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Finally reached the end of the thread, started reading some 2 days ago when it was mentioned in the ongoing SimCity 4 LP. It's been great so far! Going to pick up a bit on some of the old topics... On the subject of roundabouts and driver's education, thought I'd point out this one in the vicinity of Copenhagen. My driving instructor specifically led me through that one several times, and I also was asked to pass through it during my first examination try. (I failed, released the clutch too fast and the engine stopped, in the middle of the roundabout.) Note that it's light regulated, also while going round. Nesnej posted:Indicators for trains are old as the hills and I can hardly imagine a world without them, but they've recently been installing those on bus stops too. Cichlidae posted:
Choadmaster posted:What's with all the really long, thin, snaking buildings like the one near the intersection of Rolighesdvej and Falkoner Alle and then north of there?  Finally, I'll just throw out a small intersection here. This one is supposedly one of the most hazardous in my municipality. I can't determine exactly what makes it that, but it is uncomfortable to cross by bike. (I usually arrive driving west on Vigerslev Alle and turn left crossing the bridge.) Also make sure to check out the Copenhagen Metro! 
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Oct 22, 2009 03:03
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Cichlidae posted:What are the diagonal yellow lines on the left side of the intersection? I pass by the place when shopping so I snapped some photos of it today: (Edit: Okay I confess I did take a longer trip to snap pictures for this thread.)   First picture is facing south-east, second is facing north. It's hard to tell from the photos, but on the north-east corner there's a railing and the sidewalk is consderably lower than the rest of the road. I'm not sure if this was done to improve pedestrian safety, but I feel it's one of the things that makes the intersection feel less safe on bike. And also another feature I don't think has been mentioned yet: A bus trap. I like the warning sign.  How common are they in the rest of the world? Do you think they cause more people to use public transit when the bus can take a more direct route? nielsm fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Oct 22, 2009 |
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Oct 22, 2009 13:30
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Cichlidae posted:Yes, that's one. Conflicting movements must never have protected greens at the same time. It's ok to allow conflicts sometimes, like permissive left turns or right turns on red. This is generally different in Europe, from my experience. Most everywhere I remember in Europe except for the major intersections, there's just two phases: N/S and E/W. On the other hand, turns on red are generally never legal here. Regardless of whether you pass straight through or turn left or right, you enter the intersection on green through. You turn right when there's no crossing pedestrians and left when there's no through traffic in the opposite direction. Only large intersections have dedicated turn phases. This is just to note that things can be done differently. If Pfhreak can generally disregard legislation in his project, maybe implement some adjustable limitations on what is legal, it could be interesting to see what kinds of timings it would end up with, if different levels of aggressiveness were modelled for the traffic. You can also try adding in the European style "red+yellow before green" signalling. (A few seconds before the lights turn from red to green, the yellow lights up together with red to allow motorists to prepare. It is still illegal to start driving until the light has turned green.) (When I visited the US (Maryland) for the first time this summer, I was stumped at how long the phases were and how much waiting time I had as a pedestrian, and I never managed to get a feel for the general traffic signal rules, it seemed like chaos to me. Reading this thread has given me some understanding of what made things feel so different.) nielsm fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Nov 29, 2009 |
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Nov 29, 2009 22:56
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Cichlidae 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.
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Mar 8, 2010 08:38
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Choadmaster posted:There's still no reason to make them white like the other lines. Also, this seems like it would be terribly confusing (to anyone not very familiar) in the case of a road with a total of just two lanes. All you'd see is a single dashed white line with no others for comparison - do those lanes go in different directions or is this a two-lane, one-way street? At least in Denmark, yellow lines are reserved for temporary markings during construction work and the like, and always override any white lines on the same stretch of road. E: Also, after driving for some time (usually before you get old enough to take a driver's license  ) you'll learn to distinguish the different lengths of dashes even when they're isolated. It's the ratio of dash length to space length, as well as the absolute length of the dashes; it's not hard to tell whether the dashes or the spaces are the longer, or if they're approximately equal length.
nielsm fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Oct 8, 2010 |
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Oct 8, 2010 07:14
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Stew Man Chew posted:I guess I'm a Merkin and I'm used to our system. Just seems like there's a lot of potential danger if the variation between "Passing / Cruising Lane" and "Oh poo poo I'm Driving The Wrong Way" is the length of space between lines. If you have a four lane road with two lanes in each direction, the direction separator is usually a double unbroken line, i.e. "no crossing except for left turns". A two lane (one each direction) road will usually have long dashes, i.e. "crossing allowed when overtaking", I almost only see this outside cities. One-way streets are usually not wide enough to fit two full lanes and will often have cars parked on both sides of the street, all facing the same direction, and are short enough that you'll have plenty of chances to see the one-way sign (or "no entry" on the opposite end) before doing anything stupid. Two lane two-way streets in cities with no any lane markings at all are also common. It's seriously hard to gently caress this up, it's harder than loving up in a roundabout. Either lane markings are unambiguous, or you can tell what to do by looking at the parked cars. I don't think there's any three lane roads with free lane usage left in Denmark, but when there were some they were all outside cities (where you never have a one-way road), I'm not sure what kind of lane markers they used actually. The last few were being converted while I was taking my license and on the wrong land mass for taking a drive on them. Today, all three lane roads are alternating between 1+2 and 2+1 lanes in each direction, with a "no crossing" double line separating the two directions.
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Oct 8, 2010 15:58
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The leftmost seems to be for a car turning lane. The two with horizontal bars and triangles are for trams, I'm guessing for two separate tracks. (In Denmark, trams used to use horizontal bars for no passing and vertical bars for passing allowed. The tram-style signals are now used for bus-only signals in some places.) The bicycle should be self-explanatory. (The red light is repeated to get it to the same height as the signal for cars. The light below the red bikes is for crossing straight ahead, while the one lit green is for turning right.) Presumably the tram track that has permission to drive is turning to the right, possibly sharing lane with the cars that also have permission to turn. nielsm fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Feb 21, 2011 |
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Feb 21, 2011 21:33
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This is why Europe is awesome. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AbPav5E5M
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Jun 24, 2011 03:17
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Drunk Tomato posted:The game "Cities in Motion" is on sale via Steam today for $6.75. Any other urban planner / transportation dorks have any experience with this game? Is it fun and/or a somewhat accurate representation of transportation systems? I only played the demo. It was reasonably fun although a bit short. (You can barely get a meaningful transit system up and running before the demo's time limit runs out.) What I've gathered from the thread over in Games it also doesn't have the longevity of Transport Tycoon. As for realism: The capacities of vehicles are unnaturally low, but it also takes ages for passengers to board, so it seems to be an adjustment for game balance. I believe there have been made mods that change this. Another transport sim game that might be of interest is Simutrans, by the way. It is heavily inspired by Transport Tycoon, but I find it more realistic in many ways.
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Jul 18, 2011 20:35
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Besesoth posted:I'm not sure of the relative costs, but less expensive than adding bike lanes might be adding a bike trail that follows that road, thereby removing cyclists from the equation entirely (and being actually, from a public-opinion standpoint, more bike-friendly than bike lanes). Apart from the issue of vegetation, that sounds like the best thing to me too. Actually, just make a combined bike/pedestrian dirt trail, that would probably be fine. If the bike traffic is as low as you describe, directional separation shouldn't be needed.
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Aug 21, 2011 01:27
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The combination of trains and bicycles is pretty neat too. Bike gets you from your home to a station in the general vicinity, train gets you to another station in the vicinity of your destination, bike gets you the rest of the way. The only problem is building trains that fit enough bikes.
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Nov 2, 2011 17:46
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Volmarias posted:On the subject of traffic flow, is there a good game on the subject? I've got "Cities in Motion," but it really feels like it ought to be called "Unprofitable Mass Transit Systems blocking Traffic Because Drivers are Dummies" I'll mention Simutrans again, it's heavily inspired by Transport Tycoon but still a quite different game. I suppose it is somewhat comparable to CiM in that everything has a set destination and they will make transfers to get there. Its weakness would be that it doesn't model pedestrians, and private cars are rather limited. It also works at a macro scale. Actually, the best game I can think of where working with traffic flow is a core element is SimTower.
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Dec 17, 2011 19:46
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Cichlidae posted:It was first built as an elevator modeler, wasn't it? I came up with some awesome elevator schemes in that game. Wish I could still play it. What killed the game to me was the hard limits on number of elevators etc. If you wanted to play it today, you'd probably be best off installing a virtual machine with Windows 98 and playing it there. Volmarias posted:Simutrans is ok, but it feels like it hasn't been updated in a decade. I wonder how much market there would be for a micro-scale traffic simulator, and how hard it would be to write one 
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Dec 17, 2011 20:56
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Cichlidae, can you tell something about how capacity increases as you increase the number of lanes on a road? I can imagine the capacity increase depends a lot on congestion. Also, to what extent does the width of individual lanes affect capacity? I thought of this on my way home tonight, passing through a motorway being increased from 2 to 3 lanes, where they have opened most of the third lane, but effectively they don't have the full width available yet, so they instead have three narrow lanes. Should that still be more efficient than two full width lanes?
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Dec 21, 2011 21:03
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Sir Davey posted:I guess my question boils down to: is it better to have short greens or long greens? Speculation: If at certain times of the day traffic is much heavier in one direction than the other, prioritising traffic in that direction (by giving it longer greens) during those times should give better flow. The primary issue with that kind of one-way is the additional delay caused by having to wait for the "pipeline" to empty again after it has been filled. If four cars can enter during a 20 second green light and it takes one car 60 seconds to travel the one-way stretch, then it takes 80 seconds from the light goes green until the fourth car has left the stretch and the traffic can be allowed to flow in the opposite direction. If you increase the green time from 20 to 40 seconds then you can let 8 cars in, now it takes 100 seconds for the 8th car to have passed through the stretch. So you went from 4 cars in 80 seconds to 8 cars in 100 seconds, pretty much cutting the time to pass from 20 seconds per car to 12.5 seconds per car, an increase in throughput of 60%.
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Feb 20, 2012 11:44
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John Dough posted:And then there is Denmark with it's own crazy design: True, they are not that pretty and probably not too aerodynamic either, but there is one cool thing about the design: The entire driver's cabin folds away when two trainsets couple, letting passengers walk between trainsets.
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Apr 5, 2012 01:56
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Baronjutter posted:Yeah I was that pedestrian a lot in Berlin... sometimes the bike paving is too subtle and I'd wander into it, specially on really busy streets. Usually people just ring their bell or politely warn you they're coming up behind you. And it's certainly easier to get the attention of a pedestrian than that of a car driver. In Denmark, bike lanes are usually level separated from both the sidewalk and the car lanes, even if it's sometimes only an artificial level separation. Street view
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May 7, 2012 20:11
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Baronjutter posted:Can we talk about bike lanes? My experiences with bike lanes, as a bicyclist: Painted onto the road is only rarely better than none at all. Grade-separated from the main driveway but same grade as the sidewalk is uncomfortable, since pedestrians will tend to cross into the bike lane without second thought. Fully grade-separated are great, but only as long as they are wide enough to accommodate around 2 ½ bike, if it's too small then overtaking others can be a pain, and even dangerous since otherwise you may have to drive so close to the curb that there's actually a risk you'll drop over it and fall. Then there is the concern with adding bike lanes to an existing road. If the existing road isn't sufficiently wide, then you'll get a smaller driveway, a small bike lane and possibly also a smaller sidewalk, all of which have a risk of having worse safety.
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Aug 24, 2012 00:11
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Build a bridge across the big river just north-east of Middleport, then a canal starting west of Middleport and shortcutting the big bend the city has been built in. That should allow Middleport better access to the large cleared area east of the river, while still allowing Hartshire to keep port.
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Sep 28, 2012 23:55
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The Hartshire West-Fukov Railroad (HWFR) begins in Western Hartshire, a bit east of the canal, down by the river so it has direct harbor access. It goes north, east of the big lake, and when it reaches the river again, follows it on the west through Winton. From there it continues north along the river (shorting bends as reasonable), into Winchester.
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Sep 30, 2012 18:19
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Cichlidae posted:The Big Fukov River doesn't go into Winchester; were you thinking of Summerfield, or do you want me to build the railroad northwest within the confines of the state? Doesn't the Fukov form the border between Summerfield and Winchester? Well, I intend to let the railroad stay west of the river, so if it can't follow it fully into Winchester, it should just depart from the river and continue to the next larger destination there. Top-secret expansion plans for HWFR for when the technology matures: (SECRET BUSINESS PLANS COMPETITORS DO NOT READ) Branch just south of the lake north of Hartshire, going west mostly following the river (north of it), to Chenchester and Mutnap.
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Sep 30, 2012 19:01
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I would guess there is a railway machine shop in Hartshire which supplies most of the engines and cars, and all at the same gauge. Maybe railroads that don't connect to Hartshire could be a different gauge, but yeah it likely won't matter.
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Sep 30, 2012 22:02
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i barely GNU her! posted:I got beaten on Hartshire-Opiantic, so instead let's build from Hartshire to Mutnap via Chenchester. I'd like to connect to the existing line to Wincester if that's possible. nielsm posted:Top-secret expansion plans for HWFR for when the technology matures: (SECRET BUSINESS PLANS COMPETITORS DO NOT READ) Branch just south of the lake north of Hartshire, going west mostly following the river (north of it), to Chenchester and Mutnap. Got there before you 
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Oct 2, 2012 10:25
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I have no idea whether this is a good idea. Also, some Indian roads between Sanctum and Middleport could take an upgrade.
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Oct 2, 2012 21:57
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mamosodiumku posted:And then a question: are rail tunnels though mountains allowed? Nobel hasn't invented his explosives yet, so I'd say no.
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Oct 3, 2012 20:11
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I like this one the most. It re-uses most of the existing infrastructure and requires very little new track. However a suggestion to improve this: Add a new industrial yard area east of the lake, and expand to double tracking out of the city as far as reasonable. Keep four tracks northbound from the central station to the new yard, and go down to two tracks about a long train's length after the new yard. The ideas to extend the central station into a bridge over Fukov also seems reasonable, and I imagine the old harbor area of the station isn't so heavily used any longer. Edit: Preparing to double track the mainline is important! Rail traffic is steadily increasing and having single track operation with all the complications it involves is severely slowing down traffic. Even if all of the mainline can't be double tracked right away, preparing the exit from the city is important, since the right-of-way should be secured while the areas aren't as heavily built. nielsm fucked around with this message at 09:34 on Oct 4, 2012 |
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Oct 4, 2012 09:31
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 (Rough draft) Repeating my suggestion of an industrial yard by the lake. Complete the Y with a single line allowing direct goods line access from west to the new yard, avoiding them having to go through the central station. Kill the build up area inside the Y and build a proper switching yard for engine and passenger stock maintenance. I would also suggest simplifying the track from the mainline into the central station to remove sidings that won't be needed with the new central yard.
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Oct 4, 2012 15:58
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Something I've been wondering, isn't it problematic to have a level crossing between regular heavy rail and a road with tram tracks in it?
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Oct 4, 2012 23:18
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Knockknees posted:In other news, a bicyclist was killed in Chicago today. In a narrow bike lane, they swerved out of the way of an opening door and into the path of a semi truck. A stark reminder of the problems with unprotected bike lanes. And this is why you place the bike lane between the sidewalk and the car lanes/parking area, and grade separate them. The only business a car should have right of the left edge of the bike lane should be entering/leaving a side street or building. (Also, the game seems to be pretty popular so it might be time to make it a separate thread. Also to make it more visible!)
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Oct 5, 2012 19:23
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Cichlidae posted:That's a great design, if you have the room for it. Around here, all of the utilities are stacked between the sidewalk and curb, so we'd have to move all those. On top of that, that strip is the snow shelf; get rid of it, and you're just plowing snow all over the sidewalk. Eh, it can fit in pretty narrow spaces. This road is one of the important ways into central Copenhagen, even. Everything is quite narrow, you can barely walk two people side by side and overtaking someone on bike takes a bit of dexterity to not drive off the curb. The car lanes are also quite narrow, having to constantly chicane (?) to make room for bus stops and more. There is even a slight bit of on-street parking, but as I recall it's strictly time limited. (If you need to park you find a space on a side street.) Snow plowing isn't actually done, as far as I know, since it's barely needed: The traffic is too heavy, and even then it is also salted in the winter. One more thing to note about the bike lanes on that road: Originally there wasn't one, and they didn't change the grade of neither car lanes nor sidewalks when the bike lanes were built. Instead, the bike lanes are raised towards the car-lane-side curb and slope slightly across. It's not a nuisance when biking, but it creates the important effect of grade separation.
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Oct 5, 2012 23:11
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quote: Stockholm central station. It only has two tracks southbound, which has to fit commuter train, regional trains and express trains, and it's a terrible bottleneck. They're working on a new train tunnel for the commuter traffic, though. (The northbound line is not as bad, but AFAIK the traffic on that isn't as important either.) Edit: The construction north of our central station somewhat reminds me of Bristol Temple Meads, but that yard area saves it. ... when I get access to my regular PC again I might try reconstructing the area in Train Simulator/Railworks. nielsm fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Oct 5, 2012 |
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Oct 5, 2012 23:50
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 Again I'm for keeping the existing infrastructure as much as possible. All the railway stations stay as they are now. The eastern large and small are connected by two tracks, but they don't attempt to connect to the eastern northbound line. Instead, trains in that direction can take the new bypass to the northeast, which will also have passenger yard and engine shop. To the south, two new industrial yards are created, one inland and one by the water. Roads are extended to the industry, and a tram is connected that way for better worker access. Another road bridge across the small river is suggested. I propose a new tram line that passes by the central station and through the central park. West of the Fukov, the two railway lines are just connected by a single track to allow trains to continue after landing in one of the stations. One of them will likely have to close sooner or later, as that line might allow them to compete directly on prices. A tram line towards the south might promote growth there. Lastly, a man can dream, but it would be ideal if the Fukov could be crossed by train by means of a tunnel below it. As if that will ever become possible.
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Oct 6, 2012 10:40
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It looks like the purpose of that exit it access to the island group the tunnel passes, so there wouldn't really be any reason to access the other direction.
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Oct 7, 2012 00:52
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A through station will probably have fewer tracks, but might have a chance to have them longer. However it might also be a rather expensive operation to pull all of it up and leave the rail lines inoperative for a good while during the re-construction. Do it if the other factors allow for it.
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Oct 8, 2012 14:36
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Munin posted:Actually never mind we want through stations if possible. I don't think most trains are reversible in a similar way the modern ones are. IIRC they don't have locomotives at both ends. Steam locomotives are certainly able to drive backwards, the problem is that the driver can't see what's going on at the other end of the train! (You wouldn't be able to handle goods shunting if you couldn't make the train drive both ways.) A workable, if expensive, way to handle a terminus would be to have one or two spare locomotives at the station, and place an outward-facing one on the train and decouple the one that pulled it in. Then when the train has left, the previous locomotive can also leave the station and reverse at a wye or some such. (It isn't a problem for it to leave backwards now, since there isn't a long train in front of it blocking vision.)
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Oct 8, 2012 15:57
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I say we do the Middleport-Meridian area, then we'll have covered most things along Fukov.
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Oct 8, 2012 21:39
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I'm thinking that a main station common to both cities might work out. It would probably have to be south of the river.
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Oct 9, 2012 15:21
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Dunno, could anyone be crazy enough to build a new shipping port south of New Sanctum and a railroad to it?
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Oct 13, 2012 19:28
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Let's do Middleport-Meridian and Waterbridge.
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Oct 16, 2012 23:07
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"Which one of those is even the canal? All the waterways seem to be the same width here." Answer: The leftmost is the canal. And yes fill in that shithole and extend the station far in that direction. That old westward railroad line in the red needs to go, somehow. It's just in the way right now, for this thing: Kill the terminus on the northbound line and re-route it so it crosses the western river and old canal north of the city, takes a light bend around the west side and form a wye with the coastal line. Northbound trains can then use the new, expanded central station. (This needs to cross the tracks of the "express line" (it's single track, did it ever have more than 2 departures a day like that?), which could become messy if that line doesn't close.) On the new northbound line, build a small through station somewhere in the north-western city, it might be slightly outside the city bounds, but having a station there might help re-vitalise the slums. The new northbound line should make sure to at least get ROW for dual tracks, if maybe only lay single tracks initially. Oh, and make for a yard (maybe not that large, for now?) around where the wye will be. Lastly, build a new outer ring road. It should cross the eastern river slightly south of there the river splits, meet the turnpike following the western river just about where the old northbound rail has a spur in, and continue around the western side of the city, approximately following the new northbound line. It shouldn't need to do much east of the eastern river, just join the road that follows that river.
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Oct 17, 2012 23:13
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