article71466347.html#storylink=hpdigest Apparently it has a warranty and the contractor hasn't declared bankruptcy (yet) so maybe this won't be another adventure in Caltran's lowest bidder leaving us holding the bag.
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Apr 13, 2016 23:00
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Cichlidae posted:I just spent a couple days at a training program for incorporating 3D models into construction projects. Really interesting stuff, even if it's not directly relevant to traffic engineering. I call BS on having the Engineer be on the hook for CADD files that are seized through FOIA. That seems like it could only be caused by someone producing the files in response to the FOIA request in an inappropriate way. Like, just dumping the files on a CD without including adequate qualifiers about accuracy, etc, like we always do when files leave our office. In my jurisdiction I would say it's pretty typical that CADD files are provided to the contractor 'for information' on request. They use the CADD in conjunction with the actual contract documents to get a jump start on generating baselines and whatnot. There is also talk about figuring out how to make the 3D model part of the actual contract drawings, with the designer and agency standing behind the model. It seems pretty unbelievable to me that we'll ever reach that point.
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Apr 13, 2016 23:29
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Devor posted:I call BS on having the Engineer be on the hook for CADD files that are seized through FOIA. That seems like it could only be caused by someone producing the files in response to the FOIA request in an inappropriate way. Like, just dumping the files on a CD without including adequate qualifiers about accuracy, etc, like we always do when files leave our office. Yeah, the FOIA thing sounded a little strange to me, too. The guy implied that anything we produce, even if it's just for our own use, is something we're legally responsible for. It doesn't seem right that something we haven't stamped could increase our liability. Maybe the dude just has a really good lawyer  That was part of our workshop. It seems nobody's quite figured out how to do it yet, if only because we don't have any real standards for creating and reviewing a model yet. Other than that, it's pretty much just a matter of attaching a digital signature to it. The contractor can derive the same old contract plans from the model if they want them.
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Apr 13, 2016 23:36
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I do work around the edges of this sort of thing as well (I don't do roads), and it irks me a little to create terrain models and then send them off on a digital page, only to see the later design drawings where they've been clearly been transformed into models again. Luckily digital copying is fairly accurate so it usually doesn't matter, but I have seen cases where the receiver fucks up the rectification, which seems an unnecessary source of error. (Once an engineer rotated a sewer network to fit on his page, then sent us out to lay it out on the ground. Oops.) Going off traditional style plans obviously works quite well, but the advantage of modelling is the adaptability. For example, if the contractor wants to know the height of the finished surface at a point somewhere between cross sections, you can use the computers on the GPS receiver to calculate it instead of pulling out the calculator, which took ages and was probably the most common source of error. The road surveyors I knew used a program called roadrunner, in which a standard cross-section and a profile was loaded, and then they could walk to any point and the software would calculate the cut or fill to the exact spot they were in realtime. GPS is a very productive technology for road surveys, it's about 2 - 5 times faster than using a theodolite when we do it, and then there are further time savings for direct machine control because they don't have to wait for the surveyors to mark things. There's also a liability issue there, because the surveyor used to take responsibility for the data being marked out on the ground correctly, but now that step is eliminated and the first check you get on the ground is when the earthworks are done. They just finished a section of motorway here entirely on machine control, I'll see if I can find the article to send to you.
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Apr 14, 2016 03:48
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Cichlidae posted:I just spent a couple days at a training program for incorporating 3D models into construction projects. Really interesting stuff, even if it's not directly relevant to traffic engineering. I can see the value in that, the majority of traffic projects are seen from the road, not from the air or in profile. I mean, most roads are flat enough that an aerial plan is sufficient, but if you can visualise something in 3D it can be incredibly useful. If nothing else, it means the contractor can compare their 3d model to what they're actually building on site and make sure its going according to plan. The closest experience I've had with this is using a screenshot of google streetview to identify to contractors 'That sign is hosed. Go fix thanks' and the like.
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Apr 14, 2016 08:53
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While driving today I saw a stop sign that was so old and faded that I thought it was an old wooden sign until i got close to it, and even then you could only really see the 'STOP' due to the lettering reflecting light differently than the rest of the sign. Is that sign still legal? Or atleast able to argue that it should be invalid if I got a ticket from ignoring it? Also think people here would be interested in the Transit/Planning Politics thread in D&D; a goon there is doing a series on SEPTA and the various trials and tribulations its suffered as it shrank, starting with how "Ronald Reagan Goes All America Over SEPTA's rear end".
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Apr 17, 2016 07:36
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Communist Zombie posted:While driving today I saw a stop sign that was so old and faded that I thought it was an old wooden sign until i got close to it, and even then you could only really see the 'STOP' due to the lettering reflecting light differently than the rest of the sign. Is that sign still legal? Or atleast able to argue that it should be invalid if I got a ticket from ignoring it? Its probably dubious enough that you could reasonably argue your way out of the ticket - especially if you've got a good lawyer. Maybe ask in the legal questions megathread - there be traffic lawyers.
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Apr 17, 2016 07:45
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Cichlidae posted:Around here, this is entirely up to the whims of developers. It's so much cheaper to buy a farm and turn it into a subdivision than to build an apartment building downtown or demolish a neighborhood and replace it with something denser. People at our public meeting keep talking about everything being TOD, and we keep emphasizing that we have absolutely zero control over what kinds of development go in. Most realistically, given the existing land use in Hartford, it'll all become surface parking lots. Solution: Ring your city in parkland with limited throughfares. Sure, you can build a development on the other side of the state forest --- it'll just take 10 minutes to drive thru in a manner which may be controlled for.
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Apr 17, 2016 16:35
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Communist Zombie posted:While driving today I saw a stop sign that was so old and faded that I thought it was an old wooden sign until i got close to it, and even then you could only really see the 'STOP' due to the lettering reflecting light differently than the rest of the sign. Is that sign still legal? Or atleast able to argue that it should be invalid if I got a ticket from ignoring it? Something like this, I imagine?  Common sense would dictate that if the sign is no longer recognizable as a stop sign, it's not enforceable, but law and common sense don't always go hand in hand, so I guess that's a question for a lawyer.
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Apr 17, 2016 19:12
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Communist Zombie posted:While driving today I saw a stop sign that was so old and faded that I thought it was an old wooden sign until i got close to it, and even then you could only really see the 'STOP' due to the lettering reflecting light differently than the rest of the sign. Is that sign still legal? Or atleast able to argue that it should be invalid if I got a ticket from ignoring it? If you run the stop and get a ticket, accept it, don't speak with the cop except to mention you did not see the sign, then go take a cell phone picture of the sign. The MUTCD requires that all signs be legible and illuminated/retroreflective. I doubt it's foolproof, but it's certainly going to be easy to prove that the sign is not a valid traffic control device and does not command respect. Your argument should be something like "the sign was not visible or recognizable due to its degraded state. Here's a photo I took of it the day of the infraction." IANAL of course. Speaking of all that, does anyone have any idea how much weight the UVC has in the US?
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Apr 17, 2016 20:07
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I think that excuse might work for a lot of things, but stop signs in particular gain a lot of utility from their shape... even if you can't see the red color, or read the letters STOP, it's still an octagon, and, at least in the U.S., that means a single thing. IMO and IANAL, but it seems like it'd be hard to argue that one in court.
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Apr 18, 2016 06:57
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Golbez posted:I think that excuse might work for a lot of things, but stop signs in particular gain a lot of utility from their shape... even if you can't see the red color, or read the letters STOP, it's still an octagon, and, at least in the U.S., that means a single thing. IMO and IANAL, but it seems like it'd be hard to argue that one in court. I had the same thought, but consider: driving in the dark, or in the rain, or any situation where visibility is impaired. You're not necessarily going to be able to make out the shape of the blank sign until you're right up on it.
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Apr 18, 2016 11:12
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Golbez posted:I think that excuse might work for a lot of things, but stop signs in particular gain a lot of utility from their shape... even if you can't see the red color, or read the letters STOP, it's still an octagon, and, at least in the U.S., that means a single thing. IMO and IANAL, but it seems like it'd be hard to argue that one in court. If it's not retroreflective, it's not visible, regardless of its shape. It has about as much validity as a 2-inch-tall stop sign would. On top of that, a driver's best assumption when seeing a stop sign without any visible sheeting on it would be that it's facing the other way and intended for traffic coming from the other direction. Surely you don't hit the brakes every time you see an octagon.
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Apr 18, 2016 12:10
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Cichlidae posted:On top of that, a driver's best assumption when seeing a stop sign without any visible sheeting on it would be that it's facing the other way and intended for traffic coming from the other direction. Surely you don't hit the brakes every time you see an octagon. Excellent point.
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Apr 18, 2016 19:23
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I encountered this highly technical sign on the side of the Merrit Parkway the other day. Why has the Merrit been under construction on Friday nights for like the past three years?
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Apr 19, 2016 01:32
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devicenull posted:I encountered this highly technical sign on the side of the Merrit Parkway the other day. They're not going to close lanes during the day. Pretty much every bridge there is falling down, so there's constant palliative care going on. Is that a paper plate or a pie tin, by the way? I have to figure out if the contractor's been over-billing us.
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Apr 19, 2016 03:08
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Cichlidae posted:They're not going to close lanes during the day. Pretty much every bridge there is falling down, so there's constant palliative care going on. I hope they spray paint the stationing bright orange on your fancy wooden guardrails. So pretentious.
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Apr 19, 2016 03:24
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Devor posted:I hope they spray paint the stationing bright orange on your fancy wooden guardrails. So pretentious. Blame whoever put the Merritt Parkway on the National Register of Historic Places. It needs special guiderails, special signs (with a special background color we had to pay for), special bridges, dozens of unique specs... I doubt half of it complies with current standards, but we have to keep things how they were back in the 1930s.
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Apr 19, 2016 04:03
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Cichlidae posted:Blame whoever put the Merritt Parkway on the National Register of Historic Places. It needs special guiderails, special signs (with a special background color we had to pay for), special bridges, dozens of unique specs... I doubt half of it complies with current standards, but we have to keep things how they were back in the 1930s. How does this work? There's some special highway that has its own special code to look like it's the 1930's? How's that legal/safe?
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Apr 19, 2016 04:06
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It's not particularly safe, with small shoulders, big trees in the narrow middle area, and on ramps with stop signs and no merge lanes. But it sure is pretty.
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Apr 19, 2016 12:13
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Cichlidae posted:They're not going to close lanes during the day. Pretty much every bridge there is falling down, so there's constant palliative care going on. Paper plate, there's a whole series of them. I think they were about every 50 ft. This time, it looked like they were adding concrete gutters along the side of the road? (They're in that picture)
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Apr 19, 2016 13:49
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devicenull posted:Paper plate, there's a whole series of them. I think they were about every 50 ft. The numbers on the plates are called "Stationing" that we use to refer to unique locations along the baseline of construction. If you ignored the + symbol, then the numbers represent feet, and usually start at some arbitrary point defined by the engineer. So, you might have a baseline that starts at Station 10+00. Then fifty feet later you have your start of the work, that's Station 10+50. Then your work area is 500 feet long, so it ends at Station 15+50. A "Station" is the number before the plus, and is equal to a hundred feet. Frequently the contractor will 'stake out' the baseline and identify the physical locations of regular points along the baseline through the work zone, so the workers can know precisely where they are relative to the linework on the plans.
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Apr 19, 2016 14:30
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In countries that use the metric system, it's a bit saner. Here's a picture I took from a tour bus on a mountain road in Costa Rica: The number before the + sign indicates the number of kilometers elapsed, and the number afterward is the number of meters. So that particular rock is 16.26 km from their arbitrary starting point. Now, why the arbitrary starting point? The convention here is to start your baseline at 10+00 instead of 0+00. Project limits are frequently extended, and you don't want to end up with negative stationing. As long as your limits don't get extended by more than 1000 feet, you don't need a new baseline. Now if you have multiple roadways (most projects I've worked on do), you have multiple baselines, and their numbers should not overlap. The first road might go from Sta 10+00 to Sta 13+50, then the next road might be 20+00 to 31+30, then the next one would start at 40+00, etc. On the Busway project, I remember we had baselines well into the 900s.
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Apr 19, 2016 22:44
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Oh hey, I just finished reading this whole thread. Only took a year+. These forums thank you for your service, Chichlidae 
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Apr 20, 2016 22:47
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Fuschia tude posted:Oh hey, I just finished reading this whole thread. Only took a year+. Just doin' my job! Someday I'll write a book about this and my other (much more interesting) job. It's one hell of a juxtaposition.
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Apr 21, 2016 02:20
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What's the other job?
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Apr 21, 2016 02:47
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jyrka posted:What's the other job? Demolition Derby driver
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Apr 21, 2016 02:57
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Ooh, that reminds me! Are traffic engineers good drivers? On the one hand, they know the rules and the roads, but on the other hand, they know just how far to push the envelope. It occurs to me that crashing one's car or getting a speeding ticket would bring a lot of unsympathetic jokes on ones head.
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Apr 21, 2016 05:02
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Jaguars! posted:Ooh, that reminds me! Are traffic engineers good drivers? On the one hand, they know the rules and the roads, but on the other hand, they know just how far to push the envelope. It occurs to me that crashing one's car or getting a speeding ticket would bring a lot of unsympathetic jokes on ones head. It really differs from person to person and depends on their background. Generally I've found that traffic engineers are more confident drivers than most average members of the public and are more aware of the road environment. Then again if you're a designer who spends most of the time in the office with CAD and traffic simulation its quite different to someone who works a lot with temporary traffic management (which involves a lot of visiting road construction sites), and that again is different to someone who spends a lot of time doing safety audits.
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Apr 21, 2016 10:54
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Jaguars! posted:Ooh, that reminds me! Are traffic engineers good drivers? On the one hand, they know the rules and the roads, but on the other hand, they know just how far to push the envelope. It occurs to me that crashing one's car or getting a speeding ticket would bring a lot of unsympathetic jokes on ones head. Traffic engineers are probably better drivers on unfamiliar roads than the general public. We understand the implications of signs and pavement markings, and have a pretty in-depth understanding of signals. On normal commuter routes, it's anyone's guess. Several of my coworkers routinely drive drunk and most of them use their phones in the car. I don't know whether other professions have the same issues.
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Apr 21, 2016 12:13
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It's the same as asking a dude in construction whether or not they go all-out with safety when they're DIY'ing it at home. Some will use their knowledge of the dangers inherent by wearing three layers of goggles while using sandpaper, others will use their knowledge to remove the safety guard on their table saw. Most people fall somewhere in-between.
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Apr 21, 2016 14:55
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Cichlidae posted:Traffic engineers are probably better drivers on unfamiliar roads than the general public. We understand the implications of signs and pavement markings, and have a pretty in-depth understanding of signals. On normal commuter routes, it's anyone's guess. Several of my coworkers routinely drive drunk and most of them use their phones in the car. I don't know whether other professions have the same issues. I think cellphone use is endemic everywhere now, you see people in NZ using their phones all the time even though it's against the law without a handsfree setup. As for drink driving, that's a strenuously enforced offence here that usually attracts demerit points, loss of licence or jail time as well as fines, so it's looked on as pretty déclassé by a lot of the population here.
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Apr 22, 2016 00:36
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It's pretty easy to test for drunk driving, but cracking down on cell phones is a lot harder. As they kill more and more people though I'd be totally fine with the courts being allowed to pull cell/data activity reports to nail people for loving around with their phone and causing a crash.
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Apr 22, 2016 00:41
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Baronjutter posted:It's pretty easy to test for drunk driving, but cracking down on cell phones is a lot harder. As they kill more and more people though I'd be totally fine with the courts being allowed to pull cell/data activity reports to nail people for loving around with their phone and causing a crash. They are already though.
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Apr 22, 2016 00:44
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Cichlidae posted:Traffic engineers are probably better drivers on unfamiliar roads than the general public. We understand the implications of signs and pavement markings, and have a pretty in-depth understanding of signals. On normal commuter routes, it's anyone's guess. Several of my coworkers routinely drive drunk and most of them use their phones in the car. I don't know whether other professions have the same issues. Any tips for unfamiliar roads for those not in the field?
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Apr 22, 2016 05:39
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mamosodiumku posted:Any tips for unfamiliar roads for those not in the field? Don't ignore curve advisory speeds. If you go around a 65km/hr curve at 100km/hr without even bothering to slow down you're going to roll your car and/or kill yourself.
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Apr 22, 2016 06:43
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Lobsterpillar posted:Don't ignore curve advisory speeds. If you go around a 65km/hr curve at 100km/hr without even bothering to slow down you're going to roll your car and/or kill yourself. Maybe if you're driving a loaded semi truck or a lifted brodozer. If you're in a normal passenger car on decent tires it's not uncommon to be able to double the advisory speed. Here's a particularly conservative one near me: https://goo.gl/maps/C851adsMenq 25 MPH advisory speed posted on a nice wide offramp. Even trucks don't need to slow down that much. My old Kia Soul could take it at highway speeds without trouble, and those things are not exactly handling champions. If you would actually take this ramp at 25 MPH in a normal car you're the worst kind of person. There are occasionally one or two advisory speeds that are actually reasonably set, the problem is they get drowned out by all the wolf-crying like this one. wolrah fucked around with this message at 16:39 on Apr 22, 2016 |
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Apr 22, 2016 16:36
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Baronjutter posted:It's pretty easy to test for drunk driving, but cracking down on cell phones is a lot harder. As they kill more and more people though I'd be totally fine with the courts being allowed to pull cell/data activity reports to nail people for loving around with their phone and causing a crash. Cell/Data activity wouldn't prove anything. I am allowed to use my phone in the car as long as i don't physically touch it. Calls can be made by voice dialing, you can do searches through google now/siri and have your car read your text messages to you. Just because provider data shows i sent a text seconds before i plowed into a group of pedestrians doesn't prove i broke the law.
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Apr 22, 2016 17:40
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