Ask me about being a Traffic Engineer!

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

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Kaal posted:

Fixing it is a pain but it's a common issue. People used to use vertical disc grinders in a process known as scarifying,

Devor posted:

If you made a mistake drawing the proposed work, you had to use a dremel-like tool to grind off the layer of plastic with the ink on it.

A rare example of something in the planning stages working exactly like something out in the world.

# ¿ Aug 4, 2019 18:47

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 22:31

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Hippie Hedgehog posted:

Why do I get the feeling that the solution to this "problem" will be SUVs with the ground clearance of monster trucks?

Can we skip the intermediate steps and just have everyone drive actual monster trucks?

# ¿ Mar 30, 2023 18:13

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Bucky Fullminster posted:

And a Super-Highway is a bunch of them together, like a super-organism - it is one big network, of Highway quality, all the way around. Surely that deserves the term "Super".

Anyway if the main thing we're talking about is the name then I guess that's a good sign, cheers.

As someone who isn't a traffic engineer at all, but who likes words and etymology:

"Super" can just mean "above". Super, above. Sub, below. Like, in a very literal this-means-nothing-more-than-that sense. (In Latin.) Subterranean meaning underground. Subdermal injection via a hypodermic needle. (Sub, from latin; hypo, from greek; both meaning just "below". Derm coming from dermis, skin.) Supersonic isn't better than sonic, it's just faster. The number for the speed is higher. It's above the speed of sound.

Taking "super" to mean more or better isn't wrong, but I think this is why people are immediately thinking it implies being elevated. To me, I'm used to thinking of the super in "superhighway" as a kind of meaningless intensifier, not really indicating a meaningful quality. It's something slapped onto a project to make it sound impressive. (Which I guess is how it's used here, as well.) But it doesn't connote quality to me, just a notion of bigness, that the people doing the slapping think that bigger is better. Brings this to mind:

If I think about "Cycle Super Highway" for a bit, I'm not sure bicycling comes immediately to mind, but I'm not a cyclist. (Or a motorist. I'm a pedestrian.) The 'cycle' brings to mind something like an orbital, or ring road, but again, I think that's on me for never thinking much about bicycles.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2024 05:28

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Bucky Fullminster posted:

That's good to know, thanks heaps. Haven't really encountered this before so hopefully it's more of an American thing, cos I do still like it.

After reflecting on it some more, I'm not sure I've actually ever heard "superhighway" used except in the phrase "information superhighway", talking about the internet. This is probably why it doesn't mean "elevated highway" (or really anything in particular) to me. The super = above stuff is all just pure Latin, though, and it's something I picked up from being a fan of etymology and ancient history.

SlothfulCobra posted:

For reference, the dutchlands are a teeny tiny place, so a lot of their idea of "between cities" is the equivalent of getting from one end of a big city to the other. Often less.

This is also why they can lay claim to a lot of fancy transit, they already live pretty densely, and when they really get the mind to build a big new transit connection, there's a lot less distance to build across.

I'm reminded of when I visited friends in the San Francisco Bay Area and realized: Oh, the San Francisco Bay is enormous. When I ask a friend to drive me from point A to point B, that's eighty miles. (Going between south-of-bay and north-of-bay communities.) I think I pictured the whole thing as a collection of neighboring local communities.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2024 17:35

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