“Together we’re advancing initiatives focused on creating safer, more efficient travel options for all modes of transportation, from vehicles to bicycles to pedestrians,” Dave Ambuehl, the chief deputy district director of Caltrans, said in a news release.
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/new-intersection-project-first-kind-bay-area-19901199.php
North American has this concept in roadway design where traffic engineers feel the need to make every roadway large. Think of interstate interchanges.
There is also this need to try and design roadways as both roads and streets, while maintaining the flow of high speed traffic at the same. This leaves us with neither good roads or enjoyable streets.
Roads get you from point A to point B without regard for what’s in between or along the route. They are meant to move large amounts of traffic with minimal to no lights/stops/driveways.
Streets on the other hand are “destinations” and are meant for the people that live along them. Streets are traffic calmed, streets give the right of way to pedestrians. Streets have driveways, and multiple interaction zones between people on foot, on bikes, and on cars.
A street cannot act as a road nor can a road act as a street.
This image trys to turn the underpass into a street (which it can be), but it’s main function is still designed as a high-speed roadway. So this leaves us with a combination of the two (a strode) which neight is a good road or a enjoyable street for the local community.
Some examples of simplified highway off ramps that connect directly into traffic calmed streets.
City planing also plays a role here, and its usually has to do how our we build city centres right next to highway off ramps. This leaves no room for proper roadway design where you “stepdown” your roadway classification.
Good planing would have a interstate (130-100kph) connect to a highway (100-80kph), which then empties into a high-speed road (80-60kph), which steps down to a road 50-40kph, and then transitions into a street (30-10kph).
Instead we have interstate highways empty right into a city street.
I always wondered if instead of a two lane road every block you could have a city where it’s a four lane road every two blocks, with a single lane pedestrian/bicycle street alternating every other block there isn’t a road.
Fuck cars
But if there are cars, you want these
Yeah diamond interchanges kick ass. They made me nervous the first time I used one, since it was the kind where you end up driving on the opposite side of the road. But just follow signs and you’ll get where you need to go and there’s almost no risk compared to the garbage interchanges you usually see around interstates.
I’m not saying it’s good (those bike lanes look horrible), but they put in a diamond interchange in my city and it’s ironically the best car infrastructure we have.
To be fair this looks slightly worse than ours, ours has more separation for pedestrians, but I feel much less stressed out that I only have to look one way when crossing, and no cars should be able to go when I am.
They still do. they’ll run a green arrow light, probably because they’re used to “right turn on red”. I have been tapped by a car I was playing chicken with at that light.
But other than the presence of morons, I’d pick the FREEWAY INTERCHANGE over a normal city light any day. That’s crazy to say but it just goes to show how even slightly better designed infrastructure makes a difference.
Those bicycle lanes are ass though.
…but why
Criss cross crash! What about a big ass 200stories tall ramp with an elevator and a loop to loop at the bottom?
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We have a couple of those in Minneapolis.
Jesus Christ that’s a fucking recipe for collisions.
