• wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • Jumuta@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        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

        • wildncrazyguy138@fedia.io
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          1 month ago

          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/

          • Midnitte@beehaw.org
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            1 month 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

              • Hydra_Fk@reddthat.com
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                1 month ago

                Awe bless your soul! It’s so nice to talk to relatable, down to earth, kind people on the internet. I bet your calfs are huge, god speed and enjoy an extra raisin granola bar tonight.

      • lemming741@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

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

  • Franklin@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • _number8_@lemmy.world
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      1 month 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

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        1 month 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.

      • lud@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        I don’t live in the USA but don’t these mostly replace intersections that already have traffic lights?

        Also there is a proposed variant without traffic light called DCMI but I don’t think there has been any build due to patents or something.

    • vithigar@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      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?

        • vithigar@lemmy.ca
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          1 month 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.

      • Excrubulent@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        The Well There’s Your Problem podcast has an excellent episode about traffic engineering where they go into diverging diamonds a bit.

        I think this is also the episode where they lay out essentially the mission statement of the show, that engineering decisions reflect the politics of those who mandate them, and how the hard sciencey disciplines we think of as “objective” are anything but.

        It’s a shame they haven’t put it on their main channel, which is here: https://youtube.com/@welltheresyourproblempodca1465

    • arefx@lemmy.ml
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      1 month ago

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

  • ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net
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    1 month ago

    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?

    • assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • psud@aussie.zone
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        1 month 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”

      • grue@lemmy.world
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        1 month 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.

    • assaultpotato@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month 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.

      • Sconrad122@lemmy.world
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        1 month 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

    • nifty@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Haha yeah, that’s like validating traffic engineers but I get the spirit of the message

  • affiliate@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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

  • arefx@lemmy.ml
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    1 month 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.