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Interesting thread! In the north of the Netherlands, two highways meet in the south of the city of Groningen, at this intersection:  (or on Google for Street View) It's an at-grade crossing with signals, originally designed in the 50s. The way north goes towards the city centre, there's highways coming in from the west and south which connect the city to the rest of the country, and the east road is for traffic to Germany or to the east of the city (lots of jobs there). Oh, and the east and west roads also function as the city's ring road. Needless to say, it's a huge mess around rush hour. There have been all kinds of plans to fix it that didn't work out, either because of the surrounding city or the natural landscape to the south of it. It also doesn't help that there is a channel right next to it, which needs to have a drawbridge for boats with standing masts. I'm not sure what the park-like bit in the south-east is for, but I don't think they'll want to pave that either. Some years ago they removed the option of turning left into the city from the west highway, but that didn't seem to help much. And that change was only possible thanks to a new bus lane providing a shorter route for the buses. The road north leads directly to the main bus/train station, making it undesirable to limit access to and from there. What would you do about this?
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Nov 16, 2009 00:45
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:03 |
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That looks like a good solution for that spot. The only issue I see with it is that they would probably have to close off the intersection to build it (have to dig tunnels in the middle), and I doubt they could get away with that for more than a few weekends there. Since I know they're actually doing some construction in the area now, I did a bit of searching today and found that they're building this:  Same general idea with the grade-separation, but I guess this would allow the intersection to be used during construction most of the time because the tunnels are off to the sides and they are right next to the existing ones. It just seems to be missing a way to go left from the south road, but maybe that had low traffic. Your solution looks cleaner and less complicated though 
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Nov 16, 2009 20:57
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It will be pretty confusing, the signage is usually good here but that won't help everyone. Just the fact that it'll be different than before is going to confuse some people. Fortunately the thing crossing all those lanes in the north doesn't seem to be a road. If it was a signalized intersection it would back traffic up into the other intersection since it's pretty close, and it would be kind of complicated with all the separated lanes depending on how much left and right turning is allowed. On Street View there's a brand new bike and pedestrian tunnel there. They just did a terrible job at drawing that plan image I guess. Heh, how did I miss this before, the construction work is clearly visible on Street View: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=...121.59,,0,13.61
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Nov 16, 2009 23:28
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I've seen signs with a similar meaning in the Netherlands, but it's worded more like "On red, drive up to the line" which makes a lot more sense, at least to me.
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Nov 20, 2009 15:57
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Guy Axlerod posted:I've heard that on the Autobahn in Germany, you can be ticketed for using the left lane for driving and not just passing. Are there any locations in the US that have similar laws?
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Jan 7, 2010 23:02
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Guy Axlerod posted:I was going to ask if a Ped Bridge would be warranted here. I know if I were a pedestrian there, I would like seeing it, especially if there were a traffic circle. If were to come up to a circle I'm not sure I'd know the "right" way to cross it. In the Netherlands we would probably have something like this: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=...2,311.68,,0,8.9 The white bars are ped crossings that drivers are required to stop for. Normally they are a little further away from the roundabout though, to prevent cars from being stopped on the roundabout waiting for peds, or on the crossing waiting for cars on the roundabout. This is at a crossing of two pretty major roads in the city but traffic doesn't look to be all that high. With more traffic, there would be a signalled intersection with pedestrian signals. With even higher traffic they would have tunnels for peds and bikers - I rarely see bridges for them, only when they also need it to look cool or something, like this: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=...2,101.83,,0,3.6
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Jan 30, 2010 13:44
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nielsm posted:I was in Malmö this weekend and got a bad surprise: They've built roundabouts on the motorways. Combine that with really bad signage and you've got a road system impossible to navigate. I haven't used it that often but it's been there for almost 40 years and it seems to work okay, except when it's busy. It gets lots of traffic jams, although I can't know if there would be more or fewer traffic jams with a different intersection. They're going to replace it with an interchange and an exit next year: http://www.knooppuntjoure.nl/download.asp?link=files/28445/%5B01%5Dintegrale_visie_luchtfoto.pdf&objectID=28445 Makes sense to split it like that to me, too bad about that well-known and historic roundabout disappearing though The signs on it are fine, but the situation is not as complicated - one road into the city and three highways, and most traffic will only be going east-west or west-east anyway. edit: And yes, those are regular old high speed 120 km/h highways there, although there's a speed limit of 50 km/h on the roundabout itself and the section of highway going up to it. Entropist fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Mar 8, 2010 |
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Mar 8, 2010 15:45
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I had a closer look at the signs in Street View, thinking you were right, but it clearly has the blue roundabout sign with circular arrows, so it is one officially. Big circles like these are often classified as circular one-way roads, with one-way road signs, but not this one. Ten years ago they changed it from a 2 lane roundabout to a turbo roundabout with bypasses. It used to work like a regular multi-lane roundabout, where you'd take the inside lane if you had to go at least half of the way around, and otherwise the outside lane (but everyone would probably just stay in the outside one anyway). And I guess it had some pretty tricky weaving, a two-lane highway coming into the two-lane roundabout, resulting in two lanes and an exit lane for the next exit. This may not be correct since it was so long ago, but I think it had two lanes, and short on/off lanes between each exit. edit: I think this is the pre-turbo roundabout configuration:  Lack of route continuity probably won't be an issue, it's pretty common around here. I can think of many examples where the bulk of the traffic has to take the exit, and it continues into some unimportant highway or provincial road. Anyone who does a decent amount of highway driving has accidentally driven into Germany at some point, there are various options for this http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=52.693032,5.773659&spn=0.073557,0.154324&z=13 to follow the A6, one of the two main ways to the north of the country. http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&t=h&ll=52.707231,6.456957&spn=0.036767,0.077162&z=14 Or this one in the A28, the other main way north. That highway going east to Germany wasn't even a highway until a few years ago. Entropist fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Mar 8, 2010 |
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Mar 8, 2010 19:25
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Yes that was interesting, please post more! Then I'll have something to show to people who complain about the roads here...
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Mar 12, 2010 00:59
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Oh, they're finally fixing up that area? Hadn't heard about it yet, very nice. At the moment it's far from a luxurious drive if you need to go south from Almere in the direction of Schiphol... There's traffic jams, cloverleafs, and that bit of A2 in the A9 to make it the worst part of any trip south for me
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Apr 19, 2010 14:05
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MrBling posted:
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May 20, 2010 13:29
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porkfriedrice posted:I have noticed these new signs that have been installed on the Arrigoni Bridge over the Connecticut River. I only go to Middletown about five times a year, so to me anyway, it seems like a recent addition. They seem like they will be electronic arrows of some sort. What's up with these? (Sorry for the quality, cell phone pic.) In the Netherlands those things are everywhere on highways (except rural ones that aren't very busy), they are mainly used to dynamically close lanes and adjust the speed limit during the traffic jams or in work zones. These look different though, here are ours: http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrixbord Speed limits shown on them become the legal speed limit, taking precedence over any regular signs on the side of the road, although I don't think they enforce it much when it's for heavy traffic. Usually when it shows a lower speed limit you're stopped anyway, or driving very slowly, or about to do so.
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Jun 8, 2010 00:06
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Not all that different from the Netherlands. The main way to navigate here is by following signs to towns, larger cities for long distances and smaller places for short ones. If you go off the main routes between villages you are screwed and should hope you find another main road soon (or use the bike signage). Additionally, signs point to important tourist attractions, central buildings, public facilities, tourist info etc. If you're not going to such a place, you look for the right street using a street book, a map, or by asking someone. Of course that was before navigation systems. Most Dutch cars probably had a street book in them before that, a thick book with basic street maps for every major town and city in the country. Street signs aren't too hard to spot here, although streets often change names as they cross town borders and such. Then there's usually separate signage for bikes with more accurate distance numbers and using bike paths or small roads. Road numbers aren't really used except when talking about the major highways you're familiar with. But yeah, when going on holiday in Europe you'd better always have a map on you if it's an unfamiliar place.
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Aug 6, 2010 20:25
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Nesnej posted:
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Aug 9, 2010 18:41
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Choadmaster posted:I find it very hard to believe this could work but he swears it's true and it works fine. I use some of those smaller roads on my commute (there's no alternative) and now that it's summer and there's crops in the fields, I have to slow down to 30-40 km/h on an 80 km/h road at a few intersections, because there could be something coming from the right and you can't see a thing because there's a corn field in the way. Lately it also seems fashionable for municipalities to turn their main roads through villages (or secondary roads in larger towns) into 30 km/h areas with free intersections for every side road (which are pretty frequent) to make it safer for cyclists and pedestrians. Other traffic or parked cars serve as the traffic calming in this case, and there are (almost) no signs. It's nice if you live there, not so nice if you have to pass through there and there's no other main road to take. I almost never see stop signs, except when a small road intersects a main road and there's no good view of oncoming traffic, or it's a busy and high-speed main road. edit: We also have the diamond signs for priority roads and other things Cichlidae described. Entropist fucked around with this message at 13:12 on Aug 11, 2010 |
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Aug 11, 2010 13:07
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Captain Corny posted:Yeah, by 'turned off' I meant flashing yellow (never red). Where I live, that means the lights have no meaning and the signs have priority. I suppose they chose this system in case of a large power blackout. At least signs always work. In that case we have to use the yield signs that are there. Traffic lights usualy have a stop bar as well, which you have to stop for when the lights are out, like any other stop bar.
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Aug 18, 2010 19:15
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I thought since the bar is normally called a stop bar, and the rule is to stop for stop bars, you had to stop in that case. But it's hard to find info on it, maybe I made it up. I did find that it's called a stop bar in the laws.
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Aug 19, 2010 19:00
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In the Netherlands we are starting to get those things everywhere at highway offramps now. And often there's a third one for a nearby main road: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.200323,6.510816&spn=0.002484,0.008256&t=h&z=18 Or maybe six in a row: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.108659,6.132345&spn=0.009957,0.033023&t=h&z=16 It gets a bit annoying if you're just passing under the highway And if there's not enough space, there can also be one large roundabout that goes under the highway like these two, near each other here: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=53.199613,6.549976&spn=0.004968,0.016512&t=h&z=17
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Sep 18, 2010 12:22
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Millstone posted:The 'six in a row' is a cloverleaf to the south and a folded diamond to the north. Kind of an outdated design. Your last roundabout link is definitely cool and something I wish they would have tried under the QEW in St. Catharines here. Yeah I meant the row of 6 roundabouts at the road the north diamond offramps connect to. The cloverleaf is a bit simple but it's not a high traffic area so there's not really a reason to change it. The diamond design seems to be used by default here unless more is needed (but with the addition of roundabouts at the ends lately). Cloverleaves are also still pretty common for some reason, there are a few notorious ones in high traffic areas, like this one: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=52.328245,4.797957&spn=0.010137,0.033023&t=h&z=16 Cichlidae posted:The string of roundabouts is a strategy to keep speeds low, a variety of traffic calming. Entropist fucked around with this message at 15:48 on Sep 18, 2010 |
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Sep 18, 2010 15:41
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Groda posted:I was visiting Delft and came across this on the way back from the hostel: The triangles are called 'shark teeth' and they indicate that whatever traffic is on the pointy side of them, has to yield. In this case, to the bikes on the bike path. The triangular sign with the red border also indicates this. The stripes just mark where the bike path goes. Seems like these markings are fresh and also pretty sloppy, though.
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Oct 26, 2010 21:14
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Groda posted:Yeah, they're shark teeth, but there are two rows of them on Spoorsingel. How does that work? Also, they seem to just go diagonally across the street (Havenstraat). Okay, yeah it looks like something went wrong with the second row... There should only be shark teeth on the right side of the road, there. Maybe they got confused because the Havenstraat is one-way, or something. And there's also the bike path of Bolwerk merging with the Havenstraat. Can't blame them for getting confused
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Oct 26, 2010 22:44
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New neighbourhoods will often have their street names centered around a theme here. Historical place/people names, professions, bird or tree names... New cities have lots of this. Here's one with (Dutch) comic characters in the north and south part, and comic authors in the middle: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&hq=&ll=52.401516,5.323434&spn=0.01012,0.033023&z=16
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Oct 27, 2010 13:46
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Cichlidae posted:Once, I found a neighborhood there named after chemical elements. Very awesome. Our streets here are less imaginative, like BMW Drive and Dix Road. I think I've seen that in Groningen, and in Apeldoorn as well, although for every one of those we still get 10 tree/bird/historical figure name neighbourhoods. Here, have a space exploration one: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&hnear=&ll=53.14919,6.738085&spn=0.004974,0.016512&t=h&z=17 It's next to a constellations one and a planets neighbourhood. And then a trees one.
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Oct 28, 2010 16:39
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Cichlidae posted:'Ruimtevaart' would be Space Flight then, like the German 'Raumfahrt'? It got a giggle out of me when I pronounced it "room to fart." Correct! See also Danish, Norwegian, Swedish
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Oct 29, 2010 12:21
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In Dutch cities they use them everywhere for bikes. It looks messy but it works.
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Nov 5, 2010 20:56
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Cichlidae posted:I've seen some roundabouts with separate levels for bikes and foot traffic, but that's obviously an expensive exception. Do you think having a separate bike lane on the outside of a roundabout really helps? From what I've seen, it's best for them to merge with vehicles and go through the roundabout like a car, making them more visible to drivers. I recently saw some report on TV about this, apparently it's best to have bike paths in a square shape around the roundabout, separate from the roundabout itself and with crossings at every leg, so they don't end up in blind spots and are separated from the cars. Although I think it'll make them more likely to use the roundabout as a shortcut... Roundabouts with a lane for bikes and roundabouts with pedestrian and bike crossings at the legs are pretty common, but roundabouts that have both of these things like the one Captain Corny posted are fortunately pretty rare, at least in the north of the Netherlands. Entropist fucked around with this message at 17:24 on Nov 30, 2010 |
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Nov 30, 2010 17:22
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Captain Corny posted:A more common (and better) design in the Netherlands is having the circular bike lane physically separated from the car lane, and having the bicycles yield to cars when they cross the roads. They take up more space though, which is probably the reason why they chose the more compact option in my first example. They had this in Leeuwarden in the center, but recently changed it so that cars have to yield to the bikes and pedestrians instead of the other way around. It's certainly effective for traffic calming, it sometimes causes traffic jams when a continuous stream of people is walking between the center and the station And since drivers have to watch for both peds and bikes at each roundabout, they are usually careful enough to make it work.
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Nov 30, 2010 19:33
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Cichlidae posted:they also provide one more function: they block the sightline to the opposite approach, which actually helps the decision-making process for drivers entering the roundabout. Cars they can't see are too far away to yield to; it somewhat makes up for lack of experience.
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Jan 14, 2011 17:30
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Groda posted:This is an objectively terrible system, but thanks a million for the rules of the road brochure! I think I'll opt for walking while I'm Groningen, though...
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Sep 17, 2011 21:15
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Cichlidae posted:I really like those, too, but they don't work with actuated signals. The ones we have here do, sort of. The countdown will become faster or slower depending on what is triggered, and sometimes might just jump to the end or stall for a while. Just like progress bars in Windows
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Dec 7, 2011 14:12
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Groda posted:http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajerr%C3%A4cke Close, in the Netherlands we call them egg slicers.
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Mar 13, 2012 21:40
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Dutch Engineer posted:The bypass is built higher than the roundabout. If a car would enter it, the height difference would cause damage to the underside of the car. Trucks can easily clear the difference because they have a larger ground clearance. They did something like this in a nearby village here. They built a roundabout near an industrial facility under construction, which required large parts to be transported. At first they just built the entire center of the roundabout like that. as raised concrete, so that the construction trucks could drive over it. After construction was done, they filled in the center. Hope they don't need replacement parts!
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Mar 23, 2012 14:44
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Install Gentoo posted:I've seen those around in a few places in NJ, usually places where a divided highway goes a log distance between traffic lights and a light is coming up past a hill. In the Netherlands we get a flashing warning light before the hill/corner for such situations, like this: http://maps.google.com/?ll=53.01695...106.32,,0,10.18 They always flash regardless of whether the signal is on or not. If it's green it is also important to get a warning I guess, in case it is about to change (or someone runs a red).
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Apr 2, 2012 19:56
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Well, this is what we use in the Netherlands, with the last sign telling people to merge there: "ritsen" is the name of the merge. There was a big ad campaign to introduce the concept back when they started this. It isn't perfect but most people seem to know about it by now, though too many people still try to merge in as soon as they see the first sign.
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Jun 17, 2012 15:42
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The train network in the Netherlands (and probably Belgium) is also one of the busiest in the world, with full schedules for passenger trains that are still barely enough to handle the demand. And yeah, it is difficult to build more rail, this year they opened a new section of railway for the first time since like 1988, and it mostly cuts through reclaimed land which probably has less NIMBY issues than areas with a big history.
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Jan 17, 2013 15:13
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've actually got a professor who keeps saying that the buttons on crosswalks are just there for superstitious reasons, and the buttons don't actually work.
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Feb 14, 2013 00:14
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Baronjutter posted:Ok can someone actually please explain german crosswalks? I kept "pressing" the "buttons" but have no idea what it did and felt like an idiot every time. But when I stopped doing it sometimes I'd see other people touching them too, other stupid tourists or is there some sort of secret to it all? At some intersections I actually felt fairly confused and unsafe by how un-intuitive the process was. edit: I'll alert a German thread to this pressing issue.
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Feb 14, 2013 15:17
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Koesj posted:It's either the busiest, or second busiest signalled intersection in the Netherlands so the project should really help. Clockwise the adjoining sections have got AADTs of somewhere around 25k, 85k, 75k and 70k so it's high time something got done. Those NB and SB tunnels that're still under construction in the Gmaps images didn't help that much since that's one of the weaker relations.
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Mar 3, 2013 20:14
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I think they've given up on delivering the local newspapers to the student dorms or something. I only hear about such things when I run into the road closed signs
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Mar 3, 2013 21:10
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:03 |
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In case anyone was looking forward to the new SimCity: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcEaHT9mt-Y v  v
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Mar 12, 2013 16:39
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