SC4 Devotion Forum Archives

I often find myself coming across interesting relating to SC4 through urban planning so I thought I'd start a thread for it. I'm hoping to generate a bit of discussion here which would take some of the pressure off my wife who is immediately bored numb by any discussion of city planning ;D  Feel free to share anything relevant and of interest that you come across here as well :)

Recently I ran into this (http://www.citylab.com/design/2014/10/why-12-foot-traffic-lanes-are-disastrous-for-safety-and-must-be-replaced-now/381117/) article where the author aggressively makes a case for reducing lane widths to 10'/3m or less. The advantages cited are shorter distances for pedestrians to cross, available space for dedicated bike lanes, and increased safety for non-car traffic in particular due to traffic tending to move slower on narrower roads. I found the arguments pretty compelling. It's certainly interesting to think how narrower lanes would impact SC4 though that would be opening a can 'o' worms and a half  ::)

EDIT: forgot to mention I found the article here (http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/10/cycling-florida)

Read here (http://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/08/romanian-roads) for how a country shouldn't build roads  &mmm

Funny, we dutch have the exact opposite problem on rural roads: our lanes are too narrow and therefore they don't leave much room for error. The shoulder lanes are very narrow and usually, there are ditches next to the road. We just need wider shoulder lanes (preferably about 1 - 1.5 meters wide, so it's not wide enough to be another lane). Compared to our neighbours, we have quite narrow road profiles, especially on provicial roads. Though we are in general a country with safe traffic, these provincial roads remain the most dangerous roads in our network.

The author of the article linked above wants to reduce the lane width from 3.6 meters to 3.0 meters. In the Netherlands, the lane can be even less than that (and still fit within the norms: left turn lanes for roads with a design speed of 60 km/h (37.5 mph) are just 2.5 meters wide following the CROW guidelines. In practice, quite a lot of roads here have lanes between 2.6 meters and 3.2 meters width. Only on motorways, you have wider lanes (3.5 meters). The general rule is that you need wider lanes at higher design speeds to incorporate more room for error. A common rule of thumb is that the minimum lane width should be 2.0 meters + 1/100*maximum speed (in km/h). However, as the author also writes, wide lanes invites people to go faster or drive more recklessly, and this is not what we want from safety aspects. Therefore, you need narrower lane widths for streets with lower speeds.

But an interesting article indeed ;)

Best,
Maarten

This is a really interesting topic that's well, well worthy of a thread of its own! And an interesting article as well! And while we're at it, take a look at this: http://player.vimeo.com/video/67638874 (http://player.vimeo.com/video/67638874); that's what I call city planning! ;D

(Btw, I found the video on this site: http://gehlarchitects.com/ (http://gehlarchitects.com/).)

Very interesting topic, I'm glad that you stared it, Noahclem!

I've read this article before and in my opinion, author is right, at least in some points.

Last years, in many polish cities we have the same issue - many new roads, even in the cities, in densely built-up areas, have really wide lanes - 3.0-3.5 meters. That creates the situation, that the drivers exceed the speed limit (usually 70 km/h, but often even 50 km/h) almost all the time. That causes two problems:

- safety - higher speed = increased risk of an accident and fatalities, especially for pedestrians and cyclists. One year ago, there was quite loud discussion about an accident in Wrocław. In the city centre, the driver lost control over his car and killed a cyclist riding on a sidewalk. Of course, in such places there should be appropiate crash barriers, but  there would be always clue points - pedestrian crossings and intersections.

- but also the noise - it's also a big problem in cities, while the clue is the same - higher speed, which causes increased noise emission. Even, if there is speed limit for 50 km/h, drivers exceed it. And engineers take it into consideration and build a lot of soundwalls - spending a lot of money and ruining the aesthetics of the city.

But even on the rural roads. I would like to refer to words written by Maarten:

Quote from: Mandelsoft(...)our lanes are too narrow and therefore they don't leave much room for error. The shoulder lanes are very narrow and usually, there are ditches next to the road. We just need wider shoulder lanes (preferably about 1 - 1.5 meters wide, so it's not wide enough to be another lane).

In this case, I would also like to share an experience from my country. Too wide paved shoulder might be a threatment too. It's all up to the perception of the drivers: the more place we have, the safer it looks like. I underlined it on purpose, because it's not always true, as it's followed by: the safer it looks like, the faster I can drive.

Polish infrastructure is not top-notch. It's been getting better and betterlast time, but for many years the main national roads were 1x2+wide paved shoulder. With the speed limit of 90 km/h, driving 100+ km/h was and still is nothing surprising. What is more, quite common were: "overtaking as the third"; driving on the paved shoulder for "make ovetaking easier", or overtaking with forcing drivers coming ahead to escape on tthe soulder (many times drivers count, that the others will do that!).

Of course on highways and expressways wider lanes are necessary, there's no doubt. However, in cities and even many roads in unbuilt-up areas, I find more negatives than positives of them.

Quote from: MandelsoftThough we are in general a country with safe traffic (...)

I envy this! Hope to go to the Netherlands somewhen and try it on my own (especially by bike) ;)

Making lanes narrower doesn't seem to have any benefits IMO. The lanes are designed to be wide enough so that you don't feel cramped in them, and so that you have room for error. (i.e. not staying exactly in the center of the lane)

Have you actually read the article? It describes why the reasoning you just put up there doesn't hold...

Silly me, should have read the article! :P

Thinking about it more, I wouldn't mind if the lanes are a bit narrower if it allows bike lanes to be added to a four-lane road without reducing the road to two lanes. I can't stand it when municipalities do this!! In a very hilly city like Seattle, the terrain is not conducive to biking like it is in the Netherlands, so you can't expect that a significant amount of people will switch their mode of commute from driving to biking just because there's now a bike lane on the road.

Seattle's roads that are four-lane roads don't have super-wide lanes, though. I'm pretty sure most of them are 10 ft. wide lanes.

Thanks Noah for this topic! My two cents here are very unorganized, but I am thinking about this since long time.

The problem mentioned in this article is well known. When I was young, the most rural roads here around were around 4 to 4.5 meters wide. Absolutely enough, if you drive a tractor or a small car, and not faster than 60 km/h.
But cars are made to be fast, and they became faster every year. The first VW Golf had a max speed of around 140, and if you look now to the same basic model...

So traffic experts paid by companies, who build streets, told us, wider lanes would be more safe. This is not true, as it depends on the speed on a street. Also it depends on the traffic volume, and like the author of the article above mentions: wider lanes invite people to use them with mor speed. So you mostly have a new street made fo a specific volume of traffic, and woa - after a short time, this street will have more traffic than expected. So safety is an illusion here.
On highways we have the most heavy accidents. To prevent people from getting harmed, we learned to build cars with safety cells. Cars now need more energy than their aequivalents in former times, a 1960 Beetle is more eco than any new car, especially if you count the energy, that was used to made six generations of following cars from this, only to make it safer in the case of an heavy accident.
BUT: all the cars, all the new wider lanes in towns were followed by more heavy accidents harming bikers and pedestrians (faster driving, longer ways for pedestrians etc.).

So these safer cars harm more people than the ones in earlier times, cause they are bigger, heavier and faster. And there are much more of them. And every new street will attract traffic, so there is no way out of this game.

To make lanes more narrow would indeed help to prevent traffic, it would help people to become more active, to use their legs instead of sitting. And - in my view very important: Narrow lanes force drivers to communicate with the world outside of their car. And you have to force drivers, as every car gives you the illusion, you would sit inside a safe room and you can escape every single unwanted situation by driving away.
So narrow lanes and small cars and less power would help indeed. But sadly cars aren´t made for driving first. They are made as status objects. And I am sure, this will prevent us from better solutions...

As a militant radical I would say: Let´s build railways again. Railways are a sign of real civilisation in my view, they are communicative. And I remember times in Germany, when we had trains with movie theaters, with playgounds inside, Restaurants, that were worth this word.
Traffic without communication is no traffic, it is only moving without sense.

Quote from: carlfatal on November 07, 2014, 08:03:44 AM
...As a militant radical I would say: Let´s build railways again. Railways are a sign of real civilisation in my view, they are communicative. And I remember times in Germany, when we had trains with movie theaters, with playgounds inside, Restaurants, that were worth this word.
Traffic without communication is no traffic, it is only moving without sense.

:thumbsup:

Have traveled between Wellington and Auckland by car a few times its a all day (or night) journey and its something best done with more than one driver available so you can take turns, but years ago did the same trip on the Silver Star Train

QuoteThe Silver Star was a luxury passenger train that ran overnight between Auckland and Wellington on the North Island Main Trunk railway of New Zealand. The train ran from Monday, 6 September 1971 until Sunday, 8 June 1979.

and it was   ()stsfd()  there is something magical about travelling thru the night on a train, especially one as comfortable as that was, it was like going on Holiday.

-catty

So I posted this on the "If you could change a RL city with SC4, what would you change?" topic on Simtropolis. It's not totally relevant to this particular thread topic, but I really didn't want to start another thread, so I'm posting it here.

Anyway, what I would change in Seattle is to add more freeways, especially in North Seattle. I-5 is the only north-south freeway in North Seattle. OTOH, in South Seattle, you have five freeways: an east-west freeway known as the West Seattle Bridge, (the whole freeway is referred to as a bridge since pretty much all of it is elevated) I-90, and three freeways running north-south: the main freeway, I-5, and two minor ones, the W. Marginal Freeway (SR-99 and 599) and SR-509. So, that's not fair! Why does North Seattle only have one freeway, while South Seattle has five? As you'd expect, this lack of redundancy in the road network spells trouble whenever there's an accident that blocks most of the lanes on the freeway. Every side road you'd take in these cases is completely clogged up, and it's so annoying. So here's my idea to add more freeways! :D
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fd6O5qWQ.jpg&hash=7cc069439af137ca08c643e5e8d22384d0f9f901)
(sorry about the lousy quality; Imgur compresses the crap out of every image you upload &mmm )

So, I-205 would serve as a reliever to I-5, with a connection built from Northgate to Greenlake where it would intersect with the free-flowing expressway portion of Aurora Avenue/ WA-99. WA-99 would then be upgraded to Interstate standards, the Aurora Bridge would be replaced with a wider structure (by 2032, the current Aurora Bridge would be 100 years old, and I wouldn't be surprised to see a replacement project like this happening at that point IRL). The wider bridge would have 8 lanes on the upper deck and four on the lower deck, which would serve as collector-distributor lanes connecting Fremont to Queen Anne, and reducing weaving on the mainline of the freeway.

I-205 would then go through the Alaskan Way Tunnel, which is going to have 4 lanes, but I would build another tunnel to increase capacity to eight lanes. Considering that I-5 has only 6 lanes that continue all the way through downtown (4 if you don't count the HOV/ carpool lanes), this would mean that it'd have more capacity than I-5 for thru traffic! South of Seattle, it would use the current Alaskan Freeway to West Seattle Bridge (widened, obviously). South of that bridge, WA-99 currently becomes a 6-lane arterial. I would build an elevated viaduct here with local roads running underneath; after all it's an industrial area, so who cares, right? Then, it would go over the 1st Avenue South Bridge, and then would connect with a widened SR-99 freeway (W. Marginal Freeway) via some flyover ramps. Currently you have to go through a light to get from the West Marginal Freeway to the 1st Avenue South Bridge, and that's such a waste of time and gas to have to slow down, sit thru a light, and then accelerate back up to speed. I-205 would continue down to I-5 along a widened W. Marginal Freeway. This freeway is currently only four lanes wide, but the state was smart enough at the time to give it a wide median to allow for future expansion.

This freeway would serve much of the same function as the R.H. Thompson Freeway would have had: to serve as a reliever for I-5. For those not familiar, the R.H. Thompson would have run to the east of I-5 along the route of MLK, Jr. Way in South Seattle, up north to the Arboretum, intersecting with 520 where the "ghost ramps" are now, tunneling under Union Bay, then going through Ravenna Park, and connecting up with I-5 just east of Green Lake.

Okay, so what about I-305, you ask? Well, it's my rendition of the Bothell Freeway proposal which was proposed back in the late-50s and early-60s, when all the other freeways were being built in Seattle and the rest of the country. I honestly think it was a great idea and it was unfortunate that it never got built. The NIMBYism would be strong with this one, but in SimCity, nobody would care!!! :D But this is a freeway I'd love to see IRL. On the map above, you can see that the my I-305 designation extends beyond I-405; yes, I-305 would continue along what is currently the alignment of SR 522, which exists as a freeway east of I-405. Over the next few years, it is being upgraded to a four-lane freeway all the way to its eastern terminus in Monroe, so under my proposal, the fast-growing town of Monroe (population 17,304 in the 2010 census) that is becoming a quite a suburban bedroom community would have an Interstate! How cool would that be?

Quote from: carlfatal on November 07, 2014, 08:03:44 AM
---
As a militant radical I would say: Let´s build railways again. [...]
Traffic without communication is no traffic, it is only moving without sense.

These are true, true words. I couldn't agree more - indeed, I'd say remove all roads except those needed for emergency vehicles, and we'd see each other as people with faces again, biking, walking, using public transit when needed, instead of only tons of steel and number plates. Shrinking lane width is a good measure, but gradually roads ought to be cut back. That's what I like about Jan Gehl's architecture, whose video I linked above - he builds an urban environment for people. For it is, as you said, carlfatal, and I agree, in the communication between people that urban life becomes meaningful.

And, compdude787, if I may suggest, why not attain equality between the different parts of the city by cutting back the freeway network where it is over-extensive? The disused freeways could then be used as parkland (like the NYC high lane (https://www.google.com/search?q=high+lane+new+york&num=100&rls=com.microsoft:sv:%7Breferrer:source?%7D&rlz=1I7TSEA&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=xDhfVMnJOofxarXTgqgC&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=737)), and the new city inhabitants housed with urban infill, thus not requiring any new freeways.

I must admit that I really, really love driving. With a good, fast car on good roads(that feeling when you hit 180km/h). On sunday afternoons when there are no trucks ;)
But when I travel to the town where I study, I always take the train because, well on the first stretch out of the mountains, I would safely only average a speed of 70km/h in my car, which is only slightly faster than the train, and then, out in plain, the autobahn is restricted to 120km/h all the time and sometimes even down to 80 because of construction works, whereas the train reaches speeds of 160km/h.(sure, it stops a few times and in the end, the whole journey takes 20min longer, but honestly, I like to be able to re-read some of the anatomy stuff or talk with friends that travel with me, something not to be tried when driving on a busy motorway).
Now, back to city planning. Regensburg,(the location of my alma mater) didn't really grow between 1803(when it lost the privilege of hosting the imperial diet) and the 1960ies(when the university was founded), so large parts of the city reflect the planning principles of that time, ie. wide avenues, apartment blocks, shopping centres and parks. This made it easy to implement a superb network of cycling lanes, but also makes the city quite unwalkable. There are buses, though, so the situation isn't that bad.
There are plans to create a new lightrail, but there's no real progress on that matter since 2005.

If Wikipedia's article of the day counts as "current events" than yesterday's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Highway_401) article is worth noting, especially for the freeway lovers here (compdude and Maarten, I'm looking at you ;) ).

I think I fall somewhere in the middle in the discussion here between big, fast road-oriented cities and walkable, rail/public transit-oriented cities. I've always loved trains and freeways though my interest has swung between the two over time. Coming from Sioux Falls, SD, USA (https://maps.google.fi/maps?q=Sioux+Falls,+SD,+USA&ll=43.546557,-96.724319&spn=0.219232,0.528374&cid=16039006275353377999&hnear=Sioux+Falls,+Minnehaha+County,+South+Dakota,+United+States&t=h&z=12) I was intensely annoyed from at least age 7 by the lack of interstate highway access to the city center and the general poor fit of the interstates to the rapidly-growing city (the metro area has roughly quadrupled since the '60s when the interstates were planned). Visiting Minneapolis, Omaha, or Denver I'd try in vain to get my parents to drive through every big interchange I could find on the map and I came to idealize large wheel and spoke systems like Houston (https://maps.google.fi/maps?q=Houston,+TX,+United+States&hl=en&ll=29.760205,-95.369568&spn=0.525147,1.056747&sll=43.546557,-96.724319&sspn=0.219232,0.528374&oq=houston&t=h&hnear=Houston,+Harris+County,+Texas,+United+States&z=11). Moving to Milwaukee (https://maps.google.fi/maps?q=Milwaukee,+WI,+United+States&hl=en&sll=29.760205,-95.369568&sspn=0.525147,1.056747&oq=milwaukee&t=h&hnear=Milwaukee,+Milwaukee+County,+Wisconsin,+United+States&z=11) in my mid-20's was a watershed moment as I lived near the city center very close to an area rapidly revitalizing in the wake of an urban freeway being removed (http://www.cnu.org/highways/milwaukee). Milwaukee was able to build only a small amount of it's planned freeway system (http://www.wisconsinhighways.org/milwaukee/system_map.html) before protests stopped the rest but I eventually came to the conclusion wasn't bad in most areas. The almost $1B reconstruction of the city's central interchange into a 5-level masterpiece convinced me there much more important things to making a city's freeway system great than its number of miles. During that time I accepted a job in Chicago after failing to find one closer to MKE and had my first experience with consistently awful freeway congestion. The 90m Amtrak line (starting a mile from home and ending a block from work) was a much nicer way to go than 3-4 driving, cool interchanges or no. Comparing the differences in freeway systems, population, sprawl, and urban character between Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis really drove home the effect expanding freeways have to increase sprawl, disrupt and devalue neighborhoods, and simply encourage more commuters to drive from ever further away resulting in no less congestion. My current view is that the perfect city should have a place for neat systems with all those elements; highways, rails, and pedestrian-accessible and cohesive neighborhoods; while balancing the interests of the people with interests in the different styles. That's idealistic, not a practical solution to all kinds of cities with varying existing cityscapes and political systems, but you'll notice it heavily influences how I tend to build my cities.

edited to fix link

Quote from: Themistokles on November 09, 2014, 02:03:06 AM
And, compdude787, if I may suggest, why not attain equality between the different parts of the city by cutting back the freeway network where it is over-extensive? The disused freeways could then be used as parkland (like the NYC high lane (https://www.google.com/search?q=high+lane+new+york&num=100&rls=com.microsoft:sv:%7Breferrer:source?%7D&rlz=1I7TSEA&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=xDhfVMnJOofxarXTgqgC&ved=0CDkQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=737)), and the new city inhabitants housed with urban infill, thus not requiring any new freeways.

We are currently doing that here in Seattle with the Alaskan Way Viaduct, moving it into a tunnel and then redoing the entire waterfront. It's not clear whether they will keep part of the viaduct, but I really wish they would. Part of it is still in decent shape and it won't all fall down in an earthquake. (most of it will, though)

But no freeway should ever be destroyed just for the sake of destroying freeways. Existing roads would not be able to handle the additional traffic that would not be on the freeways. I can understand how freeways cut through neighborhoods and whatnot, but it really should be possible to build them so that they go between neighborhood boundaries. And, I honestly would use more tunnels (like Australian cities) but whenever we build tunnels here, it always ends up running into countless problems. Example: the tunnel carrying sewage discharge from the Brightwater sewage treatment plant to Puget Sound, and the Alaskan Way Tunnel being built right now. The boring machine is currently halted for months.

usually, additional roads only generate more traffic. Cars as we know them now will either be unaffordable or simply nonexistent in the not-so-distant future. Thus, new freeways should only be built where they're really necessary.(and within a city, they are usually not necessary, a simple boulevard/avenue can handle much more traffic[if you include pedestrians and cyclists]) 

QuoteBut no freeway should ever be destroyed just for the sake of destroying freeways

Sadly, the US has a history of this though. I've seen it myself. It kills me the towns that were killed when they built the freeways to bipass them, only to present day, shut those paths of travel down if not remove bridges all together. I don't think that tragic post apocalyptic drama "The Road" would have happened on screen if they didn't actually have an abandoned highway to go by on. There is not to mention the amount of railroads that were since removed, where as they were not government owned to get technical.

Still, I have seen various proposals for traffic revisions if not highways, but it never sees the light of day, due to right away, not to mention money. I just don't get why that two block stretch in my reality to build a new bi-pass cost over thirty million, not to mention the construction union that purposely made it worse before it could get better, and the rest of the ten miles on that route still will not be done for a long, long time. Too much of that exists in my reality, they start something and just can never finish. Eventually it comes to a point where it can no longer remain be free. They finally return to continuing this hwy 390 construction nearly 2 decades later, it's no where near finished, but when they finish it has to be a toll road to make up the millions of dollars it cost.

I meant to share this last week, but the Economist published an essay on suburbs and suburbanization recently that I thought was really interesting. Thought a few city planners around here might find it interesting  ;)

linkie (http://www.economist.com/suburbs)

That is pretty interesting; I had no idea how much suburbia is proliferating around the world. I think it's fair to say that most people with families are generally drawn to the quiet, peaceful nature of suburbs more so than urban areas. That's not to say that families won't live closer to the city, but generally, suburbs are nicer, more peaceful places to live.

People's concerns about endless suburban sprawl are sensible and many cities have urban growth areas where a certain density of zoning cannot take place outside of the boundaries of the urban growth boundary. This all fine and dandy but land values inside the urban growth area increase a lot, so many newer suburban developments tend to be way denser to the point where they have to cram houses super-close to each other and you end up with the house taking up a large portion of the lot and you have a tiny backyard and all your neighbors are staring down at you. Talk about privacy! Personally, I don't like those kinds of suburbs.

The article's mention about Phoenix is pretty interesting--infrastructure definitely has played a role in that city's development. Phoenix has an awesome arterial and freeway network, IMO. They actually are looking ahead to the future when they plan their roads. When I was flying into Phoenix several years ago, I looked down and thought "Whoa, that's a lot of freeways!" But I was really seeing a lot of 6 lane avenues that looked like freeways to me because arterials wider than four lanes are practically non-existent in Seattle.

Also, many of the suburbs in Phoenix are planned and developed on a much larger scale than those near Seattle. That makes it easier for municipalities to plan road upgrades since they have a clearer idea of the amount of extra traffic they're going to be dealing with (and I wouldn't be surprised if the developer pays for a large portion of the road upgrades). But up here near Seattle, a lot of new subdivisions are developed on a much smaller scale. This is harder for the city or county to keep up with, and a lot of the roads are still winding 2-lane roads with four way stops all over the place. Now there's no room to widen them without having to tear out houses or encroach on peoples' front yards, and nobody likes that.

I actually disagree with the article. When I was in the USA, I found the suburbs there quite boring and dull. In fact, other than in Europe, I never felt a distinct character for each suburbs. The houses may be all different, it still felt endless monotony. To me, these suburbs are to sparse and too space consuming. However, living in concentrated city centers or pencil tower district (Hong Kong/Macau style) is also not a comfortable way of living...

There has to be a middle way, and I think we have found it in the Netherlands: decentralised concentration. Instead of growing endless suburbs, development is concentrated in satellite cities. The very city I live in (Zoetermeer) is a result of this plan. The original intent in the 1960s was that the growth of cities and towns in the Netherlands should be managed more so people wouldn't spread out too much. If they did, it would be hard to provide enough services to the people and it may destroy the little amount of green space we had. Unlike the USA, we don't have an abundance of space, so spatial planning is neccessary here.

This type of development results in a myriad of smaller, more concentrated cities. This is the reason why the Netherlands, the densest populated country of Europe (not taking into account city states with less than 1 million inhabitants), has no single city that's over 1 million inhabitants (OK, only Amsterdam gets over 1 million if you take the neighbouring cities into account, and you get to 2 million if you combine the whole urban area of The Hague and Rotterdam). Instead, we have 30 cities in this small country that have over 100 000 inhabitants and a lot more that are all way over 50 000. Lately, we do tend to build suburbs near the larger cities here, but still, these suburbs are quite concentrated with row-homes, a common good in the Netherlands.I'm quite happy with our family row-home of just 100m² of land (just over 1000 sq. ft.), including the garden taking up half of the portion of the land. We have three floors of 50m² each (the third floor is the attic which we have converted to liveable space). This is vastly different from Phoenix, as mentioned in the article:

Quote"The richest people in Phoenix live on one acre [0.4 hectares]," explains Grady Gammage, a lawyer and local expert. "The poorest live on about one-fifth of an acre."

0.2 acres is still 810 m²! You can fit eight dutch row homes in that area!

The main pro's of this approach is:
- Lots of green space between cities. You don't have a city with parks anymore, you have one big park with cities.
- Public transport is quite feasible in these smaller cities. By concentrating more, more customers can get in range of the public transit. This also helps with setting up the public transit network hierarchy.
- Work is more spread over the region; each city offers its own jobs.
- Cities are bikeable. You can get anywhere in the city within a reasonable of time by bicycle. No wonder why we dutch fell in love with cycling!

The downside is however that there is less privacy and you have less space in your home. But you get used to living like that...

Now, the article states that richer people tend to live more spaciously, but if you would compare the wealth of some-one living in a row home here and someone in the USA living in a typical suburb, the wealth is about the same, but the space consumption is quite different. There is no 1:1 releation between wealth and space consumption; part of it is culturally determined.

Here's an nice image where you can get the idea how different this approach is compared to other urban areas.
(https://scontent-a-fra.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xap1/v/t1.0-9/10527742_509165925882554_9168497252016604808_n.jpg?oh=7615f5024e3b2edbbdab8518d92bc5ec&oe=54F1C390)

Even in Sweden, I had the idea that the cities were quite similarly concentrated as in the Netherlands. The urban sprawl as seen in the USA was much less apparent there, despite having a whole abundance of space. Sweden is also quite bike friendly and has proper public transit.

In my opinion, the USA can learn from these examples...

Best,
Maarten

Thanks for sharing the link, noahclem!

Without any real evidence, I believe many people are rather fleeing the cities, than are attracted to the suburbs. Continued suburbanization, I believe, is a symptom of unattractive cities. Cities can be walkable, lush and attractive with great amenities and rapid transport but as long as they are not, people will flee them for the peaceful suburbia, like in Chennai in the article. Suburban expansion is not only destroying the cities, but also the country-side it replaces.

Although I agree that space requirements are partly culturally determined, I also think that they are inspired by international ideas. In Sweden, row houses are not as popular now as they once were, probably because of inspiration from the American suburb. The problem in Sweden, I believe, is that there is space in excess -- environmental protection alone seems not to be reason enough to build well. Still, Swedish cities are relatively bikeable, but not in the same dimension as Copenhagen or the Netherlands.

What strikes me, is that even in countries like Sweden that are often regarded or at least regard themselves as environmentally progressive, new development is still often spread out and fossil-oriented. I think the Dutch are very fortunate to have such a plan, because if we are ever to achieve a fossil-independent, low-energy life-style, we will have to cram together -- perhaps Manhattan-style (Manhattan is still on the same level of fuel consumption (http://e360.yale.edu/feature/greenest_place_in_the_us_its_not_where_you_think/2203/) also an interesting article although it won't fit as current events as the rest of the USA was in the 1920s!), perhaps in a modernized version of a Chinese hutong or perhaps like in medieval city centres (or perhaps like in the Netherlands).

To set the ball rolling, I think London's Green Belt is a great solution. But to work for integration rather than segregation, that is to avoid London-like property prices, it must be paired with a conscious building plan, so that the existing urban environment is preserved, improved and densified to allow all people to live there.

Great points guys!

My concern with the article is that it seems economic-focused to a detrimental extent. Specifically, the environmental impact both of land use and transportation costs stemming from low density aren't thoroughly-enough addressed for me. That said, I suspect in response to my land-use concern the authors would respond with how much more of a concern the space that agriculture takes up is. Still, I'm sure all the existing and impending suburban sprawl around a major city in India could have provided habitat for a number of elephants, or even tigers, not to mention all the other critters that can't share habitat with us. That probably sounds like a bit of a silly argument but I really, really like elephants and tigers ;D  But the environmental impact of suburban sprawl land usage is certainly non-negligible imho.

As far as the boring/monotonous/cultureless line of argument I'm in agreement, and have read the Economist make the same criticisms. In particular Milton Keynes, which in a green-belt-restricted development system like the UK generally has seems a close equivalent to a suburb, has been repeatedly mocked by them, albeit a mocking qualified by more upbeat economic statistics. And I think there's a social cost to living arrangements where one never interacts with their neighbors. Seeing neighbors walking, biking, in public spaces, etc means more interaction with more people and exposure to more perspectives from more kinds of people. I sometimes wonder if America's dysfunctionally partisan politics are caused in part by people almost never having to meet the people they disagree with. It's probably the case that families with growing children are much more interested in affordability, safety, and each other's company than the benefits of urban living and there does seem to be a pretty clear cost to limiting sprawl in arbitrary ways like green belts. One can't help but think there are other tools planners can use to strike a better balance though.

Certainly an interesting topic in any case, and one likely to remain relevant for a long time to come. I wonder how driverless and potentially emissionless and inexpensive cars will factor in....

Quote from: noahclem on December 16, 2014, 07:46:36 AM
And I think there's a social cost to living arrangements where one never interacts with their neighbors. Seeing neighbors walking, biking, in public spaces, etc means more interaction with more people and exposure to more perspectives from more kinds of people. I sometimes wonder if America's dysfunctionally partisan politics are caused in part by people almost never having to meet the people they disagree with. It's probably the case that families with growing children are much more interested in affordability, safety, and each other's company than the benefits of urban living and there does seem to be a pretty clear cost to limiting sprawl in arbitrary ways like green belts. One can't help but think there are other tools planners can use to strike a better balance though.

Maybe my neighborhood is an exception to the rule, but we have very friendly neighbors on our block, and we've really gotten to know each other. Our street is a dead-end street so there's very little car traffic and so it's pretty peaceful and quiet. There's often people walking their dogs and talking with other neighbors. The houses on our street are all cookie-cutter 60s split levels (of which there are thousands in the Seattle area, all with a very similar floorplan) some of which could use a bit of TLC, but people who live here are not all a bunch of shut-ins. The reason why I think suburbs are so attractive is that they allow people to have a quiet, peaceful house just like out in the countryside with all the benefits of living in a city: grocery stores are close by (albeit not exactly within walking distance), as well as your job. Let's be honest, most people want peace and quiet but still don't want to work on a farm, so that's why people love suburbs.

Quote from: noahclem on December 16, 2014, 07:46:36 AM
Certainly an interesting topic in any case, and one likely to remain relevant for a long time to come. I wonder how driverless and potentially emissionless and inexpensive cars will factor in....

I think driverless cars might lead to car-sharing becoming more of a thing and you'd need less parking lots. Instead of having your car sit in a parking garage at work or at a park-and-ride all day, it can go around and pick up other people and transport them to where they need to go.

As for electric cars, well, they're going to result in a massive increase in power consumption and I think it's about time for America to start building some more nuclear power plants, since they're the only large-scale form of power generation other than hydropower that doesn't produce any CO₂ emissions. They've really gotten safer over the years; many incidents at nuclear power plants have happened because the plants' reactors used older designs that weren't very safe and/or were missing many safety features, as was the case with Chernobyl. But the big question is what to do with the waste...

This was raised in the RHW thread, but the discussion belongs here:

Quote from: Indiana Joe on December 16, 2014, 02:58:47 PM
Yep.  Not to turn this into an urban planning discussion, but the Interstate highway system isn't sustainable and is gonna have to go.

Could you please elaborate on this a bit? I can sort of understand why people would have this opinion about urban freeways, but the whole Interstate Highway system needs to go? Tell that to the truckers who rely on it to transport goods between cities. Faster intercity travel is without a doubt the biggest benefit of the Interstate highway system, and it has made a huge economic impact.

Quote from: compdude787 on December 16, 2014, 06:55:13 PM
<snip>

... I think it's about time for America to start building some more nuclear power plants, since they're the only large-scale form of power generation other than hydropower that doesn't produce any CO₂ emissions. They've really gotten safer over the years; many incidents at nuclear power plants have happened because the plants' reactors used older designs that weren't very safe and/or were missing many safety features, as was the case with Chernobyl. But the big question is what to do with the waste...

Ah yes, the waste. My chem professor said they were looking into this thing called salt-domes as being a viable storage solution: large naturally occurring underground salt deposits (sodium-chloride salts, but other kinds as well). The domes are underneath the water table (no contamination), sufficiently dense to contain the radiation, and are self-sealing because the inside melts with the heat from the waste and creates a sort of shell around the material.

But my view on nuclear power is paraphrased from the book: Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher: Basically, if it is unviable to be using a fossil fuel that contaminates the environment for possibly decades, how viable can it be to suggest that using a fuel that contaminates the environment for millennia?
That and of course the number of nuclear power plants we'd have to build to cover the power requirements is absurd. And nuclear energy is a non-renewable energy, so it's not really much a solution. Coal powerplants can be just as clean as Natural Gas powerplants when properly regulated (smokestack scrubbers) and the cleaning equipment necessary to equip all these powerplants is far cheaper than building dozens of new nuclear powerplants.

Quote from: Themistokles on December 16, 2014, 02:52:08 AM
...because if we are ever to achieve a fossil-independent, low-energy life-style, we will have to cram together -- perhaps Manhattan-style (Manhattan is still on the same level of fuel consumption (http://e360.yale.edu/feature/greenest_place_in_the_us_its_not_where_you_think/2203/) also an interesting article although it won't fit as current events as the rest of the USA was in the 1920s!), perhaps in a modernized version of a Chinese hutong or perhaps like in medieval city centres (or perhaps like in the Netherlands).

I'm not sure that cities are the way to go to be green. We had a green way of life before (farming), but someone decided it was uneconomical to grow your own food and set out to change that. Farming nowadays (America especially, but most 1st world nations in general) is industrialized in the extreme, and this industrialization and utilization of low-labor cost/resource-intensive farming methods is what has allowed sub/urbanization to grow at previously unprecedented rates.

Can we go back? I'm not sure we can, though it's a nice thought.
Should we go up (and in)? I think Isaac Asimov has a lot to say about this in his "Robot Novels" (e.g. The Caves of Steel and The Naked Sun), but essentially the point is that while consolidating people in one place seems like the most efficient way to produce a "green" lifestyle and reduce resource use, it may not be the smartest way. The reason is because by doing so we generally are assuming that urban life is the only life, that traditional methods (farming/country lifestyle) are outdated and unsuitable.

But I've run out of time  :-[. I'll be back later with more things to say (probably).

Quote from: APSMS on December 16, 2014, 09:07:44 PM

Ah yes, the waste. My chem professor said they were looking into this thing called salt-domes as being a viable storage solution: large naturally occurring underground salt deposits (sodium-chloride salts, but other kinds as well). The domes are underneath the water table (no contamination), sufficiently dense to contain the radiation, and are self-sealing because the inside melts with the heat from the waste and creates a sort of shell around the material.

But my view on nuclear power is paraphrased from the book: Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher: Basically, if it is unviable to be using a fossil fuel that contaminates the environment for possibly decades, how viable can it be to suggest that using a fuel that contaminates the environment for millennia?
That and of course the number of nuclear power plants we'd have to build to cover the power requirements is absurd. And nuclear energy is a non-renewable energy, so it's not really much a solution. Coal powerplants can be just as clean as Natural Gas powerplants when properly regulated (smokestack scrubbers) and the cleaning equipment necessary to equip all these powerplants is far cheaper than building dozens of new nuclear powerplants.

Oh yeah, I completely forgot about coal scrubbers. And, btw, nuclear fuel can be recycled; take a look at this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reprocessing). I really meant that nuclear power should be used to provide additional power, not necessarily to replace coal power plants.

Quote from: APSMS on December 16, 2014, 09:07:44 PM
I'm not sure that cities are the way to go to be green. We had a green way of life before (farming), but someone decided it was uneconomical to grow your own food and set out to change that.

Really? So we should all go back to farming? Our lives are better off now because of the technology we have! China is more technologically backwards than all the first-world nations are, and that country is more of an environmental disaster than the US is now. Here in America, we now have cleaner rivers (haven't had a river catch on fire since the late-60s), more trees even in urban areas (a church that I used to go to is called Lakeview Free Methodist Church because you used to be able to see Lake Washington when it was built 50 years ago. Now you can't because the trees have gotten taller), and cleaner air (heck, most of San Fran's pollution comes from China).

If we all went back to farming, many people would hate their life because they aren't working in the sort of occupation that they enjoy. Ideally, a job should be something you enjoy; otherwise, you'd be looking for a better one or getting an education so you can have the skills to get a better job. Anyway, this thing called specialization allows people to do only what they enjoy (a job you enjoy is a job you're good at) and then trade with others to get the things like food that they need. This voluntary trade creates wealth, and so by producing what we're good at and buying items someone else enjoys making makes us all better off. This is basic economics, and economics is not just about money but the study of how people make decisions.

Quote from: compdude787 on December 16, 2014, 07:10:16 PM
This was raised in the RHW thread, but the discussion belongs here:

Quote from: Indiana Joe on December 16, 2014, 02:58:47 PM
Yep.  Not to turn this into an urban planning discussion, but the Interstate highway system isn't sustainable and is gonna have to go.

Could you please elaborate on this a bit? I can sort of understand why people would have this opinion about urban freeways, but the whole Interstate Highway system needs to go? Tell that to the truckers who rely on it to transport goods between cities. Faster intercity travel is without a doubt the biggest benefit of the Interstate highway system, and it has made a huge economic impact.

Logistically speaking, it would be somewhat of a challenge to do so, but I have often wondered why cities don't designate certain stretches of freeway as congestion area, and restrict them from truck traffic during the rush hours. They could have a sign with flashing lights could indicate that all truck traffic must exit the freeway when flashing, and build a giant parking lot off the service road, in order to optimize usage of the interstate system. I must agree though that getting rid of the interstate system is rather dumb. Developing countries everywhere are building their own interstate systems, because they realize the importance of a good transportation system.

Quote from: compdude787 on December 16, 2014, 07:10:16 PM
[...]

Quote from: Indiana Joe on December 16, 2014, 02:58:47 PM
Yep.  Not to turn this into an urban planning discussion, but the Interstate highway system isn't sustainable and is gonna have to go.

Could you please elaborate on this a bit? I can sort of understand why people would have this opinion about urban freeways, but the whole Interstate Highway system needs to go? [...]

Carbon-dioxide-wise, a motorway is a motorway no matter if it's in an urban or rural setting, it stimulates non-sustainable development nonetheless. From a quality of living and health perspective, urban motorways are worse because more people will inhale the exhaust, but, well, considering the climate globally, rural motorways are just as bad.

Quote from: roadgeek on December 17, 2014, 08:11:45 PM
Developing countries everywhere are building their own interstate systems, because they realize the importance of a good transportation system.

Developing countries everywhere are building their own interstate systems, because they follow an outdated road-model. Getting stuck in traffic is going to lead developing nations nowhere, except giving them emissions problems, debts and an unsustainable infrastructure. Just because they build like we did in the 1960s doesn't mean they'll have half a century to benefit economically before environmental degradation becomes an issue. Especially developing countries should assess the problem critically, rather than just copy-pasting the old-fashion western solution of gigantic expressway network.

However, whatever standard of living, any country building motorways today are building themselves into an obsolete mode of transport, including my own, planning to spend the equivalent of almost 6 billion USD on the largest motorway project ever in our country.

If we predict a future with driverless cars, we must consider that they take up a quarter of the road space compared to manually driven cars, because they can interact and know each other's actions in advance. This will mean that a road that is today eight lanes (like RHW-8S), could potentially be built with only two (like RHW-2) in a near future. With self-driving cars not only parking but also congestion will probably just be a memory. If we believe that driverless cars will come in a decade or two, motorway expansion in developed and developing countries alike is disastrous, not only for sustainability, but also for the economy.

Cars get better gas mileage and are more efficient when they're going at 60 mph as opposed to like 10 in traffic, or having to constantly accelerate and decelerate in stop-and-go traffic or while going thru lights. Because the cars are running less efficiently at slower speeds or when not keeping a constant speed at a constant RPM, they are bigger polluters. That's why I think it's actually better for the environment when freeways have enough capacity to handle traffic during the rush hour without causing everyone to slow to a halt.

Quote from: compdude787 on December 17, 2014, 11:13:44 PM
Cars get better gas mileage and are more efficient when they're going at 60 mph as opposed to like 10 in traffic, or having to constantly accelerate and decelerate in stop-and-go traffic or while going thru lights. Because the cars are running less efficiently at slower speeds or when not keeping a constant speed at a constant RPM, they are bigger polluters. That's why I think it's actually better for the environment when freeways have enough capacity to handle traffic during the rush hour without causing everyone to slow to a halt.

Problem with having that capacity, is that it's impossible to do, especially over longer periods of time. Sure, you can solve the traffic jams on the freeway now, and even in the next 10-15 years, but that means more and more people will choose cars over public transport, because they see it's more comfortable to take the car when the jams have been solved. It all has to do with latent demand in traffic and such. Oh, and actually expanding the freeway networks will eat up lots of valuable land (and I mean a LOT), especially in urban areas where land is sparse and very costly to acquire for road development.

Expanding motorways is not an option, especially in places where there is not much room. In the Netherlands, the A13 near Rotterdam was the first 2x3 lane motorway of the Netherlands in 1959; it hasn't been widened ever since. Why? Well, it's pretty crammed already:

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rijnmond.nl%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fimagecache%2Fphoto_popup%2Fb%2F7%2FA13vanboven_8F44C7F552209F3EC1257A2F0032BDBB_3.jpg&hash=bd04d46b4b7c28d8a5b54cc712e77d6548f1fc52)

And this is not the only case where this happens; Japan can't widen their roads because there is little room to build to begin with, NYC is stuck because the streets can't be widened due to adjacent buildings, lots of bridges and tunnels form bottlenecks because widening means a complete replacement of the bridge or tunnel. "Widen this road" just doesn't work everywhere.

More clever solutions need to be taken into account, such as:
- Route guidance: spread the traffic more evenly over the network
- Flexible work times: spread traffic over time, leading to longer, but much less intense peak hours.
- Ramp metering: creates small queues at onramps to prevent a large queue on the mainline. It's better to wait in a 2 minute jam than in a 10 minute one...
- Reversible lanes: reverse the direction of lanes depending on the demand. Benificial in areas where there is a great imbalance in the peak hour directionality
- Use alternative intersection setups, like roundabouts or displaced left turn intersections. Some intersection types perform better than others.

Another really counter-intuitive solution is this: remove some intersections or intersection connections. When I was in the USA, I saw one of the main downsides of the grid: lots of intersections, also on main road. There was an intersection like every 100 meters. In the Netherlands, we usually have main roads with considerably less intersections than others and there is a much more clear hierarchy. I build my cities this way too. On these main roads, there is much less risk of stopping, despite having stoplight controlled intersections, all due to the fact there are just less intersections you have to stop. Just check out the road network of Zoetermeer and see how the hierarchy is set up there. I think this is a well-planned city...

Best,
Maarten

Stack them. Make it cheap to cross the city, and expensive to enter during rush hour.

Even more important would be to make driving as unappealing as possible, (sending cars on a zigzag course while cyclists, pedestrians, trams, busses and emergency vehicles are given a straight path.)

Honestly, I wish many roads in Seattle could have reversible lanes. This is especially true with those annoying roads that used to have 4 lanes that were 9 feet wide but were turned into a TLA-3 with bike lanes. I would be all for making these into ARD-3s, especially up hills where you need a climbing lane to pass slow vehicles like buses and trucks.

Also, Seattle really could use some more roundabouts, especially at 5-way intersections. Those get really complicated when you just go by the all-way stop rule. Even up where I live, there's a lot of 4-way stops that should be converted into roundabouts, especially in cases where the majority of traffic is going in one direction. That's where roundabouts work best IMO. If anything, I bet when I become a civil engineer, I'm going to be designing A LOT of roundabouts. :D

Speaking of Seattle, I just came across this highly entertaining, though in the end slightly depressing article Seattles unbelievable transportation megaproject fustercluck (http://grist.org/cities/seattles-unbelievable-transportation-megaproject-fustercluck/) which is about an alternative to this stretch of elevated highway and everything that can and will go wrong.  ::)

(https://grist.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/seattle-downtown-waterfront-wsdot.jpg)

We can never succeed at building a tunnel without running into a host of problems. The only tunnels built recently without any major problems are the Sound Transit light rail tunnels. The big problem is is that WSDOT could use some better engineers.

The other tunnel that ran into dirtloads of problems is the discharge tunnel built from a sewage treatment plant called Brightwater ten miles away from Puget Sound and they built a tunnel to Puget Sound. There were issues with sinkholes, stalled TBMs and tons of other headaches. One wonders why we keep on building tunnels in the Seattle area! You really have to, with all the hills.

Problems with the TBM and engineering aside, when the initial plans were being made in 2007 no one - citizens, council and engineers alike - wanted to build a tunnel in the first place. But unfortunately lobbying proved effective once again and the city ended up with a tunnel nonetheless. That's the fustercluck-y part of it imho. Basically a scaremongering tactic which boils down to this: 

QuoteTurns out most people simply can't fathom getting rid of an urban highway. No matter how many examples (http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014/may/what-other-cities-learned-tearing-down-highways?single=1) to the contrary accumulate, people instinctively think that tearing down a highway means that all the same traffic will just spill onto side streets.

You're right though, tunneling is hard.  (http://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/410-monumental-amsterdam-buildings)

The thing with the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project is that city and state officials kept flip-flopping between saying that a new viaduct would be built and a new tunnel would be built. Nobody could make up their mind! I think that Seattle's mayor wanted a tunnel while our governor wanted a viaduct, so there was constant disagreement between the city and state. At one point it seemed clear that the viaduct would end up being replaced with another viaduct, but then some lobbyists came and convinced the state to build a bored tunnel instead. (the original tunnel idea was a cut-and cover tunnel, not a bored tunnel) So, that's what ended up happening, despite the stupidity of building a tunnel that big under the city. I think a lot of people, myself included, knew this was a stupid idea from the beginning.

Quote from: Flatron on December 18, 2014, 08:44:29 AM
Even more important would be to make driving as unappealing as possible, (sending cars on a zigzag course while cyclists, pedestrians, trams, busses and emergency vehicles are given a straight path.)

I'd say definitely, this is the most important part, because that's in the end how I think car-dependency will be diminished, without specifically targeting people who cannot afford congestion pricing. The last thing we want is making car-driving even more of a status and money thing.

In my hometown the central roads have been rebuilt from common roads to car-allowed bike lanes, where car drivers are expected to drive at bike speed, which has improved the city environment a lot. Yet this rhymes badly when parliament recently decided to go forward and spend the equivalent of 6 billion dollars on a motorway tunnel. What's more, part of the funding is to come from the congestion tax, but requires such an amount of congestion before it reaches its funding targets that it'll simultaneously mean that Sweden fails its climate responsibilities. So yes, I do recognize the Seattle frustration just all too well.

(edit: moderation is a virtue... $%Grinno$%)

Quote from: Themistokles on December 17, 2014, 10:43:04 PM
Developing countries everywhere are building their own interstate systems, because they follow an outdated road-model. Getting stuck in traffic is going to lead developing nations nowhere, except giving them emissions problems, debts and an unsustainable infrastructure.

Recent developments in highway building are much more innovative in getting highways built properly with plenty of space available. Many highways are being built, frontage road first, with huge medians for future main-lanes. Examples of where space constriction have been overcome, include the Wichita Falls downtown freeway and Dallas' Central Expy widening project. The newest innovation is High Occupancy/Toll lanes with adjustable rates, which helps pay for the improvements, so the remarks about debt/expense is rather moot, because these highways can literally pay for themselves. Some of these places where space is a concern, it doesn't appear that there are any high rise buildings that need to be blown up..just a bunch of homes that are too close to the highway. Other viable solutions include double-deckers, rerouting rail lines that run parallel to a highway, and building outer loops around cities. This in addition to my aforementioned idea about removing 18-wheelers from designated highways during rush hour, which could optimize road usage, makes this far from an "outdated road-model".

yeah, building even more roads is obviously THE solution...
//irony off

Quote from: roadgeek on January 05, 2015, 02:17:39 PM

Quote from: Themistokles on December 17, 2014, 10:43:04 PM
Developing countries everywhere are building their own interstate systems, because they follow an outdated road-model. Getting stuck in traffic is going to lead developing nations nowhere, except giving them emissions problems, debts and an unsustainable infrastructure.

Recent developments in highway building are much more innovative in getting highways built properly with plenty of space available. Many highways are being built, frontage road first, with huge medians for future main-lanes. Examples of where space constriction have been overcome, include the Wichita Falls downtown freeway and Dallas' Central Expy widening project. The newest innovation is High Occupancy/Toll lanes with adjustable rates, which helps pay for the improvements, so the remarks about debt/expense is rather moot, because these highways can literally pay for themselves. Some of these places where space is a concern, it doesn't appear that there are any high rise buildings that need to be blown up..just a bunch of homes that are too close to the highway. Other viable solutions include double-deckers, rerouting rail lines that run parallel to a highway, and building outer loops around cities. This in addition to my aforementioned idea about removing 18-wheelers from designated highways during rush hour, which could optimize road usage, makes this far from an "outdated road-model".

This is so stupid that I don't even.

@ builder: Try to find a little more elegant way to make your point next time. I really don't want to have to lock this thread because people can't discuss city planning in a civil manner  &mmm

Interesting information on the Alaskan Way replacement, Vortext. Having lived next to the area of Milwaukee mentioned in the "What Other Cities Learned" article I can say that the removal of that highway completely changed the way I thought about urban highways. There is one thing that bothers me about the people taking credit for all these bike/walking/park/mass transit areas replacing highways though: they are the same people vehemently opposing the construction of the highways whose later destruction made their new urban spaces possible.

These kind of things always make me think of what the best way to minimize the negative impact of highways on their immediate surroundings is. Conventional viaducts seem the worst, followed by sunken, and then double-decker viaducts (I accept that the Alaskan Way had some negative effect of separating the city from its waterfront but a relatively narrow strip of shaded parking area doesn't seem too terrible and it's a relatively attractive structure). Then there's highways through buildings or buildings built over highways which seems like a quite rarely used technique that should be able to achieve most of the advantages of tunneling at lower cost and finally the option of tunneling itself which shouldn't have almost any negative effect besides cost. Visually aesthetic sound reduction structures are a neat option too. Of course there remains the option of not having urban highways but it's hard for me to believe they should all go. The cities mentioned have other highways which could be related to the success of their removals. And anecdotally I remember driving to downtown VanCouver from the south, which doesn't have freeway access, and it was just terrible.

I checked out Wichita Falls--wow. Interesting highway but it's hard to understand why they took the effort to build it over a road rather than over the parking lots that are everywhere else in that "downtown". I hope I'm not offending anyone from there but I actually feel really sad for the 100k or so people living there. In any case it's quite well-established that elevated highways lower property values and divide neighborhoods, whether or not they're built over a road with local access.

Quote from: builder on January 06, 2015, 07:43:22 AM
This is so stupid that I don't even.

This is known as the Abusive Language Fallacy.

Quote from: Flatron on January 06, 2015, 04:43:30 AM
yeah, building even more roads is obviously THE solution...
//irony off

Well, Dallas tried the rail solution as well as expanding Central Expy, and look at the results. They still keep trying to pour $$$$ into this Dart rail boondoggle, but it hasn't resolved the congestion.

Alright everyone, which ever mode of transport you prefer, cool your engines . .

Bit of topic but here's a neat map (http://code.waag.org/buildings/#51.6884,5.3088,16) I came across. Anyone want to take a guess which city it is? The info is a bit misleading, instead of year of construction it should rather say year of completion since construction of the cathedral started way earlier than 1900-1930. At any rate, it's a nice way to visualize city developments. Also crazy to see the amount of development that has taken place over the last 50 years or so. Astonishing really.

Quote from: roadgeek on January 05, 2015, 02:17:39 PM

Quote from: Themistokles on December 17, 2014, 10:43:04 PM
Developing countries everywhere are building their own interstate systems, because they follow an outdated road-model. Getting stuck in traffic is going to lead developing nations nowhere, except giving them emissions problems, debts and an unsustainable infrastructure.

Recent developments in highway building are much more innovative in getting highways built properly with plenty of space available. Many highways are being built, frontage road first, with huge medians for future main-lanes. Examples of where space constriction have been overcome, include the Wichita Falls downtown freeway and Dallas' Central Expy widening project. The newest innovation is High Occupancy/Toll lanes with adjustable rates, which helps pay for the improvements, so the remarks about debt/expense is rather moot, because these highways can literally pay for themselves. Some of these places where space is a concern, it doesn't appear that there are any high rise buildings that need to be blown up..just a bunch of homes that are too close to the highway. Other viable solutions include double-deckers, rerouting rail lines that run parallel to a highway, and building outer loops around cities. This in addition to my aforementioned idea about removing 18-wheelers from designated highways during rush hour, which could optimize road usage, makes this far from an "outdated road-model".

How different is this kind of planning in the Netherlands; not only do we have little space available, there is a whole procedure of permits to just demolish one building, or to build anyway. Protests can delay construction quite a lot. One part of the motorway A4 (for which no houses had to be demolished), was delayed for 40(!) years:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fupload.wikimedia.org%2Fwikipedia%2Fcommons%2F8%2F8c%2FA4_Delft_Zuid_2007.jpg&hash=2f30c6b3946136af8cf9336dd5387729d34ffe53)

Quote
Midden Delfland missing link

The A4 connects three of the four most important cities in The Netherlands, but there are still sections missing. A notorious 7000 meter gap lies between Delft and Schiedam, which causes huge traffic jams on the adjacent A13 connecting The Hague and Rotterdam. Plans to close this gap were made decades ago, but there has not been any construction yet.

Overview
1957: Road 19 adopted in the national highway plan of 1957.
1965: Route set by the government.
1968: Start of the construction of the embankment where the road is supposed to run across
1976: Government stopped the construction of the A4.
1985: Government voted in favor of construction.
1998: Finances for A4 diverted to construction of railway tunnels.
2006: Costs of the construction have risen to 700 million for 7 kilometers.
2009: Dutch government decided that construction will start.
2010: September 2: record of decision by minister Camiel Eurlings.
2011: July 6: the Council of State dismisses all appeals against the record of decision.
2011: autumn: construction will commence.
2015: motorway is planned to be completed.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4_motorway_%28Netherlands%29

One doesn't simply build more roads...

At vortex: Den bosch.

I guess a highway is suppose to bypass an area as oppose to providing direct access as some highways do IMHO. I know in Melbourne that there where four freeways ending in the CBD / Downtown Limits before CityLink came through and connected 3 of them together. The Eastern Freeway (The last of the Freeways to be connected) has been a constant battle to get built with large amounts of opposition. In the end I guess Freeways are falling out of favor because of the large amounts of space required and the issue of Peak Car and Peak Oil. If I was designing a Freeway network from scratch I would design a orbital Freeway around the metro area with connections to major routes both into and out of the city.

I think there is a growing move towards public transport systems since they are becoming more popular and accessible too people (and you don't need all the overheads of owning your own car). Europe is especially embracing this and other countries and continents are starting to follow suit.

You only need to look a four way interchange design to find that there is a large amount of space taken up that could have been used for other purposes.

Just my opinion

-eggman121   

Quote from: MandelSoft on January 06, 2015, 10:43:00 AM
How different is this kind of planning in the Netherlands; not only do we have little space available, there is a whole procedure of permits to just demolish one building, or to build anyway. Protests can delay construction quite a lot. One part of the motorway A4 (for which no houses had to be demolished), was delayed for 40(!) years:

Yeah we run into some of that here in Austin as well. Highways require a five year Environmental Impact Study. The anti-road activists are fighting to keep the study from being completed on a stretch of 45 from I-35 to a future Mo-Pac extension. I ran into an excellent article where Austin residents mistakenly believed that if they did not build more highways, people would not come to live here.

Quote from: w_swietwoot on January 06, 2015, 11:03:50 AM
At vortex: Den bosch.

Bingo! Which brings me to: canals! Now you may think: the Dutch and their canals, surely it's a thing of the past - in which case you're quite mistaken. Last month a 9km re-route of the Zuid-Willemsvaart  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuid-Willemsvaart) was completed, which means 1) it can now handle larger container ships and 2) the center of Den Bosch will have less through traffic (i.e. no more excuse for being late because the drawbridge was open  ::)). Yesterday control over the old parts of the canal and the various locks and bridges therein was officially handed over from provincial to municipal government. Below a map which shows the new route. All in all it took around two years to complete the new stretch of canal, which included new bridges and some major changes to the existing road network.

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rijkswaterstaat.nl%2Fimages%2FOverzichtskaart%2520omlegging%2520ZWV_tcm174-301350.JPG&hash=823c1d0d02c27160aae8daba3b4fbbf3ff02b6b6)

I'm so jealous of the lowland countries--I think the last route they opened around here was for husky dog sledding or cross country skiing :D

Came across an interesting comparison of airport size to traffic volume (http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/01/daily-chart-5) recently which I found particularly useful as I've spent most of my SC4 time lately scheming up an airport.

Was going through my bookmarks looking yet again for bripizza's downloads and came across this (http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/09novdec/01.cfm). Says it's an archive of a magazine so should count as current events ;)  If you're interested in professional literature from a road geek's dream project....

A project (http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bs-bz-amtrak-meeting-20141119-story.html#page=1) to replace an obsolete portion of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor in Baltimore is a bit interesting. But should they use rail tunnels or road over sunken rail dual network pieces?!

I vote the tunnel, just too bad SC4's can't curve like that  %wrd

In the Finnish news today  ::)

Up to 500 reindeer killed annually by trains – no fences planned (http://yle.fi/uutiset/up_to_500_reindeer_killed_annually_by_trains__no_fences_planned/7971310)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.yle.fi%2Fuutiset%2Fsapmi%2Farticle7880440.ece%2FALTERNATES%2Fw580%2FJunabohccot&hash=0e5f63f6b5a5669d7f70c38ba96c49980b4ba30d)

"that's up to the reindeer herders' cooperatives"

pfff.

It'd be pretty grizzly to be one of the train drivers, huh? I've hit a couple with my car and that was bad enough. I bet they'll build the fences now though, since it's attracted major public attention and Finland has a pretty strong animal rights track record.

So how would the reindeer move around then ?

Maybe combine it with some bridges/tunnels along the reindeers routes.

Wow, I remembered a similar strategy being used very successfully in Africa to reduce problems caused by elephants crossing human-settled areas dividing their habitats so I looked up elephant bridge for more information--but it turns out this problem isn't limited to reindeer (http://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/train-mows-down-kills-7-elephants-in-bengal-111822.html) and in that case you have to think the train didn't come out of the crash in great shape either after 7 elephants' worth of collision.

There's basically only two railroads in Finland's reindeer husbandry zone, starting in the south a little north of Oulu, forking at Tornio near the top of the Gulf of Bothnia toward the northern tip of Europe and the northwest tip of the White Sea respectively, but in both cases ending a couple/few hours from the fork. Reindeer might want to cross but certainly wouldn't need to or suffer from overly-small habitat. I'd be more worried about wildlife wandering onto the tracks at road crossings and getting stuck between the fences than not being able to cross at the roads...

Maybe fences and additional ecoducts could solve the problem?

Also:

Quote from: noahclem on May 05, 2015, 12:19:47 PM
There's basically only two railroads in Finland's reindeer husbandry zone, starting in the south a little north of Oulu, forking at Tornio near the top of the Gulf of Bothnia toward the northern tip of Europe and the northwest tip of the White Sea respectively...

Thanks to modding ETS2, I know exactly where each of these places are without looking them up on a map :D

It will be interesting when my parents get back too see what impressions they get of European cities. They are is Amsterdam at the moment in the Netherlands. They will be visiting other parts of Europe and will end up in Paris.

-eggman121

On Funen the scale of the animals are a bit different:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2F8gKxbTq.jpg&hash=d4da34b7f95c36a11cc22685f497c916c73c8e14)
There is used 2.4 mill € on a passage just for mouse.
The Hazel dormouse is an endangered specie.

That's a highly-valued mouse :D  Neat overpass/tunnel system though and I bet it allows a lot of other animals to cross, including the larger ones that are most vulnerable to habitat fragmentation. I've had an interest in doing those in SC4 forever (note that in this case the tunnel fits Rivit's mod almost exactly :D )

Some roundabout fun in France:

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21697235-invented-britain-modern-traffic-circles-invade-frances-hexagon-french-revolution (http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21697235-invented-britain-modern-traffic-circles-invade-frances-hexagon-french-revolution)

Interesting article, though FWIW I hate American roundabouts with a strong passion. Not the least because of the insane driving practices that accompany them, and the fact that most of the American ones are supposed to be high capacity, but aren't.

Personally, I don't mind single lane roundabouts and I think roundabouts are best when traffic is going in predominately one direction. But I've read that multi-lane roundabouts can be highly unsafe because people don't seem to be using them correctly.

Hahah, yes, roundabouts ...  ::) Currently very popular here in Slovenia too, but (I think) mostly because of total lack of motivation to make a proper intersection. As compdude mentioned, people are using them incorrectly most of the time, but hey, they prevent those situations where you step on the gas to catch that yellow light ...

I don't mind American roundabouts too much, other than that they seem to be built in clusters instead of just at locations that would be particularly appropriate. And I've never seen a two-lane roundabout in the US, which is probably a good thing. The biggest difference I see between US and European drivers relates to how much education and effort is needed to get a driving license: I paid $15 to get my license at age 15 after cursory training and an easy test in South Dakota while my wife paid over €1000 including months of courses to get hers in Finland where you have to be 18 to drive. I don't like how difficult it is to get a license in Finland (and I switched from driving to biking due to all the other expenses related to driving here) but it is noticeable how much more competent the average driver seems to be, and at least you don't have to worry about people not knowing how to use a roundabout here. We have a 4-lane per direction freeway in Sioux Falls and I swear the slowest drivers were always in the two leftmost lanes  :facepalm: The main use for them that I like in the US is to replace intersections that get lots of accidents. And, of course, in cities with intersections with more than four connecting streets.

Hate to scare you, but there's a 2 lane roundabout not too far from me here in Orange County. There's also one that is 2-3 lanes in Long Beach in LA County.

I did a bunch of research on them during my council campaign, as the state DOT was basically forcing a pair of them on us on the main highway going north out of town.  I was skeptical of the idea, so I started poking around the state's accident statistic database.  Long story short, I posted the stats on my campaign site and embarrassed ODOT pretty badly.  Not that it's particularly difficult to do so--ODOT once blew up a whale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7D-pikXNU). 

My findings were that the last roundabout ODOT put on a major highway caused a long-term 150% increase in accidents with no reduction in accident severity, and that a $9 million+ roundabout that the current ODOT Region Manager was in on in his last job had almost 200 wrecks in five years.  Not exactly something to brag about.  Needless to say, I've become pretty strongly opposed to roundabouts.

-Alex

Quote from: threestooges on April 27, 2016, 06:34:46 PM
Hate to scare you, but there's a 2 lane roundabout not too far from me here in Orange County. There's also one that is 2-3 lanes in Long Beach in LA County.

That's the roundabout on the Hwy 1, right? That's a really confusing one, and people always seems to take it too fast.

My biggest issue with roundabouts is that because people know that the roundabout has the right of way, they don't signal. But lots of people forger to yield on entering, which means that, in America at least, the whole thing is a terrible guessing game when is comes to figuring out when to enter, and whether or not the oncoming traffic is going the main direction, or if they're going off to the side.

I will admit, though, that they do look particularly nice in SC4, but that's the result of hard work by the NAM team.

Quote from: APSMS on April 27, 2016, 07:27:20 PM
But lots of people forger to yield on entering, which means that, in America at least, the whole thing is a terrible guessing game when is comes to figuring out when to enter, and whether or not the oncoming traffic is going the main direction, or if they're going off to the side.

Yield.  That's the problem right there, of course; in America, Yield signs in general get ignored, at roundabouts and traditional intersections alike.  One wonders how some of us would fare in the UK, where Give Way (read: Yield) signs are far more common than Stop signs or traffic lights, and roundabouts are ubiquitous.

From what I can tell, the concept of roundabouts is completely sound - it's just that American drivers completely ignore yield signs almost every single time. It's like the signs don't exist, regardless of where they are (intersections, roundabouts, merging traffic, etc). Add to this the fact that they are not covered in the driving manual (at least the one for my state) and you are not required to know how to navigate one to get a license. This makes them dangerous even for people that do know how to drive through them. In my area the only reason they ever build roundabouts (and they are always small) is for decoration in an attempt to make something look "fancy."

I see people do any number of stupid things at a very simple and straightforward one in the middle of a shopping center parking lot that I frequent. I've had people pull out in front of me (can't read a yield sign), get in the extra lane designated for "right turn only" only to cut over in front of me because they didn't want to turn right, and just plain go the wrong direction and almost have a head-on collision with me because they weren't even looking at the road. I've grown to hate the things not because they're bad, but because all of the drivers here are so horrendously awful that they can't navigate them properly.

Speaking from an Australian point of view I know that it would depend on the design of the roundabout and the familiarity of using them.

I for one am a very cautious driver but there are a lot of silly people on the roads in Australia (Especially when wildlife like kangaroos come into play), There are lots of them where I live.

Aside from that tangent, It really depends on what driving conditions you are use too. I agree with Alex that they can be a bad idea but it depends on the locality and if a roundabout is warranted. Some are needed, some not so much. Depends on design also (Sight distance and location)

In Melbourne you even have confusing roundabouts with several exits and trams running through the middle. There are examples of when a better system should be considered.

Story short, If there is low traffic but consistent in both directions than a roundabout is fine. Once you get to high level traffic alternatives should be implemented. 

-eggman121

Quote from: APSMS on April 27, 2016, 07:27:20 PM
....the whole thing is a terrible guessing game when is comes to figuring out when to enter, and whether or not the oncoming traffic is going the main direction, or if they're going off to the side....

In New Zealand our single-laned roundabouts rules are quite simple

•slow down as you come up to the roundabout and be prepared to give way
•give way to all vehicles that will cross your path from your right as you enter the roundabout

Multi-laned roundabouts have an extra rule

•slow down as you come up to the roundabout and be prepared to give way
• be in the correct lane for where you want to go
•give way to all vehicles that will cross your path from your right as you enter the roundabout.

There are a few more rules regarding when you should use your indicators, but that's mainly so people will know if you are going straight thru the roundabout or turning off.

:)

For me, as a non-American, this video (https://youtu.be/odF4GSX1y3c) was really shocking. I mean, I know about America and highways, but the extent to which politicians and especially corporations were able to carry these plans out really baffles me.

Especially interesting it became when I reached the comparison (https://youtu.be/odF4GSX1y3c?t=2m56s) between Detroit now and in the 1930's. What on earth happened to all the houses? Demolition is so expensive, how on earth were they able to find federal means to support this?

One of the main counterarguments to railway expansion and high-speed intercity rail in the USA, that I hear today, is that it would be exorbitantly expensive to demolish buildings to make way for rails approaching the city centres, that have to reach downtown if they are to gain significant ridership. Why would it be so much more expensive today than it was in the 20th century? And looking at the aerial photographs shown in this video, there seems not to be many buildings left to demolish, anyway.

Quote from: Themistokles on February 25, 2017, 02:56:39 PM
For me, as a non-American, this video (https://youtu.be/odF4GSX1y3c) was really shocking. I mean, I know about America and highways, but the extent to which politicians and especially corporations were able to carry these plans out really baffles me.

Especially interesting it became when I reached the comparison (https://youtu.be/odF4GSX1y3c?t=2m56s) between Detroit now and in the 1930's. What on earth happened to all the houses? Demolition is so expensive, how on earth were they able to find federal means to support this?

One of the main counterarguments to railway expansion and high-speed intercity rail in the USA, that I hear today, is that it would be exorbitantly expensive to demolish buildings to make way for rails approaching the city centres, that have to reach downtown if they are to gain significant ridership. Why would it be so much more expensive today than it was in the 20th century? And looking at the aerial photographs shown in this video, there seems not to be many buildings left to demolish, anyway.

Idk how the land clearance and eviction works in US, but here in Jakarta most of the inner city project including highways really badly delayed because of land clearances and evictions. The problem is because people insist to stay where they currently live until they got the money exchange higher than the market prices of area. I find it is rather interesting how they build wide ground-level or semi-ground highways going through the densely populated urban center. like how much money they give if same system done here.

From what I know most of newer transportation infrastructure through the urban center or dense area either its road based like freeway/highway/expressway or rail based project uses the existing road or rail corridors just made it off the ground as it underground or completely elevated to avoiding money and time costly land clearances. This pattern happens in several emerging cities in the developing world and maybe also several major expanding developed world cities.

On the other hand as well as the example in Boston from video, Seoul did a project to convert or should I say restore it's elevated expressway in its inner city into river-park as seen here: http://wwf.panda.org/?204454/Seoul-Cheonggyecheon-river The differences here is that Boston just move the freeway below the ground while seoul did remove it completely except several pillars.

+-----------------------------+

Also I find this as interesting article: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-10-21/can-modern-megacity-bogot-get-without-subway
BRT or Bus Rapid Transit recently become trends to resolve the need of mass transit in big cities. Most of the policy makers done it due to the low cost and rather faster to make compared toward the rail based such as LRT, MRT/Metros/Subways. However, the drawbacks is its capacity lower than rail based transportation causes it to be easily overcrowded over times.
In my opinion is that BRT should be used in rather low to moderate transport corridor or as the downtown liners complementary toward the rail based mass transit as a feeders.

Since it's been in the news here a bit lately, I wonder what people think of the new West Gate Tunnel (http://wgtmap.u-c.com.au/imap02/index.html)? Is it necessary? Superfluous? Overdesigned? A terrible, terrible idea? Personally, I think it's all of those and more. My biggest problem is, surprisingly, a bit of redundant surface street connecting the new arterial to Footscray Road via a small stretch of road with two sets of lights. In my opinion, it's as useful as a pagoda roof on an aircraft carrier.

Huh - I heard about Sydney getting a new tunnel under the harbour to connect to the Northern Beaches. I guess what ever Sydney gets Melbourne gets.... I've seen this on a provincial scale in Alberta between Calgary and Edmonton.

Quote from: Wiimeiser on April 15, 2017, 05:35:20 AM
Since it's been in the news here a bit lately, I wonder what people think of the new West Gate Tunnel (http://wgtmap.u-c.com.au/imap02/index.html)? Is it necessary? Superfluous? Overdesigned? A terrible, terrible idea? Personally, I think it's all of those and more. My biggest problem is, surprisingly, a bit of redundant surface street connecting the new arterial to Footscray Road via a small stretch of road with two sets of lights. In my opinion, it's as useful as a pagoda roof on an aircraft carrier.

I don't really like the idea of the western distributor since it gives the tollway provider (Transurban) more a footprint and a longer tolling lease. I avoid citylink like the plague since it costs so much just to be stuck in traffic. I personally would use the Westen Ring Road and surface streets than use citylink. My personal opinion however.

Since we a talking about this I think something needs to be done in this space since you can't have the port of Melbourne so far away from any arterial.

I personally would like to see the rail network expanded. Especially out in the west.

-eggman121   

My personal opinion, as some of you might have guessed by now ( ()stsfd() ) is that highway/motorway/freeway/tollway/expressway expansions are always

• actively unnecessary
• counterproductive
• a hazard to air quality, nature and health
• more than a waste of money

Given that we are already beyond our planetary boundaries we should use the money to

• create attractive urban and denser suburban areas
• provide people with an alternative transport mod
• expand railways, and electrify using renewable energy
• provide people with safe biking opportunities

etc. There are so many things that can be done to ease the transition away from fossil fuel dependence that we really don't need to spend valuable resources on digging ourselves deeper into the pit we're already in.

(OK, I got a little involved up there ::) )

In hindsight it's clear that American urban freeway building made a lot of mistakes. The videos do an excellent job pointing out the worst of them and I agree with the vast majority of the content. That said, I do love highways and cars, though I haven't driven mine for about 15 months (too expensive to register, insure, and inspect, plus the heater isn't working which is rather important up here). I especially love tunnels as a solution for urban highways though they're often prohibitively expensive. Was really fun seeing the road system in Tromso, Norway, where not only were the thoroughfares almost all underground but much of the parking as well. Elon Musk's "boring company" is also very interesting and presumably his tunnels would save money on ventilation were they to allow only electric cars.

The tide is already turning against vehicle emissions in urban areas and within a couple decades it may be that the idea of biking or walking next to emission-spewing cars seems a lot like eating at a restaurant next to smokers does now. Shared and self-driving cars may drastically reduce the need for parking. I'm about as pro-rail as someone can be (while still liking cars) but I don't see the end of cars in cities anytime soon. Cleaner, safer cars limited to certain areas for through traffic and not taking up half the landscape with parking lots will make things a lot better for drivers and non-drivers alike.

And those giant, disruptive right-of-ways carved out for the highways in urban centers? They may just end up being the cheapest and least disruptive ways to get high speed rail into more city centers. Renewal projects like Boston's can make those corridors into pleasant, greener spaces that would never have appeared without the old highways cutting a gash through the cityscape.

After that Fast 8 film though, and Charlize Theron hacks all those people's cars, I can see why more folk at least won't buy into this whole auto-park/driverless car thing. Money is wasted on building two bike lane wide paved paths next to pavement, and what do these tight dressed speed cyclists all do? They all go in the road slowing what's supposed to be 45 mph traffic down. Of course I pick a fight with these guys.

This (http://statements.qld.gov.au/Statement/2016/9/16/bruce-highway-upgrade-features-australian-first-design) is interesting, they want to make this interchange (https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-26.776058,153.0424204,2987m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e4?hl=en) into a DDI...

Well, it appears the North East Link's eastern option (the VTA proposal via Coldstream to avoid building tunnels) is too destructive for the environment to even be considered and may in fact be illegal. It's clear it's been dropped entirely, but I can't seem to find any information on this. Is anyone else having any luck?

Quote from: noahclem on April 18, 2017, 01:58:05 PMAnd those giant, disruptive right-of-ways carved out for the highways in urban centers? They may just end up being the cheapest and least disruptive ways to get high speed rail into more city centers. Renewal projects like Boston's can make those corridors into pleasant, greener spaces that would never have appeared without the old highways cutting a gash through the cityscape.

Well this statement indeed very valid if you can see what became the trends here in Jakarta. Almost every current highway toward the suburban cities became the route of currently in build LRT projects (https://english.kontan.co.id/news/jakarta-lrt-set-to-operate-in-2019) (picture below) even the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project also planned to use the side of highway in order to save money and time from land clearance. Maybe in future we can see american city has HSR in every interstate as well?  :D
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.viva.co.id%2Fthumbs2%2F2017%2F02%2F14%2F58a2c26fcec19-pembangunan-proyek-lrt-terancam-berhenti_663_382.jpg&hash=55e0010f55d1297c052e6b442722c0b8ad25b615)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fassets.kompas.com%2Fdata%2Fphoto%2F2017%2F02%2F09%2F162033720170209-133000780x390.jpg&hash=d3a29f54b6a2b4baa550a869464421720635490c)
as can see from both image, the LRT is build right next to highway

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.apaja.id%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F01%2Flrt.jpg&hash=029fdde31fa4d3efaa31b76e44d1f436b344e165)
here from this map can be seen that the LRT route is indeed follow the current highway route.

In Copenhagen area a new rail line into the city is been build. From the junction at Ringsted and until around 4-6 km from the main train station the new rail line (Copenhagen - Ringsted) is following the highways.
The area has been zone as transport corridor long time ago, which makes it easier to expropriate the ground along the rail line.
People would have known it for a long time, that the area was reserved for motorway or railroad.

About them freeways...

Read about a new 5-level interchange in Chongqin, China in the paper yesterday.
Had to look it up and this is what I found: http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/02/mind-blowing-overpass-with-five-layers-20-ramps-and-eight-different-directions-6679073/ (http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/02/mind-blowing-overpass-with-five-layers-20-ramps-and-eight-different-directions-6679073/)  :o

Anybody up for a challenge with the RHW?  :satisfied:

We could always try one of these!!         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD-0QnUlLOQ

The 5-Level interchange documented would require some new pieces and code to get the right footprint. Not an easy feat.

Quote from: 911Diva on June 08, 2017, 03:50:41 PM
We could always try one of these!!

Anyway the DDI and other RHW/ REW to surface road intersections are planned however.

Maybe as early as NAM 37.

-eggman121

That 5-Level interchange is just crazy.

Try to document some error on a column, it the 163rd on the expressway to the .... argh ?
Hope they have figure out a good way to make inspections and make the follow documentations.

Not sure I would like to use it..... " just went part by off ramp"

Quote from: eggman121 on June 08, 2017, 04:07:33 PM
The 5-Level interchange documented would require some new pieces and code to get the right footprint. Not an easy feat.
...

Just to be clear, my "challenge" didn't refer to the NAM team.
I think I should have gone with this :popcorn: in stead of :satisfied: in my post

You guys are doing an amazing job as it is, and I don't think anybody is waiting for a 5th level for the RHW.

I just added the crazy diamond intersections as a joke!!  One of my LT's at work showed us, I think I would have to surrender my driver's license if we built one of those in my city!!!

Seen that they are building a Diverging diamond Interchange, south of Odense (Denmark).
Not sure its that hard as you are more or less guided through.
Between the two light crosses, you can consider it as two one way streets passing each other:
(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tv2fyn.dk%2Ffiles%2Fstyles%2F16_9_huge%2Fpublic%2Fmedia%2F2017%2F06%2F%2F1002_frakoersel_52_motorvejen.jpg%3Fitok%3DiQJiK4WS&hash=cf6f99d35ceea50ddf3caab27a516524c5067941)

Its just a matter of following the lanes you are in.

Youtube - NCDOT: Diverging Diamond Interchange Visualization (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD-0QnUlLOQ)

I didn't understand how that diamond interchange worked until you put the last picture  :-[. Here roundabouts are more common. About the 5-level interchange, it looks impressive, but I think it stays on the opposite side of what I consider urban planning should be. I'm not a huge fan of motorways...

I took one the other day for work. It's okay. Though there was some congestion around it. Not sure if that was just general A86 congestion or specific to this interchange.

Quote from: Nanami on May 15, 2017, 07:54:16 AM

Quote from: noahclem on April 18, 2017, 01:58:05 PMAnd those giant, disruptive right-of-ways carved out for the highways in urban centers? They may just end up being the cheapest and least disruptive ways to get high speed rail into more city centers. Renewal projects like Boston's can make those corridors into pleasant, greener spaces that would never have appeared without the old highways cutting a gash through the cityscape.

Well this statement indeed very valid if you can see what became the trends here in Jakarta. Almost every current highway toward the suburban cities became the route of currently in build LRT projects (https://english.kontan.co.id/news/jakarta-lrt-set-to-operate-in-2019) (picture below) even the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project also planned to use the side of highway in order to save money and time from land clearance. Maybe in future we can see american city has HSR in every interstate as well?  :D

We may soon have no choice.  My hometown of San Antonio, Texas, has long been trying to set up a commuter rail link with Austin, a city 80 miles north, as the highway link of Interstate Highway 35, the "NAFTA Superhighway," has become hopelessly congested with traffic.  Most of the proposals have involved using the current Union Pacific freight rail right-of-way, the most direct existing rail route between the two cities, and shifting UP's freight traffic onto an alternate route.  Amtrak already uses UP's lines for its long-distance, bi-weekly service to Chicago, but on the condition that UP's freight traffic has priority.  Union Pacific will not allow its slower freight service to share tracks with a commuter system whose trains need higher critical priority, and, while UP is willing to transfer ownership of its tracks to a commuter rail system in exchange for an alternate route, they insist that any alternate route not create any significant increase in its own freight transit times.  San Antonio, Austin, and their Lone Star Rail project had been looking for that alternate route and a means to finance it.

Union Pacific ended involvement in the Lone Star Rail project last year, as it was ultimately seen that an alternate route matching UP's current time requirements cannot be found.  Stretching between San Antonio and Austin are a number of small cities and towns who are all undergoing expansions as the IH-35 corridor continues its rapid growth boom.  Many of those expanding suburban and exurban municipalities and residential communities do not wish to be bisected by a new freight rail line, and a number of them have enacted ordinances specifically designed to block such lines.  Such legal walls in layered depth, breakable only by a State legislature loath to interfere with local property control, has made the effort to free up Union Pacific's current rail right-of-way through the construction of an alternate bypass virtually impossible.

However, there is still a single, sufficiently wide, flatland right-of-way cutting straight through all the local municipal barriers via unified State control and which directly connects downtown San Antonio to downtown Austin:  Interstate Highway 35.  While the notion of running commuter trains down the median of the highway has already now been suggested, some have gone so far as to even suggest that if we are going to try to reconstruct the cross-cut profile of IH-35, we might as well bite the bullet now and just run elevated high-speed rail lines down or alongside the highway.  After all, the now burgeoning San Antonio-Austin IH-35 corridor, among the top growth corridors in the nation, is already promoted as a national planning target for future Federal investment in high-speed rail, so, with the right proposal pitched to unlock Federal transportation dollars, we can kill two bird with one stone.

The current Texas Central Railroad project to connect Dallas and Houston with high-speed rail has promoted the use of Japanese Nozomi N700 Shinkansen trainsets on its proposed line, and President Donald Trump, during the February visit of Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, boasted of his having corralled Japanese future investment in American rail infrastructure by actually highlighting plans for Japanese bullet trains in Texas.  I recall earlier that as President Barack Obama brought forth his national high-speed rail plan, Abe's then government, in a bid to export its newly developed maglev train technology in the face of HSR export competition from China, had offered to freely license and fully finance the first 40 miles of an American maglev line.  They were aiming at the time to connect Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, but 40 miles would already cover half of the roughly 80-mile distance distance between San Antonio and Austin.  Trump just gave another speech earlier this week promoting reinvestment in crumbling infrastructure, and while I think he was really just trying to change the topic from his political troubles just before a bombshell Senate hearing with the fired former FBI Director, I am willing to entertain the notion of testing Trump at his word here.  C'mon, Mr. President, make it happen:  let's build the nation's first maglev rail line between San Antonio and Austin!  Your friend Abe and the Japanese offered to provide the immediate technical know-how and can pay for half of it up front already!  "Make America Great Again"..."Texas Tokaidō, Banzai!"

Okay, none of that will really happen anytime soon, and even conventional commuter rail between San Antonio and Austin remains a struggle to establish.  But, it's entertaining to see how our options can be inadvertantly narrowed into something visionary.

You where wondering about Divergent Diamond Interchanges?

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2Fbtktu6m.jpg&hash=0f4e1370800a8d6fe44f44ede12461ce8d328463)

(https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FblEwwDl.jpg&hash=0c91f1d9db83847643887fcd01134bda716ba2e1)

Also posted in the REW Dev forum.

-eggman121