Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

What if a large boat needs to pass underneath? Then they should make that into a drawbridge. Not that the river underneath looks that deep, but it's an entertaining thought.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2012 01:00

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 20, 2024 12:09

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Is there a difference between American and European cyclists? I keep hearing how American cyclists are quite aggressive and I'm starting to think it's not a grandma on a citybike that they're talking about.

EDIT: I remember this perspective on Amsterdam bikers from a tourist which is hilarious for me. I guess he's not used to bikes being ingrained in daily life and sees it more like motorcycle riding, ie wearing specialised clothing.

http://www.ski-epic.com/amsterdam_bicycles/

Fragrag fucked around with this message at 07:56 on May 8, 2012

# ¿ May 8, 2012 07:51

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Wolfy posted:

In CA speeding tickets etc are 1 point, Wreckless Driving/DUI(which will also get you a suspension on its own) are two. 3 Points in 18 months is a 12 month suspension. I actually drive like a grandma now because I got two tickets in close proximity and spent almost a year and a half not breaking any law ever(or trying anyway).

You'd think Wreckless Driving would be encouraged. :v:

# ¿ Jul 28, 2012 21:44

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Baronjutter posted:

Can we talk about bike lanes?

There's some controversy in my city over bike lanes and bike lane design. Some people are saying any sort of bike lanes are stupid, wasteful, and some how un-safe. other people are saying that the current system of having bike lanes as part of the road separated by a white line is the way to go. Others call for full separation by a curb or physical barriers.

What are peoples thoughts on bike lane design?

I remember I did a biking trip and we crossed the border between Belgium and the Netherlands. It's kinda funny just how dramatically the bike lanes changed when you crossed a simple street: http://goo.gl/yIJSQ

Looking north is Holland, looking south is Belgium.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2012 01:00

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Cichlidae posted:

In France, there is a special kind of lane marking used in this situation to discourage that green car from changing lanes within an interchange.

This is Holland though, but are the markings you're referring to similar to these?

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Bred...315.13,,0,10.71

# ¿ Dec 30, 2012 17:36

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Koesj posted:

Do you guys archive your historic AADT figures? I've had some problems comparing congestion in European urban areas, definitions tend to change over time and space. LOS levels are roughly calculable though.

Just wondering, I've heard many times from other people that the traffic in Antwerp is absolutely horrible, but I've never seen any hard evidence. Granted, we do seem to have an absurd amount of trucks on our highways because of the harbour.

# ¿ Jan 16, 2013 17:10

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Koesj posted:

INRIX is pretty much the final arbiter in these matters since they are, to my knowledge, the only guys who do a thorough ranking of congestion levels based on common indicators. And, welp, Belgium is the most congested country in the world followed by us Dutchies and Antwerpen as a city is way up there in the top 5 worst cities with such luminaries as Los Angeles and Paris

Then there's the "traffic at any day and any time" tool in the Gmaps traffic layer which can be particularly useful. You'll see that the R1 between Berchem and Antwerpen-West is particularly problematic (the Kennedytunnel is the bottleneck here of course).

On an absolute level the R1 near Borgerhout carries almost 200.000 vehicles per day, that's about as much as the busiest stretches of motorway in the UK (M25) or Autobahn in Germany (A100).

Hahahaha, oh man. I got to say, thank god for our very decent public transportation. I was in Los Angeles several months ago and I suffered more traffic then I did in Antwerpen, mainly because I primarily take the tram here while in LA I had to go loving everywhere by car. Would closing the Ring solve anything? As of right now, if you come in north and want to head west, you have to traverse the whole Ring. Of course, you got the huge problem of the harbour blocking any sensible approach aside a huge loving bridge.

On a larger scale, am I correct in assuming that we'll always have traffic trouble? I look at the map and I see two very large harbours (Rotterdam and Antwerp) in the vicinity that handle a lot of freight. Also, it seems that we also lie on a sort of crossroads, where pretty much all roads apparently lead to Antwerpen.

vvvvvv
It's always weird when I'm not driving in the vicinity of the Rotterdam-Antwerp corridor. All those trucks that I'm used to sharing the road with are gone.

Fragrag fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jan 17, 2013

# ¿ Jan 16, 2013 23:53

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Koesj posted:

Dude are you from Eupen or something? I get which places you mean but the non-lowlanders reading this thread might not

The general gist of it is, we got 3 very important transport areas (Rotterdam, Antwerp and the Ruhr), each in a separate country with their own gently caress ups.

# ¿ Jan 18, 2013 01:47

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

I'm not sure how it's taught elsewhere, but here in Belgium we have to learn the hierarchy of traffic signals, the top having a higher priority to obey:

An official (ie a policeman or fireman)
Traffic lights
Traffic signs
Traffic rules

Personally saying, I's be confused at what that sign is trying to convey, while it would be much clearer to simply have traffic lights with a stop sign underneath, which is what they generally do here.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2013 11:25

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Carbon dioxide posted:

Unless they fixed those, many of those problems are found around the Belgian big cities.

This still gives me the heeby-jeebies every time I drive on it

http://goo.gl/maps/jubct

Also, why the hell is there a full line here, making it technically illegal to change lanes? I usually just say screw it and cross anyways, because following the lane sometimes creates a large detour

http://goo.gl/maps/ZnXW9

# ¿ May 16, 2013 13:07

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Carbon dioxide posted:

Before I read the second sentence, I was wondering for a second why you only get a ticket if you cycle too fast while wearing swimming briefs.

Anyone wearing speedos while biking should be pulled over nonetheless for public indecency.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2013 09:46

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Dutch Engineer posted:

We are building one right now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CEGhMv_ROM

We're in the process of restoring a lot of old embankments in the Hague. The loss of parking spaces has to be compensated, so we designed a automatic parking garage for the residents who live nearby. It's fully underground except for the entrance, and under the water of the city canal to save space.

So at what point do you exit the car? The video kinda glossed over it.

What kind of difficulties do canals bring with construction? I think I heard a rumor that one of the biggest problems that the Amsterdam Centraal works were due to the canals somehow?

# ¿ Jul 31, 2013 10:28

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Terminal Entropy posted:

You stay in it to take Instagram photos from the future.

And the awful realisation that a car can only be called up from the surface and there's no cellphone reception underground.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2013 17:16

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

GWBBQ posted:

edit: the Daily Mail, of all places, says the driver of the truck and the vehicle he hit were both treated for minor injuries at the scene, as was a man who walked up the hill by the crash for a closer look and quickly fell back down the hill.

I want to believe the man climbing the hill fainted at the sight of the broken champagne bottles when he crested the hill.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2013 10:35

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Question: "This truck intends to turn right at the intersection. The moped rider intends to travel straight through the intersection. Who must yield the right of way?"

Answer: "The moped rider must wait for the truck to turn right before crossing the intersection."

Hmm, interesting. I forgot to rehost the picture and I'm getting paywalled, but I noticed the bikepath didn't extend further on the intersection. Is this why the truck had priority? Or the Boston Globe got that one wrong. We have this sign in Belgium:

Which I think means that you let the cyclist pass before making your turn. At least, that's what I always do.

Also, as a Vlaming, I'll never not laugh at a Dutch person speaking English.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2013 00:21

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Carbon dioxide posted:

Trams can easily be made longer, so you can get more passengers in one tram.

In the Dutch city of Utrecht, during rush hour thousands of students are trying to get from the train station to the university campus or back. Right now, they use these bi-articulated buses:

There's a bus every 2 or 3 minutes. But it's not enough, it still feels like a cattle transport in there. So, currently they're building a new 'tram line' from the station to the campus, which will replace the buses and should make it easier to get all those people to where they need to be.

They call it a 'sneltram' (fast tram), and it's actually more like a light rail thing with lots of level crossings.

An interesting fact is that like half a century ago, there were tram lines everywhere in Holland. Many towns and villages were connected by tram. It's quite hard to believe now, but you can still see it by roads called 'Tram Rd' popping up in unexpected places. I think cars (and buses) were less common then, so it made sense. The city of Utrecht also had tram lines. They were all removed decades ago. Buses, car roads and bike lanes were the new way to go. And now they're building these light rail lines. It kinda feels like history repeating.

Ghent has trams from the main station that pass through most of the major student neighborhoods and campuses, as well as an extensive bus network that fills in the gaps. Infuriatingly though, the service starts to ramp down at 19.30 when most students arrive in the city. So you get trainloads of students (with included luggage) waiting for transport that only comes every 15 minutes and has the chance to be a small PCC streetcar, though they've improved on that last part.

There was some talk about the Cycle Superhighway 2 in London, but I don't know London that well enough to grasp the situation, but The Guardian posted this video several days ago.

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2013/nov/15/cyclist-london-cycle-superhighway-2-video
:stare:

Fragrag fucked around with this message at 12:41 on Nov 17, 2013

# ¿ Nov 17, 2013 12:26

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Another Dutch thing!

Belgium's going to get rid of roundabouts with multiple lane. Why? A majority of drivers exclusively take the outer lane. I'll be honest, I'm one of those drivers. The few multi-lane roundabouts that are staying will get improved markings.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2014 14:26

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Carbon dioxide posted:

I read your description and thought "that sounds a lot like Dutch design".

Yep. I was right.

And that wasn't clear enough, the guy wearing the pink polo shirt would have tipped you off. :v:

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 09:42

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

:CryingWaffle:

Are there any studies on exactly why Belgium's so congested? I usually hear it's due to us being literally the crossroads of NW Europe but I'd like to see something more substantial.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 13:47

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Jazeker!

You can PM it to me if you want to.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 15:52

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Koesj posted:

Then there's the Boulevard Peripherique in Paris, the Ronda Litoral along Barcelona's coast, and stuff like this:

Antwerp is the fourth most congested urban area in NA/Europe.

Local radio stations barely bother mentioning the congestion on the Brussels and Antwerp rings anymore, referring to it as the usual traffic. :v:

In Antwerp's defence, we have a pretty decent public transportation system. I live on the other side of town where that picture is taken and it'd take me just as long to reach the Sportpaleis (building with blue roof) by tram as by car. Unfortunately, if you want to travel to the outlying suburbs then you're often limited to buses which are packed to the gills during rush hour.

# ¿ Mar 25, 2014 08:52

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Speaking of Belgium, if there ever was a day to not drive in Belgium, today is the one. Obama's visiting Brussels and angry carnies are blocking a main road in Antwerp. :v

# ¿ Mar 26, 2014 09:16

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Baronjutter posted:

Are the dutch scientists the aliens from "Signs" ?

Considering how much work the Dutch do to protect themselves from water, that is actually possible.

# ¿ May 1, 2014 16:23

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

I'm staying in suburban Jakarta at the moment and my god the traffic infrastructure is so awful. I don't mind the driving style that much, but there are so many cars and the roads simply can't handle the volume. We left my cousin's house and not even a mile away we end up in traffic and there's till roughly 30km to our destination. I'll think twice before cursing the traffic back home in Antwerp. (but I still will because we're still the second most congested city according to INRIX)

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 13:35

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Sorry, that was a rather knee-jerk post. I'm just really tired from travelling non-stop for a week and I got frustrated from being stuck in traffic. There's a lot of badly planned developments here without any decent foresight. Multiple housing complexes with several dozen residences only accessible by a very narrow road that barely has enough space for an SUV, let alone allowing another to pass by.
That road itself feeds into a slightly larger road that's absolutely jam-packed with cars. Further up there is a highway exit that feeds even more vehicles. The side of the road is completely built up with little stores without parking so people just stop on the side of the road to grab stuff...

I guess it's like Flemish "lintbebouwing" pushed to the extreme so that feels like home. :P The seemingly only way to fix it is to eminent domain the gently caress out of everything and expand the roads and improve public transportation.
In downtown Jakarta, they built a special bus way, which kinda functions like fixed track trams but probably much cheaper and flexible.

Are there any successful stories of cities fixing their traffic infrastructure?

# ¿ Sep 5, 2014 18:56

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Hippie Hedgehog posted:

At least if you get on the toll roads, it's not too bad. But yes, definitely the worst congestion I've ever had to travel in.
Nearest I've ever been to missing a flight, too. I planned for only 3 hours to make the 30 km drive. Should have planned for 4 at that hour of day. Only made it because my crazy taxi driver used the BRT lane (yes, they have BRT, but no-one seems to use it) (no, I didn't ask him to) and took it upon himself to overtake people on the outside grass verge once we got out of town.

I hope you tipped him well because my cousin told me that the fine for getting caught driving on the BRT is 1 million rupiah. I'm not sure how much a Jakarta taxi driver makes, but that's a decent chunk of pocket change.

I bought boots here for 130 dollars and I cringed when my uncle told me that that's roughly what a convenience store worker makes in a month.

# ¿ Sep 14, 2014 08:58

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Lobsterpillar posted:

Just today I went through a fairly nasty 2 lane roundabout that has 5 entrances, and is right on the intersection of some major arterial roads and a new industrial area. It gets a lot of trucks, and a lot of crashes. A panelbeaters shop has set up right next to the intersection, apparently it generates a decent amount of work for them.

2 land roundabouts are horrible and Belgium is starting to phase them out.

# ¿ Jan 14, 2015 10:20

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Jeoh posted:

Turbo roundabouts are pretty cool, though.

They're awesome though I have never seen one in Belgium. I did drive through several on the road between Bergen-Op-Zoom to Jantje Neels if I remembee correctly and there was very clear concise signage explaining them, starting from about 750 meters before the roundabout so that was awesome.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2015 09:26

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Baronjutter posted:

I'm hearing poo poo like this from self-identified Vancouver progressives. "I'm all for transit but the plan has *minor weird single-issue* so I'm not voting for it because of that single issue" or "Yeah I take transit every day, it's so badly run I'm not voting to give them more money to waste!!!" or "sales taxes are regressive so I'm voting against this!". Perfect really is the enemy of the good.

Hey, that's what's happening to the Belgian public transportation departments. They booked several less than successful years, had some pretty big financial blunders and are going through significant budget cuts. Of course, the unions don't like it and there have been regular strikes. It's mainly been the general public that has been affected the most by the strikes and the very first Belgium class action lawsuit is being started against the rail company by a consumer protection organisation. :negative:

# ¿ May 29, 2015 12:08

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

I'd appreciate it if someone could dig through my post history and find my post complaining about traffic in Jakarta from September last year since I'm stuck posting on my phone.
I'm back in Jakarta again and well, motor traffic is still a humongous clusterfuck of epic proportions but I am heartened to hear from my relatives that they're eagerly awaiting for the MRT and more public transportation options. Especially compared to the NIMBY-ism often encountered in the West. I don't know how long this poo poo can last before everything implodes.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2015 13:07

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Varance posted:

Try 250 feet. The angle throws you off. And yeah, our lanes are stupid big in Florida, usually 11-12 feet wide.

I love what's happening in the topleft. I don't know what's caused it but people preferred parking on the grass rather than park at a neighboring store and then cross the street. I can't really blame them with roads that wide of course

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 10:46

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Cichlidae posted:

It's probably a car dealership.

That would make more sense yeah :doh:

# ¿ Oct 28, 2015 23:45

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

Amsterdam is an edge case isn't it though? I was there a month ago and it was just ridiculously jam-packed. I don't know know how many tourists it actually gets, but it felt like it had the same amount as say Paris or London, only packed in a much smaller touristic district.

I'm pretty sure if you had the same density but with people arriving by car rather by bike or foot, there would be a lot more trouble.

# ¿ Jan 27, 2016 14:25

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

NihilismNow posted:

You think they would think this over for a Ikea of all retail outlets. Those things are practically self contained traffic jam generators. There's a ikea here where it is not unheard of for them to close the motorway exit because else the ikea traffic jam will fill the entire motorway real quick.

Holland? I heard the one in Delft had to stop its 1 Euro breakfasts on Sundays because of that. :v:

# ¿ Mar 10, 2016 11:45

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 20, 2024 12:09

Fragrag: Aug 3, 2007; The Worst Admin Ever bashes You in the head with his banhammer. It is smashed into the body, an unrecognizable mass! You have been struck down.

How are dockless bikeshares implementing themselves in cities so ruthlessly? It seems like they barely go through any regulation/licensing process and dump a bunch of bikes on the sidewalks.

Count Roland posted:

I visited Amsterdam this year and was shocked to see they had an underground system. I didn't think you could build something in a place so water logged.

Never underestimate the Dutch tenacity in their battle against water.

# ¿ Jan 2, 2018 09:57

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!