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Aw, that sucks. Traffic stuff is my guilty nerd pleasure, so I've been enjoying this thread for quite a while.  Neutrino posted:Engineers here in Wisconsin are being pinched but surprisingly Milwaukee is still floating with opportunities. I have it relatively stable and barring a larger economic disaster will still be here for many years.  (they wouldn't be so bad if their signage didn't make them look like a "press the button to summon the pedestrian phase" thing. Damned out of towners and new students annoying everyone by pressing them & causing a barrage of WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WALK SIGN IS ON. all the time. Maybe Cichlidae can come here and fix that.  )
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Jul 15, 2011 15:44
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 04:41 |
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How are you supposed to handle something like this? http://goo.gl/maps/ypKui This is a 4-way stop/double t-bone intersection abomination, but both sides of Franklin Avenue are further "in" the intersection than Ash St. Contiuing either way on Franklin requires a full right turn onto Ash St unless you enjoy going diagonally across 4 lanes, and then a left turn to keep going on Franklin. My strategy so far has been to stop in the 5 feet where you can actually see things coming(both sides have buildings/foliage preventing you from seeing poo poo on Ash St unless you're practically in the intersection), and then drive the entire way across without stopping again for the left turn that's involved. It seems like a whole lot of hassle that could have been avoided if one end of Franklin was built 50ft north or south of the other. At least it's not Gurnee, where the design philosophy seems to be "make sure people can get to Gurnee Mills and Six Flags; make everything else spaghetti." http://goo.gl/maps/I3Gx8
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Sep 8, 2012 13:05
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Baronjutter posted:https://maps.google.com/?ll=38.714485,-90.447462&spn=0.002206,0.004801&t=m&z=18  It looks like they're trying way too hard to make every exit a right turn & most of the entrances a left turn, but I'd be astonished if there weren't a ton of accidents in that thing.
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Jun 2, 2013 06:57
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I've chatted with a friend about this before(hi Dominus_Vobiscum), but I figured I'd post my local hopeless highway intersection/interchange here. Google Maps is already showing a fair bit of congestion before we get to the intersection itself. It's not always this bad, but it's pretty consistantly congested on my way to work in the afternoons. Culprit identified. That 14ft clearance bridge is actually a private railroad, which is loving up any chance of improving this mess. The one small mercy here is that since clearance is unusually low, you're not dealing with much truck traffic. There are no turn lanes for either direction, meaning that people going straight are held up by people turning. Westbound is mysteriously always 10 times worse than eastbound; I'm guessing this is because eastbound people already had a chance to get onto I-94 a couple miles away, so there are no people trying to reach 94 & fewer people jockying to turn onto 41(which mostly runs parallel to 94, and eventually joins up with it in either direction). This is rather unfortunate, since the westbound lanes are the ones where nothing can be added thanks to that railroad. During rush hours, split phasing is used so that the left lanes aren't gridlocked from people trying to turn. This means that you end up waiting a very long time, since obviously both directions can't simultaneously have a protected left while also letting both ways go straight. (Not that the alternative would be much faster for people in the left lane) How long? I've had instances where it's taken ten minutes to get from here to the other side of the 41 intersection. Why is this interchange even here if it's so hard to make it flow smoothly? Grand Avenue leads directly to Six Flags Great America and Gurnee Mills, two popular tourist spots. Can't do anything that would force the tourists to get off at a much simpler interchange 1 minute south, then take one of the many roads connecting Washington to Grand! (I loving hate the tourists)
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Jun 29, 2013 22:08
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Volmarias posted:Government waste!  I'm also not sure when they'd time a project of that nature to avoid hindering the all-important tourists; summer is busiest for obvious reasons, but that's also when construction likes to be in full swing. Maybe just tell everyone to suck it up and pay the (pretty small, especially with i-pass) toll to use 94 instead? Driving on 94 is ten times nicer(and faster!) than 41 anyway.Cichlidae posted:
Haifisch fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Jul 2, 2013 |
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Jul 2, 2013 00:03
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Baronjutter posted:Round-abouts are european and thus leftist and anti-american and anti-car and part of agenda 21.  ". (ignoring the fact that "other drivers" are often baffled by things as simple as turning without coming to a complete stop, and that people need to use roundabouts if they ever hope to know how to use them)
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Aug 2, 2013 18:21
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On a scale of 1 to 10, how terrified would you be to drive here?  It's probably a bad sign that the first thing I did with this was go "how could I make the worst street possible?"
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Aug 14, 2013 19:21
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That said, not all designers seem to really "get" them:     Yes, every single approach to that roundabout has a stop sign.
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Sep 27, 2013 03:15
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AA is for Quitters posted:Holy poo poo dude, this is fantastic. If only there was a magic material that could handle midwest winters...
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Mar 16, 2014 04:20
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Baronjutter posted:It could just be the places I've visited vs the places I've come from, but I've never had more than a single car drive by me when I'm at a crosswalk. Cars driving by a pedestrian clearly waiting to cross is unthinkable, it's like running a red light. But holy poo poo in the US a crosswalk is like "this is technically a legal place to cross but no one has to stop" Then again, I'm also in Illinois, where everyone on the road hates everyone else on the road.
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May 22, 2014 03:43
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I've heard about them before, and I still have to wonder how well they can keep up with snow in areas that get more than a light dusting of it. I've seen some drat heavy snows in my life, and I'm just envisioning a horrible snow/slush mix forming on these solar roads because they can't melt the snow fast enough. God help you if the heating elements break and the roads freeze back over(while still being snowed on). Can these roads even handle salt/plowing if that were to happen? Everything I find when googling it is just optimistic "we'd never have to plow again because HEATING ELEMENTS!!" fluff.
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May 26, 2014 17:21
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Shamelessly stolen from AI: I live nowhere near here, thank god. (Make sure you rotate 180 degrees to see the full horror) How could this be fixed, short of nuking it and starting over? I assume locals avoid it if at all possible, but it still seems like multiple accidents waiting to happen.
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Oct 2, 2014 22:02
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Volmarias posted:Yes. Raising taxes is practically political suicide in the US in the last decade, given the hard right wing swing we've collectively taken. We have a national legislature that claims that they can increase spending, cut taxes, and reduce the deficit, all at the same time.  If infrastructure starts to fail, that's a clear sign that big government is inefficient and we need to privatize everything.
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Oct 18, 2014 04:05
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To play devil's advocate for a minute, taxing by milage makes more sense - you don't magically cause less wear on roads just because your car is more fuel-efficient. Fuel-efficient drivers would still save on the base price of gas, they just wouldn't have that minor tax relief. Everyone wins!  But realistically speaking, it's presumably easier for them to do this than to deal with the outcry over HIGHER GAS TAXES , so I'd guess that's the real reason why it was even considered. (And I wouldn't be surprised if it acted as a stealth tax hike for most people) It'd also have several kinks to work out - the biggest one I can think of is how they'd get their share from out-of-state drivers(especially with Portland being so close to the state border).
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Oct 29, 2014 07:30
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Are there other urban trampolines? I mean, I guess it's still technically the longest one if it's the only one, but still.
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Nov 28, 2014 20:18
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Here's a good list of urban planning articles from 2014. Not all of them are about traffic issues, but they're all fascinating reads anyway. In particular, the "fall of planning expertise" one brings to mind the recent speedbump/poorly planned bike infrastructure chat:quote:Capitulation by decision makers to community groups over experts on transit projects, for example, can be directly responsible for increased costs and lower performance. Similarly, when a high-rise development that would inject hundreds of units to a neighborhood is defeated, it can contribute to increases in the cost of housing over the long term.
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Jan 6, 2015 18:02
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Thwomp posted:Everytime this thread comes around to why Americans can't handle roundabouts, I think of this intersection nearby: The interchange of Golf Road and 294 also does strange things. No taking 294 south for you! Baronjutter posted:But that comes back to the north american idea that every single person needs to be able to drive, the bar for getting and keeping your license is so ridiculously low and there's such a massive political resistance to any change.
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Jan 18, 2015 05:15
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Baronjutter posted:https://slowstreets.wordpress.com/2015/08/27/stop-transportation-victim-blaming-and-design-our-roads-for-the-results-we-want/ http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/27908/hey-look-that-flawed-texas-am-traffic-study-is-back-and-grabbing-the-usual-headlines/
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Aug 27, 2015 17:21
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Cichlidae posted:I normally don't advocate more police presence, but traffic control is one place where we could really use 'em. Ticket for people on their phones while driving, ticket for turning from the wrong lane, ticket for traveling in the passing lane, ticket for not using the climbing lane when you're going 10 under the limit, ticket for not using turn signals... I know cops are well equipped for speeding tickets, but we really need the "lesser" traffic laws enforced. ESPECIALLY the cellphone thing. Lobsterpillar posted:I don't get why people think slowly creeping forward in your car is actually doing anything for them. Especially when people stopped at red lights do it ( in anticipation?).
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Jan 24, 2016 19:54
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Snarky answer: Point out that people in big cities are perfectly capable of parking a block or more away from their destination without the world exploding. In fact, many times they have to do that if they want to find a spot in any reasonable length of time. Some of them even manage to get to stores without driving a car at all! Practical answer: Find downtown areas that had a similar revitalization & show them how much things improved, and that people learn to live with it even if it doesn't have parking directly in front of each building. You're not going to convince everyone, because people are addicted to ultra-convenient parking, but the sensible ones should be open to it.
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Apr 3, 2016 01:29
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So they want it, they just don't want to have to pay for it with taxes or have any responsibility towards it. The system works!
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Apr 8, 2016 18:49
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This article has a picture of the planned roundabout. It looks like it is grade separated.
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Jun 25, 2016 02:22
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Jonnty posted:It's also useful for discouraging "rat-running" where a residential street is used as a shortcut between main roads - the likelihood that you're going to have to wait, especially at rush hour, makes it less appealing as a speedy shortcut. I'm honestly curious, because that seems to be the same train of thought that creates endless spaghetti streets and dead ends in American suburbs. It creates a layout that's worse for everyone just to stop traffic from taking 'shortcuts'. Haifisch fucked around with this message at 09:51 on Aug 31, 2016 |
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Aug 31, 2016 09:48
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cheese-cube posted:In states where icy roads are a common problem do driver training programs include learning about how to handle them? Or do driving tests have a "icy road" section or something? The main problem seems to be overconfidence because of having 4WD/AWD/an SUV/a pickup(none of which will magically save you if you don't know how to drive on snow and ice), like so:
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Jan 12, 2017 02:31
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Chemmy posted:What they really have is a giant slip n slide covered in used motor oil and some old cars to practice skidding around and if you smash up their designated slippery car it's no big deal the government picks up the tab.
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Jan 12, 2017 02:59
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Turdsdown Tom posted:these frontage roads or whatever the gently caress they're called that run literally parallel to highways are the craziest poo poo ever and the states that build them are loving insane. there are a few I see frequently near colleges in Boston and I often wonder how more pedestrians don't get slammed by people taking exits through these roads. like this:  This is how normal states do them. Notably, you get to them via normal interchanges instead of barreling in directly from the freeway.
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Apr 28, 2017 21:43
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fishmech posted:And then how do you handle things like snow? Speaking of which, have self-driving vehicles figured out how to drive in various levels of snow & salt without crashing/weaving all over the lanes/being blinded yet? Last I heard didn't sound very optimistic.
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May 24, 2017 22:47
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Baronjutter posted:http://pdovak.com/projects/#/city-transit/ I guess that's a testament to how well simple branding/color schemes work.
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Aug 14, 2017 06:54
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CopperHound posted:I love how people keep talking about the perfect autonomous car system like we are just 5 years from total roll out and replacement of human drivers. And people usually ignore that self-driving cars don't remove most of the problems cars and car-centric development cause, like pollution/inefficient and isolating city planning/huge amounts of space used up on stuff dedicated to cars(highways, parking lots, garages, etc)/major financial burdens on the poor if they want to survive in a car-centric area/etc. Cars are an incredibly inefficient and wasteful way to get around(even though they do have their purposes), and continuing to build things assuming they're the primary(and sometimes only) mode of transportation just propagates that inefficiency and waste. Self-driving cars won't change that.
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Nov 14, 2017 05:15
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:Is it Russian? IIRC it got slightly better with an update that let you set certain roads as priority, but you're still fighting the simulator to get non-highway roundabouts to work properly.
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Dec 17, 2017 23:03
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fishmech posted:The fact that you're thinking the distinction is between "cars" and "people" and you don't consider freight movement at all is pretty telling. e: Here's a link for what percentage of traffic is freight traffic in various US cities(circa 2002, the only more recent thing I could easily find was here, which uses numbers from 2011 but doesn't just look at highway city traffic). In the bigger cities, only 10-15% of traffic was freight. Smaller cities bump that up to 30-40%, although it's not clear how much of that is specifically going to each location and how much is passing through on the way to another destination. Remove the people driving cars to get themselves from point A to point B, and you need a lot less roads(and less wide freeways) just to handle freight traffic. Haifisch fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jan 1, 2018 |
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Jan 1, 2018 22:21
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Baronjutter posted:Trying to improve safety just through changing a sign but without changing the physical infrastructure generally leads to unreliable behavior. It's like when my town reduced the speed limits globally from 50 to 40, which I supported, but there's some big arterial roads that have no driveways, no cross streets, feel more like a highway, but are technically 40. People drive 60-70 on them, but some people are worried about tickets or just like following the rules and go the legal 40. This leads to a lot of aggressive driving and passing and big differences in speed. See also: The joke of some Chicago highway speed limits being 55 mph while even the slowpokes are going at least 70(if congestion permits).
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Jul 22, 2018 06:21
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Eskaton posted:Yup. Traffic natually goes slower in dense urban areas because - surprise - driving on small roads with lots of intersections and street parking makes people want to go slower. But have fun convincing people to make their roads feel less fun to drive on, even if they crow about wanting people to drive slower. People can barely be convinced that more on-street parking and fewer parking lots is good for downtowns, even though it has a demonstrably beneficial effect on local business income. nrook posted:That's why motorists rebel at speed traps and red light cameras: they dent the culture of impunity around reckless driving. If you want people to respect traffic enforcement measures, step one is convincing them that it's genuinely aiming for safety and not  . Even just changing the type of infractions cops tend to enforce would help a lot - it's not a coincidence that the easy money of speeding tickets is more common than enforcing other traffic laws(such as only using the left lane to pass, or making sure people have their drat lights on in the evening/rain, or making people use their turn signals when they turn or change lanes, or catching people staring at their phone while driving, or...). It'd be an uphill battle to make that happen, though - a lot of small towns and suburbs rely on that ticket money since it's more palatable than raising taxes.
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Jun 5, 2019 08:12
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Mountain Dew Code Bread posted:One thing I've never understood about this particular street is how the speed limit actually goes down when the street opens up.  MANIACS SPEEDING BY WHERE MY CHILDREN ARE PLAYING and got the limit ineffectively lowered.
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Nov 7, 2019 00:14
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Also depending on the road setup/amount of traffic, just because you stopped doesn't mean it's safe to cross. And you stopping can actually make it harder/more dangerous to cross if people fly up behind you and swerve into the other lane to get around you, instead of letting gaps form naturally. If it's quiet enough that none of these apply, you're probably just dealing with someone who feels awkward that you stopped for them even though the law says you're technically supposed to. (this also applies to people who stop to let another car turn in front of them, except they're even worse because they're straight-up ignoring the law/right-of-way to do so)
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Sep 1, 2020 23:48
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pun pundit posted:Also, during rush hour on a two lane road I'm very positive toward people who see they won't get home any slower if they stop and let me turn across instead of creeping through the intersection in their endless line of 10 kph traffic If it's legitimately so congested that nobody's going more than 5mph anyway, then it's much more reasonable(and actually polite) to do that. Haifisch fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Sep 2, 2020 |
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Sep 2, 2020 23:12
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Carbon dioxide posted:And that's how you do it. Since every road needs a full replacement every 2 decades or so no matter what, if you just include a bike path into every regular road project, within 20 year you have a full city-covering bike network, for no extra costs.
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Apr 15, 2021 23:54
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LimaBiker posted:Final thing: speed humps are horrible pollution causing devices. They are truly the worst of all things. Making people brake and accelerate all the time is a Bad Thing. It wrecks the backs of bus drivers who have them on their route, and also ambulance drivers have complained a lot about them.
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Apr 29, 2021 01:04
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wolrah posted:And of course there's also the people who want a wide, smooth, straight, clear road with slow traffic and simply refuse to accept that such a thing only exists in the land of unicorns and fairies. Related: The people who get pissy at the idea of having on-street parking instead of huge parking lots that stay 80% empty most of the time. They don't care whether or not it's actually better for businesses, they just think it feels more crowded/worse.
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May 6, 2021 21:29
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| # ¿ Apr 30, 2024 04:41 |
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silence_kit posted:Also, the reason why congestion returns to what it previously was, I don't think you can purely attribute to 'the cosmic law of induced demand'. Here is an alternate explanation: the government is not building out its transportation infrastructure at the same rate as the population growth in the city. Most big cities in the US have loving awful traffic because the US has spent decades focusing way more on building road infrastructure than on non-car alternatives. You can't fix that by building more and bigger roads forever; there's simply too many people who want to drive into/in a relatively small area. And that's a large part of what the concept of induced demand is used to address - getting people to stop wasting time & money trying to build themselves out of a problem they can't build more roads to solve. If you want a serious long-term fix for traffic congestion, you need to either lower demand in the affected area(which is not a lever anyone has access to, as much as we'd like to live in Cities Skylines) or provide ways to get there that aren't a car. As a bonus, once you have multiple ways to get from point A to point B, people can shift from one to another as the situation changes(weather too lovely to bike in? take the bus! delays on the train? people who have cars can drive that day instead! people who don't have cars can leave earlier and bike/take buses/take an uber/whatever!). Nobody here's advocating to ban all private car ownership tomorrow or thinks you're evil for driving a car or whatever it is you're worried about. We want to see more investment in not-car transit for a variety of reasons, some of which you may or may not agree with(lots and lots of socioeconomic issues tied in with building society around car ownership as a default) but others you probably do(ex. if you don't have to drive to accomplish basic life tasks, then stuff like half-blind old people driving/drunk drivers/people driving without a license/etc are less of a problem). silence_kit posted:take an ideological argument against cars and suburbs
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May 8, 2021 00:44
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