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BadSamaritan posted:Why are dedicated bus lanes, especially partitioned/walled lanes, not more of a thing in US cities? You're still mixing with traffic at intersections, it's basically light-rail on rubber wheels. It's hard to permanently 'steal' the asphalt width from the existing road politically, so it's probably still extremely expensive to build. Yuppies don't like buses because they view it as a poor people thing. With enough branding you can make the yuppie commuters feel like it's something fancy, but now you're spending a poo poo-ton on fancy buses and level boarding and stations etc. We did some cost comparisons for some projects a while back, and BRT in exclusive rights-of-way (in most spots, sharing lanes some) was really not that much cheaper than light rail (again, mostly exclusive rights-of-way with some mixing).
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Jun 29, 2018 21:05
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Baronjutter posted:The goal for transit in most US locations is not to effectively move people around, it's to tick off the "has transit" box so politicians and planners can shrug and say their region is served by "transit". It's all poor people and disableds and olds using them anyways so who cares how efficient the system is? The goal isn't to get people out of their cars, the goal is to be able to check the "has transit" box for as cheaply as possible while not inconveniencing drivers. A bus lane would take away a lane from cars. Why would you take away people's ability to drive to work for some bus lane? Did you know the poor people on a bus don't pay gas taxes? Why should they get a lane?!?! Also, transit rolling stock is expensive as hell these days. $700k-$1MM each for a commuter coach bus. With all the required low floor ADA tech, most 40-foot transit buses are also costing over $500k. Varance fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Jun 30, 2018 |
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Jun 29, 2018 21:21
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Devor posted:We did some cost comparisons for some projects a while back, and BRT in exclusive rights-of-way (in most spots, sharing lanes some) was really not that much cheaper than light rail (again, mostly exclusive rights-of-way with some mixing). The cost comparison is really interesting, thanks. I figured political/public inertia was the main hurdle, but I guess I underestimated costs compared to other projects. For reference I’ve lived in NYC and Boston for most of my adult life and I realize that skews my hard-line transit perspective a ton. There is definitely a generation split with how transit is viewed around here, though, so maybe wrestling pavement back from cars might get a little easier in the future.
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Jun 29, 2018 21:35
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Wouldn't you like to know more http://imgur.com/Cpettwq
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Jul 2, 2018 21:13
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Elendil004 posted:Wouldn't you like to know more I hope it’s a single page that says “they’re real good”
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Jul 2, 2018 21:26
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 NJDOT posted:Is this a roundabout? https://www.google.com/maps/place/4...4!4d-74.6380431 Two signalized intersections. No yield signs. Two lanes that just turn into one if you're going from US1 SB and turning left. There's a good and nice roundabout a mile away, so they know how to do it: https://www.google.com/maps/place/4...1!4d-74.6285831
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Jul 2, 2018 21:34
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Guy Axlerod posted:
That's just one of many old-style traffic circles that long ago became insufficient and had the main highway driven through the middle. It would never be suitable as a full roundabout these days given the space constraints, and if they had the leeway to demolish all those businesses to build a new crossing point, it would instead be an overpass and ramps situation. The aerial there shows two of the plots abandoned, but it used to be that all 4 corners had shops and busy gas stations on them, adding even more conflicts/movements to deal with. Penns Neck Circle got punched through and the circle part relegated to holding lanes for cross traffic back in ~1960, after having been built in the 20s. As originally built, US 1 essentially handled one lane of traffic in each direction in the area, by the ~1960 reconstruction it was two lanes in each direction and now it's mostly 3 lanes in each direction. This was how the circle and its vicinity looked in 1940 for comparison: 
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Jul 3, 2018 01:27
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BadSamaritan posted:The cost comparison is really interesting, thanks. I figured political/public inertia was the main hurdle, but I guess I underestimated costs compared to other projects. I’m a transportation engineer that spent the first 20-something years of my life in Boston, and now I’m working in SC. The difference in how areas of the country view public transportation is incredible. I have friends in major northern and western cities paying premiums on their rent because of the proximity to a subway station. Down here in the south, if I tell someone I’d love to be able to take a bus/train (or god forbid, my bike) to work, there’s a strong chance I get a strange look in response. My city is finally getting a dedicated bus lane into downtown (kinda), but that’s only happening because it’s being placed in the large median of a divided road that the state already owns the right of way to. They aren’t taking stealing away any asphalt from existing auto lanes. God forbid they take any space from cars away. And honestly, I don’t blame the detractors. Buses are great, but based on the half-assed way they’d be implemented, the extra auto lane would carry a lot more volume than the occasional bus.
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Jul 3, 2018 04:08
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So I was working on one of my larger cities in C:S (obviously) when I noticed that my poor planning led to this disaster of a midtown intersection right in the heart of the city:   (showing the origin/destination of those 6-lane roads, they're the three major arteries in and out of the city)I tried to fix it as best I could utilizing lane assignments, but that made me think - how do cities work around complex intersections with more than four entry/exit points? I found a couple neat diagrams of a rotary they built somewhere in Maine with five points, but Maine also isn't necessarily the most urban environment. How would a real traffic engineer handle a meeting of multiple major arterial roads in a confined area like this? Big rotary? Double rotary? Magic roundabout? Or just really really carefully timed light cycles to give each road its own protected cycle? barnold fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 18:11
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And how would C:S handle it, because cars won't change lanes to handle additional traffic?
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Jul 17, 2018 18:58
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None of your buildings are hand placed so it wouldn't be too painful to convert the area into a nice big roundabout. Or get real fussy with ramps and build a super compact little grade-separated intersection there. Have you ever played with timed traffic lights? I could never figure them out for years but I just started dabbling. There's some tutorials out there, and that would be your most likely real life answer. Timed traffic lights also lets you link traffic lights, which could really help an intersection like that flow. No point having a green light when 2 tiles ahead is a red light and everything just backs up. Some dedicated turning phases would probably help too.
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Jul 17, 2018 19:01
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There's always the Portland option of just dynamiting a couple blocks of the angled road to improve the intersection at the expense of royally loving anyone who needs the diagonal road to get to work: They did that to Burnside/sandy/12th in Portland in 2009/10.  
Javid fucked around with this message at 19:12 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 19:08
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I know it's a parking lot but it looks like a bunch of cars on the diagonal road got stuck at the stub and their pathfinding AI can't get them out.
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Jul 17, 2018 19:26
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Time for a massive roundabout and tunnels.
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Jul 17, 2018 20:07
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Volmarias posted:And how would C:S handle it, because cars won't change lanes to handle additional traffic? Actually, with Traffic Manager, you can turn on dynamic lane changing AI and crank it up to max, which solves a lot of problems with how the AI vehicles change lanes. It's not a perfect fix, but it's a hell of a lot better than vanilla. EDIT: I took some inspiration from a little further up on this page.    it's heinous.....but it actually works really well for some reason. also that's a third party four-lane zoneable road so that's why it looks a little wonky rendered in CSL barnold fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 21:41
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Tiny Tubesteak Tom posted:Actually, with Traffic Manager, you can turn on dynamic lane changing AI and crank it up to max, which solves a lot of problems with how the AI vehicles change lanes. It's not a perfect fix, but it's a hell of a lot better than vanilla. Is that recent? I don't remember seeing that at all!
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Jul 18, 2018 00:21
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Tiny Tubesteak Tom posted:Actually, with Traffic Manager, you can turn on dynamic lane changing AI and crank it up to max, which solves a lot of problems with how the AI vehicles change lanes. It's not a perfect fix, but it's a hell of a lot better than vanilla. You basically invented Dupont Circle in DC, except your through road just slams through at grade instead of being in a tunnel underground
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Jul 18, 2018 01:14
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Devor posted:You basically invented
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Jul 18, 2018 02:37
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In a similar vein, I just talked with someone at work yesterday about this gem of an intersection: The freeway and railroad tracks of course make it impossible to realign anything but there's plenty of not at all confusing signs to try and help out:  Although, as a local, I pretty much know where I'm going when I get through there I can see how it could be bewildering to someone new, especially with the ridiculous amount of truck traffic going through there making merging especially difficult.
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Jul 18, 2018 12:28
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Volmarias posted:Is that recent? I don't remember seeing that at all! I'm not sure how recent it is, but load a game with the mod open, hit Escape to bring up the menu, go to options, click on Traffic Manager on the sidebar, and in one of the tabs you should be able to set "Advanced Lane Changing AI" (or whatever it's actually called) to varying degrees. It's not in the actual TM overlay, where you'd go for manually assigning lanes or removing traffic lights from an intersection, so it's a little hidden. I didn't know about it until I saw someone post about it in the C:S Facebook community recently.
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Jul 18, 2018 16:03
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What's the deal with California highway on/offramps? Coming from North Texas where every new surface/highway intersection is designed exactly the same, I'm assuming that this is considered best practice. However California (East Bay, Oakland/Berkeley area etc) seems to take a different tactic with a bunch of half or quarter clover leaf intersections. Even for new onramps. Like highway 4 and San Marco Blvd. Why would you design it like that. Seriously. Further, rather than space out on/offramps they seem to jam a bunch together in the same area. Like, going from my house near downtown Oakland North/West to my boat, about 6 miles, 580w has continuous overlapping onramps for hwy 24, MacArthur blvd, then itself becomes an onramp for I-80 North Finally, why don't highway signs feature exit numbers? Either the information sign, or the actual exit maker sign has the exit number, but rarely both. Generally the information sign says a street or avenue instead, which is super not useful if where you're going is at that exit but not on that road. I would figure given the fact that all the major roads in the bay area are federal interstate highways, they would at least follow some standard of listing the exit number on both the international and exit markers. There seems to be some weird regional preference to list street names instead. Or, going from highway A to highway B Was on highway 4 leaving Pittsburgh CA to go to highway 24 through the tunnel/mountains back to Oakland. Basically I know I need to go 4 -> 680 -> 24 , via hwy 242 but the signs on the highway are to streets that intersect the highways. So rather than exit 4 for hwy 242 to 680, now I need to look for the exit for Concord Ave, which is on 242, but there's no sign indicating that this exit turns in to 242, which just happens to have an exit at Concord Ave (which is not where I'm exiting, just happens to be an exit?). The other option at the fork in the road reads "Solano Way" which I also know nothing about and no way of knowing which one is 242 that will eventually take me to 680 to get me home.
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Jul 18, 2018 18:26
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Most of our freeways are really old. All the lessons we learned get passed off to states that didn't build as quickly. We do post exit numbers, but only as the signs get replaced. No one in California uses them, you just know what exit you have. Edit: 242 is clearly indicated off of wb 4 though both on my own knowledge and Google maps though. https://goo.gl/maps/wKzv69uaMur nm fucked around with this message at 19:25 on Jul 18, 2018 |
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Jul 18, 2018 19:19
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The most terrifying thing american highways seem to have are insanely dangerous on-ramps. Like instead of having a nice acceleration lane and a merge you've got maybe 50' of lane to some how safely get up to freeway speeds from a stop and merge in, while american drivers also seem to see letting people merge as a sign of weakness or something and will actively close gaps to stop you from changing lanes.
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Jul 18, 2018 19:23
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Baronjutter posted:The most terrifying thing american highways seem to have are insanely dangerous on-ramps. Like instead of having a nice acceleration lane and a merge you've got maybe 50' of lane to some how safely get up to freeway speeds from a stop and merge in, while american drivers also seem to see letting people merge as a sign of weakness or something and will actively close gaps to stop you from changing lanes. Do you really believe this is some special American thing?
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Jul 18, 2018 19:26
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Baronjutter posted:The most terrifying thing american highways seem to have are insanely dangerous on-ramps. Like instead of having a nice acceleration lane and a merge you've got maybe 50' of lane to some how safely get up to freeway speeds from a stop and merge in, while american drivers also seem to see letting people merge as a sign of weakness or something and will actively close gaps to stop you from changing lanes. I deal with this near my work which makes me glad I recently got a new car with better acceleration: tiny rear end little on-ramp (and it's a merger one instead of a weave lane) has me putting the pedal to the metal in hopes not to get plastered by some big semi cruising along I-35 every time I head home. Considering I work at an Amazon Fulfillment Center I can only imagine how much it sucks for the people driving the semis picking up deliveries there too, those suckers don't exactly accelerate like rockets. fishmech posted:Do you really believe this is some special American thing? And yeah I doubt it's an issue for ONLY American cities.
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Jul 18, 2018 19:48
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fishmech posted:Do you really believe this is some special American thing? I suspect it is more common in the US because we built a whole lot of freeways early and in built up areas where it is hard to rebuild them to modern standards.
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Jul 20, 2018 23:35
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nm posted:I suspect it is more common in the US because we built a whole lot of freeways early and in built up areas where it is hard to rebuild them to modern standards. The US is also a lot more willing to tear down whole neighborhoods to slam a freeway through though with room to spare. It cuts both ways. Also shitloads of countries and regions of countries have reputations for aggressive drivers and drivers who are rude about merging.
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Jul 21, 2018 00:13
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fishmech posted:The US is also a lot more willing to tear down whole neighborhoods to slam a freeway through though with room to spare. It cuts both ways. They were, but less so these days. It is also extremely expensive. I would agree with the latter point.
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Jul 21, 2018 00:19
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nm posted:They were, but less so these days. It is also extremely expensive. Sure, but how many cities of today or even 50 years ago are insisting on building brand new massively substandard freeways? Plenty of places where they would have done so before they just don't build anything, or some aspect of the old fully substandard interchange or road collapses and ends up just plain closed or otherwise converted. Most of the freeways in the country have been built since good design for ramps became common.
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Jul 21, 2018 01:00
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fishmech posted:Do you really believe this is some special American thing? When someone criticizes something that exists in America, how is it relevant to say "that problem exists in other countries, too"? As if that's any excuse to build short and dangerous on-ramps (with stop signs, even?).
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Jul 21, 2018 19:25
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Pennsylvania is really fond of putting motherfucking stop signs at the top of their onramps
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Jul 21, 2018 19:44
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:When someone criticizes something that exists in America, how is it relevant to say "that problem exists in other countries, too"? As if that's any excuse to build short and dangerous on-ramps (with stop signs, even?). Are you trying to claim that America suddenly went back to the 60+ year old designs or what? I seriously just covered this, and yes pointing out that other countries with similarly old roads have the same problems does matter.
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Jul 21, 2018 19:59
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fishmech posted:Sure, but how many cities of today or even 50 years ago are insisting on building brand new massively substandard freeways? Plenty of places where they would have done so before they just don't build anything, or some aspect of the old fully substandard interchange or road collapses and ends up just plain closed or otherwise converted. Most of the freeways in the country have been built since good design for ramps became common. My point is that the US built urban freeways earlier than most other countries. This means the retain all the terrible design features because it is too expensive to fix them. I have seen way more weaving and short ramps space on american freeways than European freeways. Much of the US effectively stopped or severely limited building urban freeways in ealry 70s after the freeway revolts. The US is also really bad about improving existing infastructure when it is built.
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Jul 21, 2018 21:42
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shame on an IGA posted:Pennsylvania is really fond of putting motherfucking stop signs at the top of their onramps It's not on highways, but my city has lately been converting a lot of areas designed for yields into stop signs. So you'll have a perfectly reasonable merge lane, sometimes even with a block of its own entire lane to merge into traffic, but after X amount of accidents there they convert them to stop signs. So previously traffic would flow nicely, now everyone has to come to a full stop, except not everyone does because it feels so unnatural. Trying to improve safety just through changing a sign but without changing the physical infrastructure generally leads to unreliable behavior. It's like when my town reduced the speed limits globally from 50 to 40, which I supported, but there's some big arterial roads that have no driveways, no cross streets, feel more like a highway, but are technically 40. People drive 60-70 on them, but some people are worried about tickets or just like following the rules and go the legal 40. This leads to a lot of aggressive driving and passing and big differences in speed.
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Jul 21, 2018 23:03
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shame on an IGA posted:Pennsylvania is really fond of putting motherfucking stop signs at the top of their onramps Same deal on most of the interchanges on Rt. 1 in MA. loving nobody pays attention to them. If you're not blowing those signs, you're just not going to merge onto the highway without making some fuckass ride your bumper and slam the horn
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Jul 22, 2018 01:54
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I'm from SC where most of the infrastructure was still being built on cheap land in the 90s and seriously wanted to commit murder the first time I ran into that
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Jul 22, 2018 03:04
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traffic calming? more like traffic horse tranquilizing if you ask me
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Jul 22, 2018 03:38
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Baronjutter posted:Trying to improve safety just through changing a sign but without changing the physical infrastructure generally leads to unreliable behavior. It's like when my town reduced the speed limits globally from 50 to 40, which I supported, but there's some big arterial roads that have no driveways, no cross streets, feel more like a highway, but are technically 40. People drive 60-70 on them, but some people are worried about tickets or just like following the rules and go the legal 40. This leads to a lot of aggressive driving and passing and big differences in speed. See also: The joke of some Chicago highway speed limits being 55 mph while even the slowpokes are going at least 70(if congestion permits).
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Jul 22, 2018 06:21
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Huh. Some Dutch towns are spreading road salt that's normally used to melt the ice in winter, but now it's mid-summer. Why? To prevent the asphalt from melting and sticking to the tires. Lots of the asphalt here isn't really made to last in 30+ °C and we've had those temperatures for several days now.
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Jul 22, 2018 08:27
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https://i.imgur.com/LlX8G10.gifv
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Jul 24, 2018 22:58
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