Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!

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

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Socket Ryanist posted:

People watch for bikers in any city where there are enough of them. I know you can't drive in berkeley or san francisco without watching for bikers.

They watch for them on the street.
The issue is when bicycles ride off-street on sidewalks and half-assed bike paths. No one is looking for something moving at 20mph. Plus there can be visibility issues.
And still many people don't. Bikes and peds getting hit by cars isn't exactly uncommon in the bay.

# ¿ Dec 6, 2010 08:17

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:20

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

Thank goodness they didn't build anything there; our country needs another sprawling, directionless suburb like a festering papercut. What's with the ridiculous 2-lane meandering "Parkway" running through the middle? Did they figure straight lines were boring, and that adding some curves would turn any normal boring road into a parkway of some sort?

I think that is was a pre-existing highway.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2010 21:21

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Millstone posted:

You know what I hate about American signals is that they're usually hanging from wires, with the signal heads dangling right over my car. Like what the gently caress, how am I supposed to see that?

I think that's a least coast thing. Never seen it in Minnesota or California except during construction for temporary lights.

I have the same problem on other lights though because I'm fairly tall and the roof blocks the view.

# ¿ Jan 7, 2011 11:12

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

Boy, we're taking a lot of flak over my project. I was out for a week sick, and when I got back, there was a stream of emails splattered across my monitor, as well as a few post-it notes on my desk.

http://www.middletownpress.com/articles/2011/01/13/news/doc4d2f3a0ac40ac174705514.txt?viewmode=fullstory

Most of the comments on the article agree with our approach, fortunately. Those of you familiar with Connecticut know that any news article mentioning the DOT gets flooded with "fire them all" and the like.

To be fair, the 8 hours of delay is pretty realistic. I can predict right now how this is going to go down:

Day 1: 45-50 minute delays in the morning, 5 mile backup into East Hampton. 50-55 minute delays in the evening, blocking Route 9 for 2+ hours and downtown Middletown for 5+.

Day 2: About as much delay as normal for the route, as commuters will decide not to go that way.

Day 3: 30 minute delays in the morning and afternoon peaks.

Day 4 and beyond: 15-20 minute delays for about 4 hours in the morning and 4 at night. Not all that terrible, really, and this construction really needs to happen.

Do they realize how much THIS:

hosed up traffic for us in Minneapolis.
Not only did people rubberneck at Marine 1, but we had to go miles out of our way to get north.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2011 09:37

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

smackfu posted:

Does the "Speed Checked by Radar" sign mean anything? I assume that it's checked by radar everywhere. Is it just put up when people complain about speeding on their road?

I think California requires it. Don't quote me on that.

There were some studies done a million years ago when radar was new technology, and it did slow people down. I suspect it doesn't anymore.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2011 01:24

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

fuzzygenius posted:

I remember someone from FDOT saying the exact same thing. Years ago, a tanker truck had burned under a small overpass in Tampa, and the whole thing was torn down and replaced in 4 weeks. An FDOT spokesman was asked why other construction in the area took so much longer, and that was the primary reason - "if we shut down the interchange in town completely, we'd get that done really fast too, but you'd hate us for shutting it down." That, and more money was being spent on the emergency job than necessary to keep larger-than-normal work crews there round the clock to get it done faster.

Yeah, when the I580 connector burned down in SF, it was finished in 26 days after the accident.
CC. Myers got paid $850k for the work, plus $5 million for early completion.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2011 17:32

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Mandalay posted:

How often do you see enforcement? Just north of you in Orange County, I don't see much enforcement of carpool lane restrictions, and these are pretty standard things with two sets of double yellow lines separating them all the time. If anything, OC is easier to enforce.

I'd note that it is extremely common to enforce in Sacramento and the Bay Area. Mostly motorcycle cops, they split the lane between the carpool lane and traffic and look in. Not enough people, pulled over, massive fine.

# ¿ Feb 17, 2011 06:12

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Baronjutter posted:

Cichlidae, can you tell me everything you know about shared tram/road right of ways and what different signaling and turning lane issues and such they require?

TELL. ME. EVERYTHING!

# ¿ Feb 18, 2011 01:57

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

Good old hook turns Go ahead and post one of Melbourne's gigantic signal heads while you're at it.

This is a smaller one.

The tram system in Melbourne works pretty well, driving though, I think the goal is to scare all the cars away.

# ¿ Feb 21, 2011 08:39

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

It's more style than anything. Mast arms are more expensive, because they have big foundations and require a lot of steel and internal cabling, but they look prettier. You can build them to be earthquake resistant; I'm pretty sure ours in CT are bombproof, given how overdesigned they are.

Span wire could lead to some resonance in an earthquake, true, but mast arms do as well. I saw some research recently out of UConn that showed mast arms oscillating from a small applied force, and they shake noticeably for several minutes. Their research proposed building dampers into the signal heads, which I'm sure would be incredibly useful in an earthquake as well.

They also suck in the wind.
Most places that seem to get a lot of wind have mast arms.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2011 06:29

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is that light rail following "car rules" (yields like cars) or "train rules" (yields to no one).
I assume the train doesn't have ROW there?

# ¿ Apr 20, 2011 17:49

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Neutrino posted:

The painted traffic markings spell it out. They signify that there is a rail crossing and that vehicles in the road must give the ROW to the train. Also if you look closely there are crossing gates. Any sign designating a crossing means that you must yield at that crossing whether it is pedestrian, deer, or railroad. Deer aren't going to sue you but they will leave an impression on your car.

Ah, well with crossing gates it is more clear.

# ¿ Apr 20, 2011 22:19

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

You can only put it off for so long... I need to grow a full beard and give a SimCity-style lesson to politicians around the country.

So the first suggested search on "you can't" is "you can't cut back on funding".
Yay!

# ¿ May 19, 2011 01:02

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Tell me about ramp meters. (Please?)
I live near downtown and commute at about 6:30 and have realized that my driving time is about 10 minutes and about 5 of that is sitting in the line for a ramp meter dumping into a fairly empty freeway.
Do these things actually work?
This one just seems to create a traffic jam 2-3 lights long and create a really short entrance ramp.

(Hopefully you haven't done this before)

Cichlidae posted:

It's not all that high at all. If you want to get a real rush, go walk up on an old iron-grate bridge like the former Jamestown bridge and look down through the deck at the ocean 100 feet below.

I wonder how the woman in that article would handle a stack interchange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Los_Angeles_Freeway_Interchange.jpg
Or something like this

nm fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jun 7, 2011

# ¿ Jun 7, 2011 00:11

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

The idea behind ramp meters is that freeways have the highest capacity just before they reach capacity. By limiting the number of cars that can enter, traffic flows smoother and, in theory, more cars can use it than would otherwise be able to.

If the freeway is flowing smoothly, then the ramp meters are doing their jobs.

Do they actually work?

Aren't they supposed to just go to solid green (or off) when there is minimal traffic?
(The "traffic" on the freeway at that time is measured in tens of cars a minute -- guessing, it is extremely low-- and is 5 lanes each direction).

# ¿ Jun 7, 2011 23:47

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

INTJ Mastermind posted:

So everyone has their own ideas but I'd like to hear an expert's opinion. Why does LA traffic suck so much?

13 million people
lowish density
2 subway lines
3 light rail lines

Not an expert, but I'd suspect that'd do it.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2011 15:57

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

INTJ Mastermind posted:

Holy poo poo! We have SUBWAYS?! I've lived in this thrice-damned shithole for 2 years and never knew.

Hard to find, there are only 2 of them, they're (mostly) underground and go no where.
Union station through downtown to k-town and hollywood.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2011 16:07

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

nm posted:

Tell me about ramp meters. (Please?)
I live near downtown and commute at about 6:30 and have realized that my driving time is about 10 minutes and about 5 of that is sitting in the line for a ramp meter dumping into a fairly empty freeway.
Do these things actually work?
This one just seems to create a traffic jam 2-3 lights long and create a really short entrance ramp.

So I contacted Caltrans about this the same day I posted thus.
As of today, they discovered it was broken and fixed it. Impressive Caltrans. Impressive

# ¿ Jun 9, 2011 22:41

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Any way to fix this other than just making it a freeway?
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&c...043988&t=h&z=15

This is Mission Blvd. It is the link between 880 and 680. Any traffic coming from much of San Jose to Pleasanton and points north pass through here (and in reverse).
Basically it takes 30 minutes to go >2 miles.

# ¿ Jun 10, 2011 05:03

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

What does the MUTCD say about construction speed signs like this

They're always tiny and hard to spot.

# ¿ Jun 21, 2011 21:36

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Mandalay posted:

You can't just plop down that kind of transit in suburban Los Angeles.

They had one back in the day.
All you need is money (a lot of money)

# ¿ Jun 25, 2011 20:52

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Choadmaster posted:

Suburban LA didn't much exist back in the day, it was all citrus groves. But yeah, if they'd stuck with it, LA might have grown very differently.

It was pretty spread out even back in the day (1920):
http://www.lastreetcar.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/Relief_Map_Pacific_Electric_Railway.jpg

Certainly not the massive clusterfuck it is now, but the network is still bigger than metrorail is now.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2011 01:15

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

FISHMANPET posted:

Ugh, don't get me started. My city used to have this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_City_Rapid_Transit_Company

45 miles east to west by my count.

Plus, no where near anoka!
That map is also awsome for showing how much the cities have grown. Even the old suburbs of mac-grove and such are only partially built. St. Louis park is its own city.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2011 06:46

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

Well guys, it's been a good run. You can't keep a good man down, but in the meantime, if anyone's looking for a traffic engineer...

As a fellow government employee getting the boot (today), I can say good luck.
If I find any traffic stuff posted when I'm looking for a job, I'll post it up.

I think Caltrans is hiring.

nm fucked around with this message at 21:48 on Jul 14, 2011

# ¿ Jul 14, 2011 21:46

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Wolfsbane posted:

As far as I understand it, the main advantage is that it's massively cheaper to build than actually putting rails down, and by leaving the guided sections you can go places (like through housing estates) that would be difficult to get a train.

You don't have to go out and buy a bunch of trains. You don't need to hire drivers and mechanics for different vehicles. And they're more flexible, you don't have the grade restrictions (which is why SF uses busses pretty much only) and the bus can leave the busway.
I prefer trains, but the buses have merits.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2011 03:22

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Maniaman posted:

How many of you traffic engineers are laughing at the huge mess/disaster known as the Indiana I-69 Evansville to Indianapolis project?

I suspect the real problem is that the signs kept getting stolen by teenagers.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2011 06:26

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

Another week of great weather, another Field Visit. This one is an inspection of a sidewalk job in Old Saybrook. I hadn't seen the project since semi-final design, so I only got one chance to comment on it, and I hadn't seen the revised design.

Why do they curve sidewalks? I believe I speak for all pedestrians when I say they suck. I got to imagine they're even more annoying in wheelchairs.

I'm pretty impressed with the fake brickwork, except for the section you pointed out though. How it will hold up?

# ¿ Aug 14, 2011 00:39

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Dominus Vobiscum posted:

Unfortunately, Minnesota is one of the few places in the country where people would actually do what the signs told them to instead of just being dicks like normal.

Bull.
Example: The merge on I-94 WB from I-35E NB:
Signed multiple times, "DO NOT CROSS DOUBLE WHITE LINE"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSZLMN9N-Bg

(Not my video)

# ¿ Aug 14, 2011 22:39

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Silver95280 posted:

I-35W NB

I go through that about one a week, and yes I do cross the double lines on occasion. It's kinda hard to stay on I-94 without going onto I-394 otherwise.

I lived on Hennepin there for years. It is very easy to not get on 394 doing it right, there is plenty of merge space. It really messes up traffic when people merge before the double white as they're moving far too slow. If you ever watch how it is supposed to work, you'll get it. The entire backup in that area is due to people screwing up that merge by merging too early.
For the record, State Patrol's position is you get to change lanes in the tunnel, but no crossing the double white line.

(Yes, that is W though)

nm fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Aug 15, 2011

# ¿ Aug 15, 2011 03:12

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Craptacular posted:

If it's so important that no one cross the double white line, why don't they just put a jersey barrier there?

It would defeat the purpose, which is to allow people to get up to speed an merge like a zipper by obscuring views. Also, you'd probably have to widen it to allow for a breakdown lane.
It really does improve flow when followed.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2011 04:25

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Choadmaster posted:

I always found Minnesota drivers to be terrible, and it's a terrible place to drive in general (and I'm from So Cal!). Mostly due to the insane number of cloverleafs with a tiny amount of space for cars to weave on/off.

LA came up with a decent solution to this problem (apparently it doesn't stop everyone though, since a number of those things are missing/broken at any given time):

That's just a slalom!

# ¿ Aug 15, 2011 22:39

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Bikes very rarely get rear ended in situations like that.
The danger zones for bikes is road crossings. I've ridden on roads like that for thousands of miles and never had a real problem besides jackasses who pass too closely.
Bike paths are always shot out as a solution, but parallel bike paths cause a lot of problems when there are cross streets or driveways. I rode cross county on roads like that. The only places I even got close to being hit were in urban areas by people making right turns right after (or during) passing me.
I'm much, much more worried about being right hooked in a poorly thought out bike lane or path than being hit on a rural 55 mph road with no shoulder.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2011 22:06

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

Same thing happened with Waterford airport. The owner of the Airport had a developer build a small subdivision nearby to house some pilots and generally increase land value. After a couple decades, new residents began to complain, and eventually the airport was closed down.

This is why the Sacramento Airport bought land for miles around before building and just lease it out to farms.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2011 17:37

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

The Idaho stop (for bikes stop signs are yield signs and stop lights are stop signs) should go national and then be enforced.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2011 20:48

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Dunno if the Pasedina freeway has been posted
Check out these awesome ramps!
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=los+a...=11,337.71,,0,0

First freeway in california and it shows.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2011 05:32

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

porkfriedrice posted:

http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/editorials/hc-ed-hov-lane-cheaters-20111130,0,2697316.story

Any thoughts on this? I guess it's a good way to generate revenue, but not very well thought out. The fact that you aren't supposed to cross the divider to get out of the lane kind of sucks if you get stuck behind a slow vehicle. If more people were to start using the HOV lanes, there actually might be more of a chance of congestion in those lanes.

The key is not to do as they say, selling flat rate passes. You charge based on volume. When there's no one on the road it can be a few cents or even free. When there's a traffic jam, it becomes $10. Minneapolis does this on 694 and it works pretty well. It has to get expensive enough during peak times to make only those who really really can't wait take the option.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2011 10:00

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Cichlidae posted:

There must be something really interesting going on at 3PM on monday.
Awesome idea

# ¿ Jan 5, 2012 03:29

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Neutrino posted:

That is a clusterfuck. I wonder how some of that land between the on-ramp and the expressways was ever sold. The state should have bought it when it was building the interstate and held onto it before anything was ever built there.

That development predates the toll road (but not 5) by probably several decades. 261 is a fairly new road.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2012 06:00

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Jasper Tin Neck posted:

Montana used to have "reasonable and prudent" as the maximum daytime speed up to 1999. This was judged to be in conflict with the Montana constitution since it was so vague.

Yes, but as far as I know no one sued MT over an accident.

That guy who sued over what was a $50 ticket (as I recall) is an rear end in a top hat who ruined it for everyone.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2012 00:29

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 09:20

nm: Jan 28, 2008; "I saw Minos the Space Judge holding a golden sceptre and passing sentence upon the Martians. There he presided, and around him the noble Space Prosecutors sought the firm justice of space law."

Stew Man Chew posted:

He even got the lyrics wrong.

When I bought my car that has (legitimate) super bright headlights believe me I reveled in finally being That rear end in a top hat. Particularly because I've usually driven smaller cars that are low enough to the ground that SUV/Truck headlights are shining directly into my eyes.

Mine are also cool and adaptive

Properly aligned headlights shouldn't do this.
The problem is that people lift pickups without adjusting alignment. Headlights will also go out of alignment. Crappy HID kits (this is all of them) are a major culprit as headlights designed for halogens don't work with HIDs.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2012 07:13

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