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Rougey posted:In Australia we tend to always blame the weather on delays; nine times out of ten it's the truth, but otherwise it's a fuckup somebody doesn't want to admit to. Yeah, waiting for somebody to move their drat low voltage lines is definitely a thing, but I think some places around here have started handing out fines if they don’t move their poo poo once the power company is done.
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Dec 9, 2022 17:48
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Greg12 posted:A lot of delay in the USA comes from funding. Do they fund the whole thing or part of it? Over here usually local authorities fund just under half usually, and can usually claim back the remainder from central govt. If they fail on the claim, well at that point it might still happen but the full cost will fall on the local authority who might need to borrow more or raise property taxes or something else.
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Dec 9, 2022 20:35
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Coasterphreak posted:Yeah, waiting for somebody to move their drat low voltage lines is definitely a thing, but I think some places around here have started handing out fines if they don’t move their poo poo once the power company is done. What's worse is that there was a nasty habit of utilities installing their assets on existing road bridges back before various governments went on privatisation binges and everything went to poo poo. We had a job were a local telecom company was holding up a cut over due to them having the exclusive streaming rights to the world cup and not wanting a dip in service; didn't bother us as we had a shitton of asbestos to get out of the site so it's not like the project overall was set back, but it was funny to watch all the news coverage of them loving up the broadcast anyway.
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Dec 11, 2022 04:43
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Lobsterpillar posted:Do they fund the whole thing or part of it? Over here usually local authorities fund just under half usually, and can usually claim back the remainder from central govt. If they fail on the claim, well at that point it might still happen but the full cost will fall on the local authority who might need to borrow more or raise property taxes or something else. something important to know about how things work in the united states contrary to many other wealthy nations is that in america, the most power to do transportation planning, land use planning, etc. exists at the state level, not the national level. the 10th amendment to the american constitution, a document written in the late 18th century, is basically "everything not explicitly spelled out in this document as a power granted to the federal government is assumed to belong to the states" and that includes things like infrastructure spending, land use controls, etc. (and education, and healthcare, and so on). so if you live in a state which is too poor or ideologically bound to do any useful transportation spending then sucks to be you the american federal government can get around the 10th amendment in some ways but in other ways its a big obstacle. this is why we have the workaround of providing for a pool of money with no projects funded, and then individual agencies on the local level can apply for that funding - its much more difficult for the federal government to simply say "we are giving X town $50 million for the purposes of expanding the Y transit line" usually local governments will ask the state for money or try to fund transportation expansion on their own by leveraging bonds and sales taxes. if you're lucky and observant you may line this up at the same time as a successful grant application for a slice of federal money, but those federal grants may fall through or not be funded which as mentioned can greatly slow down project progress
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Dec 11, 2022 18:27
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:the american federal government can get around the 10th amendment in some ways but in other ways its a big obstacle. IIRC, transportation funding was actually how we got the drinking age set to 21 in the US - the federal government basically said that states were ineligible for certain federal transportation funding if they didn’t set the drinking age to 21.
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Dec 11, 2022 18:34
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Blue Moonlight posted:IIRC, transportation funding was actually how we got the drinking age set to 21 in the US - the federal government basically said that states were ineligible for certain federal transportation funding if they didn’t set the drinking age to 21. That's also how the Nixon administration enforced the 55 mph speed limit during the Arab Oil Embargo.
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Dec 11, 2022 18:41
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Yep: "Fall in line, or no Highway funds for you!" is a pretty good stick to wield.
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Dec 12, 2022 16:23
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Chris Knight posted:Yep: "Fall in line, or no Highway funds for you!" is a pretty good stick to wield. It's commonly used all over the place. States don't legally have to follow Federal guidelines for almost anything, but if they want Federal money they have to.
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Dec 12, 2022 17:13
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Rougey posted:In Australia we tend to always blame the weather on delays; nine times out of ten it's the truth, but otherwise it's a fuckup somebody doesn't want to admit to. Having spent a total of 13 days in Australia my quick takeaway is that everything was administered vastly more competently than anything in North America 
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Dec 12, 2022 23:31
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Ooh neat! https://twitter.com/ontransport/status/1602311168751800325
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Dec 16, 2022 00:03
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Can anyone point me to a source that says leaving a Class 1 shared use path entry bollard-free is ok and fine and a good practice? I'm tired of hearing about bicyclists being injured by colliding with these things that are there for the benefit of malicious drivers--especially when the bollards that are "safe" to use are "safe" because they break away when struck by cars. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/santa-rosa-bicyclists-death-shines-light-on-danger-of-trail-traffic-device/ But I don't have a stamp with my name on it, so what I say ain't poo poo.
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Dec 28, 2022 18:09
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Greg12 posted:Can anyone point me to a source that says leaving a Class 1 shared use path entry bollard-free is ok and fine and a good practice? It's the opposite, if you have a bridge that is not rated for heavy enough truck traffic (H-10 I think? not highway loading, but heavier than a pickup) you must positively deny access through the use of physical barriers. It doesn't have to be a bollard specifically though - but bollards will be the cheapest option Here's an example where we used curbs and a tree so that the bike traffic flows around the sides of the approach at the bridge  Edit: This is an AASHTO bridge guideline, so you have to convince your structural engineer to put the bridge at risk Edit 2: You could also just design the bridge to carry heavy traffic, perhaps $20-30k premium on a small $100k bridge? Long pedestrian bridges probably already meet the truck design loads, since pedestrian design loads are heavy and ped bridges have very low limits for live load deflection Devor fucked around with this message at 18:27 on Dec 28, 2022 |
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Dec 28, 2022 18:20
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Devor posted:It's the opposite, if you have a bridge that is not rated for heavy enough truck traffic (H-10 I think? not highway loading, but heavier than a pickup) you must positively deny access through the use of physical barriers. ain't no bridge
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Dec 28, 2022 18:39
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Greg12 posted:ain't no bridge Oh, I figured that photo from the article was the accident site. Then yeah, it's just an operational decision. Someone was concerned about rogue vehicles being a nuisance and/or damaging the trail. Our bike advocate voices were strong enough that we only had bollards at the light bridge crossings (we did have a ton of bridges though). I don't think we're at the point where a non-required bollard is considered negligent - but if you don't mark/sign it appropriately it might be.
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Dec 28, 2022 18:48
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Multi use path going in the middle of the overpass is pretty dang neat
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Dec 29, 2022 02:11
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Happy Noodle Boy posted:Multi use path going in the middle of the overpass is pretty dang neat Now that I think about it, yeah. It solves two big problems with pedestrian paths over highways: People jumping off, and people throwing objects at passing cars. This design makes both much more cumbersome.
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Dec 29, 2022 08:52
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Today's XKCD:https://xkcd.com/2728
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Jan 24, 2023 08:38
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That's missing the popup text, "I just think lane markers should follow the local magnetic declination."
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Jan 24, 2023 08:43
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nielsm posted:Now that I think about it, yeah. It solves two big problems with pedestrian paths over highways: People jumping off, and people throwing objects at passing cars. This design makes both much more cumbersome. It's a lot easier to throw poo poo at the cars when they're right there. this rules.
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Jan 24, 2023 14:48
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Who came up with HAWK beacons, and why do they think they are better than just having red-yellow-green?
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Jan 24, 2023 15:02
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Greg12 posted:Who came up with HAWK beacons, and why do they think they are better than just having red-yellow-green? My City  Because hawks let you go once the light is flashing red like a 4-way rather than having to wait a full cycle, so if the pedestrian or cyclist is relatively fast traffic can start moving. And for the pedestrian/cyclist they are instant activate so the pedestrian isn't waiting either.
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Jan 24, 2023 15:08
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Greg12 posted:Who came up with HAWK beacons, and why do they think they are better than just having red-yellow-green? Also, at least in my jurisdiction, they were really picky about following the Traffic Signal Warrants in the MUTCD to put in a full signal. I think HAWK has a much lower threshold for a similar use case.
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Jan 24, 2023 15:10
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Qwijib0 posted:My City My hometown had/has a ped-only red-yellow-green that would change the second you hit the beg button. Devor posted:Also, at least in my jurisdiction, they were really picky about following the Traffic Signal Warrants in the MUTCD to put in a full signal. I think HAWK has a much lower threshold for a similar use case. ah, there you go.
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Jan 24, 2023 17:00
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Some good and bad rail news from Finland. This doesn't seem like quite the right thread, but it's the best match I know in the forums. The Jokeri light rail construction is nearing completion and the project seems to have been great success and is under budject and significantly ahead of schedule. The passenger traffic is expected to start this fall, 10 months before planned. The initial project plan estimated the cost at 275 million € in 2016. After the preconstruction development and planning phase in 2019 the cost estimate rose to 386 million, inflation adjusted 368 million compared to the initial budget. I believe it's this corrected budget they are undercutting. The project was executed using the Integrated project delivery model. I often hear good things of infrastructure projects using this model. It seems this should be used with most large infrastructure projects unless there is a specific reason to use something else. In worse news, the finance and transportation ministries commissioned a review of high speed rail projects under consideration in Southern Finland, between Helsinki, Tampere, Turku, Kouvola and Helsinki airport. The total costs of these projects is in the 10 billion € range. The report concluded that none of the projects could pay themselves through income alone and they would not be economically beneficial. The project organisations have objected and argue it is the ancillary benefits which make this kind of infrastructure projects worthwhile. This is probably true and as expected. As something new, the report also reviewed the climate effects of these projects and the conclusion was even worse. Using the current materials and construction methods the report estimated the payback period for emissions of the projects would be between 140 and 330 years. Those numbers look impossibly huge. The report estimated the constructions to cause emissions ranging from 438 kilotons of CO2 eq to 1308 CO2 eq for the different projects. The annual emission reductions they estimated as -1.5 to -10.2 CO2 eq. After the initial shock I started thinking how these numbers could make sense, and I guess it comes down to what they would substitute. They would not substitute flying. If you want to fly from Helsinki to our second biggest city Tampere you need to fly out of country first. There are no direct flights to any of these cities currently. In March Finnair will start a single daily flight to Tampere and Turku. The flights leave after midnight and are clearly designed for international travellers so they can reach home for the night. There are also trains already running these routes. So the new trains would substitute cars for those people who would them home now that the train is half an hour faster that before, and can get home easily from the train station.
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Jan 26, 2023 20:35
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Saukkis posted:After the initial shock I started thinking how these numbers could make sense, and I guess it comes down to what they would substitute. They would not substitute flying. If you want to fly from Helsinki to our second biggest city Tampere you need to fly out of country first. There are no direct flights to any of these cities currently. In March Finnair will start a single daily flight to Tampere and Turku. The flights leave after midnight and are clearly designed for international travellers so they can reach home for the night. There are also trains already running these routes. So the new trains would substitute cars for those people who would them home now that the train is half an hour faster that before, and can get home easily from the train station. Yeah, from a carbon standpoint, decreasing friction to get to the airport is not exactly the golden bullet
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Jan 26, 2023 20:44
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Feb 7, 2023 16:23
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Amsterdam is one of the worst cycling cities in the Netherlands, maybe only The Hague and Rotterdam are behind. Many paths are way too narrow, poorly maintained and they fail at clearing the snow off them in winter. They can't even afford a cycling bridge to the north. There's also a bunch of car sewers crossing the center that hold up cyclists and pollute the place. Until this week the central station had no proper bicycle parking. No idea why all the international youtubers are so obsessed with it, your average small town in Drenthe or Zeeland has better cycling infrastructure.
Entropist fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Feb 7, 2023 |
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Feb 7, 2023 20:14
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Can you find a single city in North America with better cycling infrastructure than Amsterdam?
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Feb 7, 2023 22:03
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Saukkis posted:Some good and bad rail news from Finland. This doesn't seem like quite the right thread, but it's the best match I know in the forums. I'd be curious about whether they're fully factoring in the negative externalities of driving in their analysis. Also whether they're just doing a per-trip calculation for the cars it would replace, or if they're factoring in life cycle costs of those cars (manufacturing, transport, maintenance, etc). And could it allow people to do things like take the train to the coast, then take a ferry to Sweden/Germany/Poland/Denmark etc instead of flying there?
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Feb 7, 2023 22:11
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Lead out in cuffs posted:And could it allow people to do things like take the train to the coast, then take a ferry to Sweden/Germany/Poland/Denmark etc instead of flying there? TBF the per-passenger-mile carbon emissions are higher on those ferries than for flying commercial. In theory, passenger shipping could be better, but in practice those boats take mostly vehicles and cargo (and a floating disco and three restaurants etc etc) so they're extremely inefficient.
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Feb 7, 2023 22:19
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Entropist posted:Amsterdam is one of the worst cycling cities in the Netherlands, maybe only The Hague and Rotterdam are behind. Many paths are way too narrow, poorly maintained and they fail at clearing the snow off them in winter. They can't even afford a cycling bridge to the north. There's also a bunch of car sewers crossing the center that hold up cyclists and pollute the place. Until this week the central station had no proper bicycle parking. No idea why all the international youtubers are so obsessed with it, your average small town in Drenthe or Zeeland has better cycling infrastructure. it's aesthetics, people mostly engage with this sort of urbanism on a surface level and wishcast how much they'd like to live in such a place. which is fair, it's very nice! but it is difficult and discouraging to engage with the land use management policies of one's own locality to understand why they produce the outcomes they do, so the minimally satisfying thing to do is watch youtube channels and imagine, like a vision board small compact towns at pedestrian scale just don't press that same button of fantasy escapism as the wealthy 18th century architecture but with bikes of amsterdam. i get to have my big city cultural experience but without the pesky congestion (offscreen) or what i imagine is the cultural baggage of small town conservativism. the branding just isn't there and what people want most of all is to consume the brand and dream a little
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Feb 7, 2023 22:43
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:TBF the per-passenger-mile carbon emissions are higher on those ferries than for flying commercial. In theory, passenger shipping could be better, but in practice those boats take mostly vehicles and cargo (and a floating disco and three restaurants etc etc) so they're extremely inefficient. For sure -- as you say, you're not taking your car with you on the commercial flight. But somebody taking the train to the ferry isn't carrying the extra ton or two of weight with them. If you connect ferries with decent public transit, I'm pretty sure you can greatly improve on those inefficiencies. (At least, looking at the ferry system in southern/coastal British Columbia.)
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Feb 7, 2023 23:21
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Lead out in cuffs posted:For sure -- as you say, you're not taking your car with you on the commercial flight. But somebody taking the train to the ferry isn't carrying the extra ton or two of weight with them. Oh, those ferries leave from major towns and cities, with plenty of public transport. Lack of train access is not why people take their car on a ferry across the Baltic - it's because they're going somewhere on the other side that does not have public transport, or because they're hauling more stuff than they can carry. These ferry routes take 16h+. If we look outside of peak vacation periods, I think about 60-80% of the vehicles on board are freight. Taking freight and cars on board a ferry is just too profitable to pass up, so I don't think you're going to see passenger-only ferries across the sea any time soon. Edit: Well, I also would like to see a more systemic approach, where national cross-country trains continue past Stockholm Central Station out to the harbor, to drop people off for the ferry to Finland or Estonia. But this country can't even decide to invest in high speed rail between the capital and the second and third largest city, so at present I don't think that's politically/financially feasible. So, for now, people have to get off the train and board the subway out to the harbor, adding another 20 minute leg to the journey. Since the combined train+subway+boat fare is more expensive than a flight, even directly from Stockholm to Helsinki, I think we're stuck with the status quo at least until jet fuel stops being subsidized according to EU regulations. Hippie Hedgehog fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Feb 8, 2023 |
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Feb 8, 2023 20:23
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^^^^ EU-wide rail is kind of sucks and is a pain in the rear end but it seems they're working on trying to improve that at least Entropist posted:Amsterdam is one of the worst cycling cities in the Netherlands, maybe only The Hague and Rotterdam are behind. Many paths are way too narrow, poorly maintained and they fail at clearing the snow off them in winter. They can't even afford a cycling bridge to the north. There's also a bunch of car sewers crossing the center that hold up cyclists and pollute the place. Until this week the central station had no proper bicycle parking. No idea why all the international youtubers are so obsessed with it, your average small town in Drenthe or Zeeland has better cycling infrastructure. Nobody knows what the gently caress Drenthe is but Amsterdam is relatable for a normal person
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Feb 8, 2023 23:40
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Ferries I think also tend to be fuel-innefficient because unlike freight, humans want to go fast. On the upside, at least it gives a use for neat, unique, but fuel-innefficient technologies like hovercrafts, ekranoplans*, and hydrofoils. *yet to actually be implemented, but there are plans in the works and as a technology looking for a use it seems like the most likely one.
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Feb 9, 2023 00:31
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SlothfulCobra posted:Ferries I think also tend to be fuel-innefficient because unlike freight, humans want to go fast. On the upside, at least it gives a use for neat, unique, but fuel-innefficient technologies like hovercrafts, ekranoplans*, and hydrofoils. I thought ekranoplans were roughly airplanes level efficient? And isnt there an ekranoplan ferry being/is built in Iran, iirc?
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Feb 9, 2023 01:15
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I was under the impression that ekranoplans are actually more efficient than airplanes, but for a ferry service, the main comparison would be with boats. I'm also not sure how the whole air security and traffic angle works, and whether ground-effect craft would be exempt. Transit time decreases from speed could get eaten up with airport stuff. And while there's definitely plans in action, it's not implemented until it's been implemented.
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Feb 9, 2023 04:14
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SlothfulCobra posted:I was under the impression that ekranoplans are actually more efficient than airplanes, but for a ferry service, the main comparison would be with boats. I'm also not sure how the whole air security and traffic angle works, and whether ground-effect craft would be exempt. Transit time decreases from speed could get eaten up with airport stuff. The maintenance (engines being so close to water) is what kills them as a viable option, plus they don't handle swell well and turning/stopping require plenty of lead time to be done safely.
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Feb 9, 2023 04:29
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SlothfulCobra posted:Ferries I think also tend to be fuel-innefficient because unlike freight, humans want to go fast. On the upside, at least it gives a use for neat, unique, but fuel-innefficient technologies like hovercrafts, ekranoplans*, and hydrofoils. The ferries across the Baltic are all low-speed, because of the said wish to bring tons of trailers on board. Plus, high-speed ferries turn out to be even less fuel efficient per passenger mile than regular mixed-use ferries. Even "efficient" designs like catamaran or hydrofoil are normally not economical to operate over long distances because of the huge amounts of fuel they consume.
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Feb 9, 2023 09:18
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The Hong Kong <-> Macu Turbojet ferries are pretty sweet and fast. No cars or any other cargo though and a ticket costs like $20. Similar distance to Helsinki <-> Tallin too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAZs9r_gzXY
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Feb 9, 2023 12:03
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