this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2024
608 points (96.8% liked)

196

16359 readers
1873 users here now

Be sure to follow the rule before you head out.

Rule: You must post before you leave.

^other^ ^rules^

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I will never talk shit on the diverging diamond it solved a huge traffic problem at an interchange in my city. It does suck for pedestrians but they could always solve that with a bridge or tunnel. Luckily where we have ours there is almost no pedestrian traffic.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago

How'd you get my Cities Skylines save?

[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Plus paying tolls on roads our fucking taxes paid for.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (4 children)

That I’m actually for, let the people who use these roads pay for them. All the while, I’ll be laughing at them as I bike on through.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I wish gasoline and diesel was heavily taxed instead of subsidized. Heavy vehicle=more fuel=more road wear.

I guess you'd have to do a rebate/deduction to keep it progressive.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

I'm disabled now so I can't do that but thanks.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 week ago (1 children)

except when your government pays full price for it and sells it off to a company for a tiny bit of money so they can make money with tolls

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Toronto moment

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

How are you going to bike on the NJ Turnpike? No bikes allowed.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Well I don’t live in NJ/NY so I’d map it out.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/vr7jaMhtuywupgAP8?g_st=i

Funnyish story though, this no bikes thing has happened to me thrice on my bicycle adventures.

  • In Norfolk, VA I went straight instead of making a right and promptly landed on 64, with no way to go backwards, I hopped a fence and landed in an industrial park with a decent coffee shop, remapped my route and then gave it another go.
  • In trying to flee hurricane Irene on a particularly long road trip, I ended up having to cross the St John’s river bridge because the ferries by that time of night were closed and I had to get into Newport News to stay at my friend’s for the night. It was a shitty situation all around. I feel it was the closest to death I have ever been in my life and I have had a few doozies. I do not recommend ever ever doing this and will never do it again, ever.
  • Recently from El Escorial to Madrid with limited cell service, I landed myself on M-503 for a stretch. While this kind of road with broad shoulders in the US permits bikes, they do not in Spain. I was able to pull off onto a finca road and then eventually a greenway, but not before crossing a beautiful large rust colored bridge (with a decent shoulder).

I’ve been long distance biking for 20 years now and have had some excellent adventures, so fortunately these kind of wrong turn experiences have been few and far between.

There is a really great documentary on PBS right now about a group of kids who crossed the entire US on bike for charity in the early 80s, I highly recommend it. https://www.pbs.org/video/once-in-a-lifetime-qtroq8/

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

That’s awesome, I love long distance biking too but never have enough time for big trips.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

That's a rather short section though, the Turnpike is fairly long down the state, and it's becoming increasing harder to traverse without car due to such roads

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago (4 children)

I think a diverging diamond interchange is actually a pretty elegant solution. That being said, I'd rather have public transport than better traffic infrastructure.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 days ago

We have ine and it's eay better than what we had to deal with before. It solved the traffic.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago

my city is literally prohibited from using public funds for any type of train because of some GOP devil magic thing -- so all we have is busses, which suck because you're still beholden to traffic jams and lights and speed limits and roads. pointless and not even a sense of whimsy or transcendence

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I think the diverging diamond interchange is terrible. Because of the crossover, traffic can only cross the interchange in one direction at a time, so most of the traffic in the interchange is not moving most of the time.

A pair of roundabouts connected to on ramps eliminates the danger of left turns without stopping the majority of traffic most of the time.

A massive overbuilt interchange that cannot function without traffic lights is the opposite of elegant.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Because of the crossover, traffic can only cross the interchange in one direction at a time, so most of the traffic in the interchange is not moving most of the time.

I'm not so sure about that. The appropriate use of a diverging diamond is when there is a lot of traffic entering and exiting from the ramps, and some of that traffic can go at the same time as the traffic crossing the interchange in one direction.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I've read descriptions of how they work numerous times and cannot wrap my head around how having traffic going opposite directions cross paths does anything helpful.

Great, you're now on the appropriate side to make the turn at the far side of the interchange, so the people making the turn don't have to cross traffic to do so, at the cost of every car that crosses the interchange now having to cross traffic twice.

What?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

More people are turning than crossing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Oh. I think I get it. You put the diverging diamond on the route with less traffic where most is expected to be exiting onto the main highway or whatever. You wouldn't put one at a place where two equally busy highways intersected.

That makes more sense.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I always wondered that.

Is it traffic engineers who suggest adding another lane? Or is it stupid people who can't read data and demands it?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Both. 1980s Era civil/traffic engineers in NA were all trained for car=future=build road. Nowadays most traffic engineering/city planning schools teach multimodal transportation as The Way, but decades of car washing our cities has resulted in an almost total collapse of public support for anything except another lane. Luckily, most people sub-30 are aware of this and are slowly becoming politically active. Public opinion will shift slowly over the next decade or two and eventually the traffic engineers will be allowed to do the right thing.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

I'm reading the Robert Caro biography of Robert Moses - the New York highway builder. By 1950 newspapers were saying "building these highways is a terrible idea, we need mass transit to move all the people that need to be moved unless you paved the entire city so no one could live here"

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

My university's traffic engineering curriculum was still pretty car-centric as of the late 2000s, and that's at a top-tier school so I assume most others were even more backwards.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Wanna make a difference? Get some of these stickers and slap em up everywhere. I've still got a few left over to put places.

https://parkingreform.org/products/sticker-10-pack

Go to your city "public opinion" sessions on zoning and highway design. One of our new circumferential highways has the first inverted diamond because some radical urbanists sandbagged the public hearing. Showing up to these things can make a big impact.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Usually the stupid people where I live

[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 week ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Great channel, honestly. So many things I took for granted were apparently pretty unique in my land.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Yeah true. I also didn't realize how much the infrastructure of where you live impacts your life and your wellbeing

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 week ago (3 children)

What is this meme template called? I always chuckle at the different topics but don't know anything about where it comes from.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Not sure, but I think the last line is a suitable commonality to be called a template name.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago

I know it under the name of Stop Doing Science.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago

This, but unironically.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (4 children)

That's not how you use the format-

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Is it not? I have only ever seen it used like this.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

I'm assuming they are referring to the fact that this is an unironic usage of a format that typically contains an ironic message. But I think this format is used to express counter narratives of all kinds, both serious and unserious, so I wouldn't call this an incorrect usage. I mean, the format already has some bone hurting juice energy to start with, so I think gatekeeping its usage is maybe outside of the spirit of the template

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

Well, it was used like this.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

intersections should either be contractible or homotopy equivalent to the circle. any intersection outside of those two homotopy classes will always be a worse solution than just improving the public transportation infrastructure

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

But what would we call that?

A circle-near?

A ball-approximate?

A curved-around?

An oval-almost?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

Circum-give-or-take

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

I'd say number 3 is track days

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago

bruh the dig at the ICC

load more comments
view more: next ›