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Carbon dioxide posted:Sounds like b gives a conflict here? The Aus/NZ solution would be all of the above, but give cars a red arrow whenever the ped/cycle phase is triggered. Re: green paint: sometimes it's not paint (sometimes it is), but sometimes it's a coloured surface that has done thickness to it. This tends to last longer than paint, particularly at intersections if vehicles travel over it (like they may do for hook turn boxes). It's also a lot more expensive.
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Apr 13, 2021 11:12
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asur posted:San Francisco is doing a bunch of these now. Is there data that it actually improves safety in the US? As a cyclist, it seems worse because I'm suppose to be able to assume that cars won't turn right when I have a green light, but anecdotally the number of cars that illegally turn is very high. Previously the bike lane and right turn lane would switch positions and drivers seemed to have a better understanding how to navigate and yield to cyclists. I mean it's reliant on drivers actually obeying the signals to be safe. Any signalised intersection is not entirely safe because people can potentially just ignore them. But it's hard to completely engineer away illegal driving. It doesn't help that the US some places allow a right turn on a red light
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Apr 14, 2021 09:43
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I guess they're designed to be mountable, you'll trash your car but are unlikely to kill yourself.
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Apr 27, 2021 12:03
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I'm curious, do any traffic engineers in the thread have any experience with their cities attempts to address street racers and the like? Also anyone aware of any situations where passing heavy traffic has caused damage to nearby buildings?
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Apr 27, 2021 22:46
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Speed humps are interesting because they're seldom designed to be SUPER punishing. They might be less punishing as a compromise to drivers comfort or to buses. A 4WD or off road designed vehicle, like a dirt bike, can easily go over speed humps at 40-50km/h with minimal discomfort. I've seen speeds of up to 70km/h recorded on a short stretch of narrow road in the 50m length between two speed humps. The point is, they slow the average traffic speed, as do chicanes. The average speed is also what correlates better with crash rate. They don't stop people who want to use the street for racing if they're determined: they'll just go to the next street over that doesn't have them. What's more is that they don't stop people braking/accelerating heavily between them: frankly, I don't see them as a decent solution to the 'problem' of street racers. Probably the best solution might be too just give them a racecourse of their own and legitimise it but that's not going to be ok with boomers. I expect that crash statistics are fairly nonexistent around them, but probably because of underreporting because most nose to tail crashes aren't going to cause death or serious injury. Insurance companies and the like might have statistics but who knows how robust their investigations into crashes will be. A well designed one would usually be pretty clearly visible to drivers so they'd not be caught off guard by it. As far as slapping on speed limit signs go, that doesn't always work but can make a small difference in some situations, like when the street is already narrowed. But it's very small, and actual street design plays a much bigger part, and won't really work if there's no thought put into it
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Apr 29, 2021 02:35
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Lowest speeds I've seen are on dinky little narrow roads barely wide enough for cars to park on one side which have no attractiveness as a thoroughfare. And even then, some residents of the street say there's a problem with speed. Turns out one of the residents of the street owns a fast car with no muffler.
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May 1, 2021 23:02
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I dunno what it's like elsewhere but here temporary traffic management for worksites can cost half the budget or more, depending on the type of road.
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May 15, 2021 07:09
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I mean I'd say it's car centric thinking with little to no regard to public or active transport that has led to parking minimums plus a whole range of other issues
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May 18, 2021 21:04
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:yeah, i'm not a fan of this deeply reductive hot take twitter style because it fits very well into near-conspiratorial "the MAN wanted to destroy CITIES using CARS" style logic, when of course reality is much messier and stupider than that Yeah, is not necessarily intentional or maliciously done. It's now that the negative side effects were disregarded, not considered in the first place, or poorly mitigated.
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May 24, 2021 22:45
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Nah the rich suburbs have got people with the spare time, the connections, and the knowledge to organise and lobby local government to get that sort of thing.
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Jun 2, 2021 09:35
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Chris Knight posted:Ontario again proving that whoever is heading up MTO is a loving moron: Judging from that diagram, they're creating more space by widening the shoulder, not taking up any currently existing road space.
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Oct 15, 2021 20:19
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Rabbit Hill posted:Speaking of running on the shoulder... Can't speak to the specific laws but it's possible that it's illegal to pass a MOVING vehicle. A car stopped to turn right isn't moving. I think it's a bit odd and am a little confused as to why there even is a left turn arrow of they haven't put a lane in. Is this a particularly high risk location with significant site constraints that they couldn't widen the carriageway to accommodate another lane? It doesn't look like it. quote:(Meanwhile, two miles down the road is a gnarly 4-point intersection with left-turn lanes and regular traffic lights but no left-turn arrows, and the number of accidents that occur there is loving ridiculous -- in the past ten years, I personally have witnessed or seen the aftermath of dozens, and even the traffic lights themselves which sit on poles on the sidewalks have been knocked over dozens of times, too. Turning arrows would solve everything! Sounds like they can't decide who's going to pay for it, and it's possibly pretty costly. Turning arrows would probably fix a few problems, but might also cause longer queues /delays (for those who are concerned about that sort of thing), and there might be other things that need doing at that intersection. Sounds like speed is also a problem - does the US used raised platforms at intersections to slow approach speeds? Somebody fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Nov 16, 2021 |
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Nov 13, 2021 02:14
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But the intersection just so happens to straddle the border line between two townships, so I assume nothing's been done because the townships can't decide who would be responsible.)
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Devor posted:It's posted 45 mph, and holy poo poo I just checked the volumes, and it gets 17k AADT, that's a lot higher than I was expecting. Well that explains why it's got an arrow. A 90 degree crash at that sort of speed will probably kill someone so it's likely an attempt to prevent that. With that sort of volume it's even more baffling that it doesn't have a turning lane (although I guess at 45mph a nose to tail is probably only going to seriously injure you and write off the car(s)... Unless of course it shunts you into oncoming traffic.)
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Nov 14, 2021 06:07
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devicenull posted:How effective is painting the speed limit on the road going to be in actually slowing people down? Generally for every 10km/h reduction in speed limit you get a 4km/h change in average speeds. Halve that for mph. Unless they have other changes or a speed camera downstream from it, there will be done change but not much and not noticeable to the layperson.
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Sep 16, 2022 21:40
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devicenull posted:The usual method here is poured concrete... it holds up pretty well, despite the snowplows and salt. I'm not sure the stone is really going to actually get repaired whenever it breaks. Yeah certainly sounds like widening was a poorly thought through mistake. Honestly that's the sort of thing that cities should know is a mistake by now-all of those things are well known to lead to higher speeds. It'll be an expensive uphill battle to get speeds back down.
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Sep 17, 2022 01:49
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Saukkis posted:Well if the locals want that they could just get some junkyard cars and park them on the side. In my experience the idea that parked cars calm traffic is unknown to the general public and not really understood. Also they'd much rather keep those parking spaces free for themselves and or their visitors, that's much more important to them
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Sep 17, 2022 20:10
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orcane posted:Where's the cutoff for "low quality systems" or what's the definition for that? I mean, a handful of buses in a big US city is obvious, but in a lof ot the <100% cities there are probably other reasons for why fares don't cover all the cost (eg. political, historical, geographical). Presumably a combination of frequency, convenience, compared to alternatives. For example in Singapore, you can basically get everywhere by the subway and private car ownership is taxed significantly.
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Sep 25, 2022 19:37
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I was just at the Australasian road safety conference this week and whew, there's a lot to process. Key takeaways: we need to make big network wide changes sooner rather than later and should have stopped focusing on efficiency decades ago.
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Sep 30, 2022 19:53
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:"efficiency" here means maximizing throughput of road vehicles, I assume? Yep, and trying to shave 30s off journey times here and there. (Unless, of course, it's public transport... Cutting journey times there is usually good)
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Sep 30, 2022 22:27
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If you want to look at a country with density and intense public transport just look at Japan
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Sep 30, 2022 23:45
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devicenull posted:33 ft wide - parking is only allowed on one side (although that's not really enforced, so there's an occasional car on the other side). Not a ton of people park on the street, as you're also required to have a driveway and garage. Huh, interesting that all the letterboxes are right up by the road. Is that typical for suburban US? Down here we have them all on the private property side of the footpath.
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Oct 12, 2022 23:58
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devicenull posted:Signed no parking + an ordinance, but I've only ever seen it enforced once in the ~6 years it's been like this. I think we can get them to do a dotted yellow down the middle pretty easily, if that's going to make a difference (I think it would?) I mean... What sort of difference do you think it'll make? What are you trying to achieve here? What are the issues. just speed? Cyclist or pedestrian safety? Rat running? A centerline is just a delineation measure and will help by showing people where on the road to position their cars whole driving, which is only really going to result in benefits when that is specifically a problem (usually on much narrower roads) On the parking matter, imo it's not a big deal if people park both sides of the road, unless the road is mean to be a significant thoroughfare. Depends on the surrounding network
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Oct 14, 2022 01:42
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Crankit posted:What are the best ways places can reduce car trips for dropping kids off at school? Travel demand management programs. Walk, bike, scooter, bus, car pool, improve pedestrian crossings nearby, and maybe also stagger the pickup times eg with after school programs so not everyone is being picked up at once. But the viability of each of those is contextual and friends upon the culture of the school, the parents, the layout and nature of the surrounding transport network and land use.
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Oct 28, 2022 18:50
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smackfu posted:From my watching of YouTube videos, seems like the key to working fast on road projects is: Minimizing excavation, not having to install it replace any pipes under the road, not having to mess with electricity, and also not discovering/needing to dispose of contaminated substances that can be in older road surfaces. If it's just a straight up saw cut a bit of road, prep it, pour or precast concrete, and finish up then it could be done in a few days. If it requires intensive renewals, stormwater, water main renewals, landscaping, has archeological discovery, is in a commercial area that needs to be kept open to the public, and some of it happens during COVID lockdowns it could take almost a year.
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Dec 1, 2022 18:42
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Greg12 posted:A lot of delay in the USA comes from funding. Do they fund the whole thing or part of it? Over here usually local authorities fund just under half usually, and can usually claim back the remainder from central govt. If they fail on the claim, well at that point it might still happen but the full cost will fall on the local authority who might need to borrow more or raise property taxes or something else.
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Dec 9, 2022 20:35
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Anyone on this thread work in California? I heard recently that Caltrans transitioned from using level of service to vehicle miles traveled in assessing projects/developments and interested to know any perspective on how successful that has been
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Mar 9, 2023 19:52
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To narrow it to one direction at a time, over here we just build local roads 7-9m wide (~23-30 ft) and a couple parked cars does the rest. Definitely something we should do more of on some streets but some people have a fit over the fact that nobody has right of way.
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Mar 31, 2023 09:36
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smackfu posted:They redid the traffic lights at a nearby intersection and it’s very annoying. Interesting that the road controlling authority decided to upgrade the restaurants access from their own money (presumably without a cent paid from the restaurant).
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Jun 23, 2023 02:38
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Yeah curious about why they're still using them over here. To a certain extent it may not really matter too much. Detection can allow cleverer phasing and loops can act up, but the intersection can still function adequately (if not perfectly) if they start acting up. Some intersections may not even need detection, if they're running exclusively linked to other nearby intersections
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Aug 26, 2023 07:58
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SlothfulCobra posted:I feel like the severe dutch-o-philia that urban planning opinion-havers get creates unrealistic images of what the world is like and what is possible, and the heavier it is, the less helpful it is for anything regarding the real world. They're are usually examples closer to home to look to, anyway. The Dutch don't have a complete monopoly on it- they're just earlier adopters and more well developed cycle network than most of the rest of the world.
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Sep 23, 2023 21:24
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The major right wing party over here is making election promises of increased speed limits and as far as I can tell completely cutting road safety spending. Grim stuff.
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Sep 24, 2023 07:43
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nielsm posted:How small does a road need to be to not need separated bicycle lanes? Not necessarily width based, the guidance I have seen is that separation is based on traffic volumes and operating speeds. A low volume low speed road may not need them. This is the New Zealand guidance: https://www.nzta.govt.nz/walking-cy...-intersections/ https://www.nzta.govt.nz/assets/gal...zkwMCw2MDBd.jpg Lobsterpillar fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Sep 25, 2023 |
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Sep 24, 2023 23:56
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Devor posted:Paper street! It could also be a stormwater reserve, that would usually be a larger open area but a strip might be a swale
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Feb 9, 2024 20:45
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mobby_6kl posted:The Cycle Super-Highway seems nice but looking at the map (as I'm not familiar with Sydney) I'm wondering if it's really going to move the needle. Yes, cycle paths that lead to nowhere are a problem, but if you build one along a highway, are people suddenly going to ride an hour into the city? Like walking, it'd need a certain level of density to be feasible. Over here they did build one by a highway, and put some cycle and ped counters in it. They get about 400-500 bikes a day
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Mar 18, 2024 19:55
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Yeah, I also don't like the term super highway. Its a well connected cycle network, not a highway (also v likely way cheaper than a highway) Incidentally, I've noticed locally that poor weather eg light to moderate rain) can cut cycling numbers by about 30% or so. Very heavy rain more so. But a surprising number still cycle just with a coat on (almost like its not a big deal to get a bit wet for some) Lobsterpillar fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Mar 19, 2024 |
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Mar 19, 2024 03:48
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Issaries posted:Yeah. This is really important. It feels much safer, when you don't have to look out for the cars.
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Mar 19, 2024 22:00
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A road overpass might come in at $20-30 million, maybe more with inflation. Should be less for a lightweight pedestrian and cycle structure, but probably has a very big building footprint which might mean land acquisition which can be expensive, political, and get tied up in legal matters (which means more expensive). If you're Australian based you should have a look around what Austroads has got, if you haven't already. They used to have restrictive access but these days their publications etc are available to anybody (you just have to sign up first).
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Mar 20, 2024 10:39
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Locally there have been some pneumatic tube counts down of cyclist speeds and volumes. The average speed was usually in the 15-20km/h range with 85th percentile speeds generally 25-30. This is on very flat terrain - you might get higher speeds on steeper downhill terrain. I recall in a safe systems workshop, the example being given that the human body typically can withstand the speeds that it can generate itself. For example, if you run at full speed into a wall, you'll injure yourself, possibly quite badly, but probably not die. Whereas if you could do that at 30, 40, 50km/h then your chances of survival diminish (but if you're in a car, you get all the kinetic energy absorbed by the car structure). On an ebike, you still have all that kinetic energy but less of the protection of a car. You do, however, potentially have a shorter stopping distance than a heavier car - so can mitigate higher speeds with alertness. But might also be more susceptible to losing control at such speeds if you lose traction. Lobsterpillar fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 20, 2024 23:54
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VictualSquid posted:I feel like we should eventually get multi lane bike paths. So that the fast riders can easily overtake the normals. And maybe even an unusually slow lane for those 6km/h mobility scooters and stuff.
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Mar 21, 2024 21:49
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:There's a residential road near where I live, with a 25MPH speed limit, that has a speedbump on it. I can well believe that people used to bomb down the road in excess of 35MPH, so I don't question the need for the speedbump. However, in order to traverse the speedbump without scraping the hell out of your car and the road (which lots of people have done, judging from the road's surface), you have to slow down to like 10MPH. I would naively expect that the speedbump would be sized to bring people down to 25MPH, instead. Probably varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Whether someone built it badly depends a lot of what the local construction standards and laws are. Over here at least, speed bumps are typically for 15-25 km/h (10-15 MPH) even if the speed limit is 50km/h (30 MPH). So its probably not a mess up. Interesting that there is only one though. The problem with a speed bump "designed" to get speeds to a certain speed is that some vehicles especially with good suspension can easily exceed that. So a 25mph speed bump in this situation probably wouldn't have worked, unless it was actually a series of 5-10 such bumps evenly spaced
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Apr 11, 2024 21:40
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