Traffic Engineers Gone Wild: Why Interchanges and Intersections are Getting Worse, Not Better
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- čas přidán 27. 06. 2024
- In a parallel universe, traffic engineering in the US has turned a corner, and we're starting to see street designs that prioritize walking, biking, and transit over a singular focus on the personal motor vehicle. And that universe exists in select, small pockets of the US -- but most places, traffic engineers are discovering ever more convoluted ways to save a few seconds of vehicle delay at the expense of having a livable urban environment. We're talking about intersections and interchanges you might design on Cities Skylines as a cruel joke -- but the joke is unfortunately all too real!
Today we're going on a field trip to find the most egregious examples of traffic engineering gone off the rails. We'll look at "innovative" interchange designs like the Single-Point Urban Interchange (SPUI), the Diverging Diamond Interchange (DDI), and the Contraflow Left. We'll also dive into signalized intersections, including the Michigan Left, the Displaced Left, and an intersection treatment so absurdly misguided it actually hasn't been implemented anywhere (YET) -- the Bowtie.
Be forewarned -- every single treatment here simply works "better" if there aren't any pesky pedestrians or bikes, and that leads to some pretty shocking implementations. Hope you enjoy!
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Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
- 10 Most Ginormous Freeway Interchanges In the US: • Top 10 GINORMOUS Freew...
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I was in Dallas recently for a conference. One of my coworkers was in the hotel across the highway from the conference centre. The interchange there "accommodated" pedestrians with a sign stating "No Pedestrians $250 fine for crossing". The only walking option to cross the highway was a 45 minute walk to the only interchange with a sidewalk, then 45 minutes back. The hotel was at most 500m from the conference centre.
ouch! could you share map coordinates?
Wow!
@@AppleCheese12345678 sounds about right! Downtown is better but the "suburb cities" yeah they're rough
I've seen some car brained places, but holy, that's another level
Much of the DFW suburbs doesn't have any public transit at all.
As a non-American, the thing that strikes me the most about these interchanges is how they are placed smack-dab IN THE MIDDLE OF A CITY. I'm used to only ever seeing them in a field, well outside urban areas, where two highways meet.
In most cases the urban development sprawled out after the freeways were built. Not to say they didn't build freeways into existing cities too.
You have some of it in Germany as well like in the Ruhr region. 95% of their surface area was bombed to sh*t in the war, so they got to start with a clean slate, not handicapped by an existing urban structure that reaches back into medieval times.
@@nvelsen1975 "handicapped" is an intrestig word for saying that a city can be designed in a way to be the most unlivebale and unstustainable way.
I rather keep our "handicapped" cities, that makes them walkable and liveable.
@@SuperNugget92
Yes, obviously you prefer a bad solution that fits your lifestyle, but not that of most people.
I prefer cities that have actual mobility and are liveable for most people instead of just a happy few who don't work or work inside the city, have no children and are happy to pay through their teeth for everything.
Then again, that's what separates an urban planner like me who's been taught we work for the people, from political ideologues who think a certain lifestyle should be enforced and people who don't fit into it by doing paid work, having children or having a car, should be punished.
Then again it makes sense, the real work that makes your yuppy neighbourhood survive happens outside of your view. Such as your latté bar, which is supplied using trucks. But those park up in the early morning when you're still in bed, so to you it makes perfect sense to scream that all streets near the latté bar should be closed to traffic.
@@nvelsen1975 Are you serious right now?
Do we watch the same channel?
Its not a secret that you can have good transportation for MOST people by not designing everything for the car. And its not my ideologies, certain lifestyle I'm talking about when i say livable city, its an objective measurement. (I'm living outside the city, but in the metropolitan area but my gf has an apartment in the city, fyi)
Its funny how you talk about that a certain lifestyle should not be enforced, when almost every city in northern America does exactly that, by enforcing a codependent lifestyle on everyone who does not happen to live and work in the city center. Idk what in what category you put me, when i talked about livable, some political ideologue who thinks xyz (didn't really catch what you meant by that tbh). You know nothing about me and you shouldn't project how you think i am on me.
In my area we have approx triple the people living than in the same are in for example houston. We do have highways and big roads and intersections, ontop of other infrastructure like streetcars, lightrail, subway, regionalrail, intercityrail and lots and lots of busses and lots of bikepaths, sswell as pedestrian only zones.
You can litterally live 35km (about 70 miles i guess) away form downtown and are still able to travel there in about 45 minutes by public transport. (you can also take your car, if you want to.) And on top of that, about 40% of that same area (where more people live) is forest. How is that possible? Its because of our "handicapped, medieval" infrastructure. Its typically a big city and then there are several smaller towns with their own respective "handicapped, medieval" cores, all connected by road AND rail.
I guess the equivalent of this is, that every suburban area has their respective shopping stroad/area with its malls and lifestylecenteres.
I could write on and on and on about this topic, but since you claim to be a city planner you likely know about that book called strong towns. If not i suggest you read up on it or watch a neat little series on youtube about it. You can find it on a channel called "not just bikes".
Have a nice day, bye :)
Traffic planners need to be taken for field trips to walk around on the stuff they produce. Nothing changes your perspective more than being the only pedestrian in one of these intersections. A Lot of people are clueless to the struggles of pedestrians because they have never been one themselves.
EXACTLY!!!!!!
Most of the time it's a political decision. They design a correct car mobility situation because that's needed, correctly split off pedestrian and cyclist traffic because the aim is mobility, not maximum death toll, then the politicians come in and cut away all solutions for pedestrian and cyclist traffic.
And if you're unlucky they mandate that you use a roundabout and give cyclists right of way because they heard that preached somewhere.
We dropped a project that started as removing a railway crossing on a safe, rapid north-south thoroughfare, and the politicians mandated no fewer than 9 changes, all of which reduced mobility, increased costs and decreased safety.
They ended create a weird double tunnel & 2 roundabout situation where it can take up to 20 minutes to get through what used to cost 3 minutes at best. There's been at least 11 accidents since then.
Shame on the company that went "Screw it, money's money" and designed the current solution instead.
@@nvelsen1975 there's always a dark running joke that if you get a civil engineering degree, all you're doing is guaranteing that you'll kill yourself. If we actually let engineers design roadways, we'd all live happier.
But politicians have personal agendas that typically enjoy things that will look big and flashy, give tons of money upfront (to send to their friends of course) and then years down the line those very same politicians will use the over bloated, over run, and over budget project as an excuse to cut funding to maintaining roads. Rinse and repeat.
To top it off, the average driver (read: average person) is fucking stupid. Anything more than "drive straight don't stop" and they start to fuck everything up. Hell they can't even just "drive straight". So while an intersection looks intuitive and may help increase flow rates on paper, you gotta remember to slam your head into cement, huff gasoline, then take off in your car. Only then will you understand the "average driver" and why they suck at being able to read signs, look at the road, or pay attention at all.
@@MommyKhaos
Well there's not really corruption around here. It's just that people whose only proven competency is "I got a couple hundred people to vote for me" and who must listen to every boomers' whim in order to be re-elected, don't make the best decision-makers.
It's much like what Churchill said in that regard: Democracy is the worst government system, except for all the other systems.
In a month I have to speak to a town council and I already know they want to change the zoning permissions I wrote, to please 2 people.
Which will delay constructing 78 houses for at least year.
We're currently inside a severe housing crisis with a shortage of 900.000.
transit requires higher density to justify having cars and freeways removed or reduced.
urbanists tend to suggest that we need transit for lower density areas and its not economically feasible to do such as ridership would just be too low.
at the same time road enthusiasts need to understand that not everyone can afford a car or have the income to keep up with ever increasing vehicle costs.
a balance needs to be achieved and traffic engineers actually did well with a lot of these interchanges that the video poster thinks is horrible.
the reality is cars were never glorified or accepted inorganically, i.e. through force, lies, lies by omission, manipulation or subversion like the urbanists want you to believe. they are just a innovation that got popular, like rubber bands, and post it notes. the car increased mobility and in turn the ability to have a better paying job, the car changed mobility and the global economy.
these are facts, not glorifications.
Two things annoy me more than anything -
1) forcing pedestrians to walk a mile out of their way to get to a crosswalk
2) traffic signals incapable of sensing a bicycle to trigger a left turn or green light (forcing the cyclist onto the sidewalk to press a Walk button that may or may not actually work)
You should do a video on Atlanta's I285/GA400 interchange, which is closing in on completion. It's a monster.
totally agree on your 2 points
Bikes should not be on roads over 25mph
@@gregoryeverson741 Virtually every US state's traffic code says otherwise.
frequently travel down that section of highway… it’s a beast
@@imafork4526 as a Canadian, I find it baffling that Boulder hwy is loaded with casinos. isn't there enough on the strip and Fremont st ? when is it enough?
Nothing traffic engineers love more than closing pedestrian crossings - it's so annoying to live near a state highway department controlled road (Powell Boulevard) and have to take two extra crossings because ODOT closed the west leg of the crosswalk at 21st to "be compliant" with the FWHA Signal Timing Manual. I'd love a dive into some even more content dedicated to the obscure engineering handbooks that drive transportation policy.
@Blake Belladonna Yes, Powell and 26th
Its amazing because theoretically the driving factor behind these manuals should be safety. (Atleast building code is all about life safety) And yet following most of these manuals only seems to make the area even more dangerous for people out of a car while optimizing for the car. (As driven by an incompetent driver)
i would guess that it's something like the traffic engineers are being evaluated on whether pedestrian fatalities are being reduced, regardless of how that happens, and an easy way to reduce pedestrian fatalities is to prevent pedestrians from crossing the street. it would not necessarily be in official engineering policy documents but rather the employee evaluation forms.
Yes, I can see the high fives at the office when they eliminate a pedestrian movement.
Grab a group of friends, go out with lights and vests every day at 5pm and shut down traffic as you all cross where its ideal for pedestrians. ODOT does the best work when bullied to hell and back.
I recently got an internship as a traffic engineer, and It sucks seeing how we just mindlessly recommend atrocious lane widening/ huge intersections. I wanted to try to get a more planning based internship where I could make recommendations I truly believe in, but I’m slowly leaning I can make a difference through this traffic work, and your videos are helping me with that, so thank you.
As a new traffic engineer out of college I can relate to your plight! I am hoping to go into planning sometime in the somewhat-distant future though.
That's great to hear. My sense is the traffic profession is more open-minded and even progressive-thinking overall than like 15 years ago. (Tells you how much worse it's been!) Younger people with better ideas joining, older people (not to be ageist haha) who have old school rigid traffic mindset retiring. And a few older dogs learning new tricks too! Glad you're finding your way.
Can you come solve my city's issues?👍
Come in from the Dark! Work to tear out roads instead
@@CityNerd the traffic engineering professor at my school teaches a summer class abroad in the netherlands to learn about their street designs
"Creative" engineers arent just traumatizing the roads. I'm a ranch hand and one thing I've noticed over the years is that the newer the tractor the more mutilated the tractor insides are thanks to the engineers. The much older tractors were easy to service swapping parts etc. But a lot of these modern tractors, baylor's, etc, you literally have to get a crane to lift the engine out in some cases. Then they over computerized everything so that way you're utterly dependent on the company, which makes the farmers so damn happy.
Yes! As a drivers ed teacher I can’t agree more! It’s shocking how many people don’t yield when turning left on a green light! It’s a hard habit to get some kids into, because they’re so used to seeing other people do it wrong.
Oh my god...the amount of people that just don't know what the word "yield" means...
in what backwards country do both left turning drivers and pedestrians have a green light at the same time?
@@ryano.5149 Honestly we need to start make more sidewalk bulges to make people yield as it’s nearly impossible to go around those at speed. Obviously, a sidewalk bulge must have a truck apron.
@@terner1234 I honestly think that's the case in most countries. Not every interchange is big enough to have dedicated left-turning/walking phases. If only 5-10 people need to cross the street, the left turning cars can easily wait 5 seconds before turning.
@@terner1234 In Sweden we do, if there are not specific turning light.
"Prison Yard Chic" "Alpha Intersection" 😁😁😁😁🤣 - your acid-flowery phrases are the best.
The greater setback allotment for signal cabinets versus transit stations are a perfect summary of how urban planners think in the United States.
"Merica!"
@@garygrinkevich6971 "Fuck yeah!"
Well, signal cabinets are hard and heavy and would pose a danger of injury to drivers who can't drive well enough to stay on the road. Pedestrians are squishy and light; Also, for some strange reason they barely use those pedestrian "accommodations", so why waste more money on them than the bare minimum?
I think when USA people hear "public transportation", all they actually hear is "communism"
I'd be curious to know the whole story though; maybe there were some private businesses near those bus stops that didn't want to give up land?
@@Zalis116 Unlikely. There would have been enough space for a very luxurious bus stop: right where the signal boxes are now.
Honestly, I don’t think there really is a “pedestrian-friendly” highway interchange. What we really need is:
1. highways that don’t cut through cities and cut off communities 2. Pedestrian bridges. Trying to mold the two together doesn’t work out.
Try and show me a “pedestrian friendly” highway intersection. They were never meant to be mixed. I wouldn’t be so quick to blame the traffic engineers. Blame the lack of funding for more pedestrian bridges.
I've walked through maybe 2 that didn't feel death defying. one had a pedestrian tunnel, the other a bridge.
Your vocal cadence is the only thing getting me through today without screaming. Thank you.
That bow tie enthusiast is gonna have his mind blown when he realizes you can just put a big roundabout in the middle of the intersection
He's a legend on the cityscape, urbanism, etc subreddits on Reddit, mention his name and long term users will recognise him. There's inside jokes about him and all and it's glorious
Or just separate the opposing lanes with a broad median and put in a *proper* Michigan left ... one that doesn't need a cul-de-sac overlapping the stroad 😆
The bow tie seems like it would be safer for pedestrians than a regular roundabout there. It eliminates the left turning traffic that might hit them at the signalised part of the intersection, but also doesn’t make them cross a roundabout entrance while hoping exiting traffic won’t run them down…
That particular user who posted that is a special case. He literally has the biggest carbrain on the planet.
NO WAY. YOU CAN DO THAT? But wait, doesn't the US then become, EuRoPeAn???
This is sickening and my day is ruined. Great video!
Yet we always come back for more
@@Pamani_ it's like reading dystopian novels, which can be fun, except here the dystopia is the world we live in
@@neckenwiler You may like the ABoringDystopia subreddit if you enjoy that depressing stuff.
Mission accomplished
@@CityNerd s'totally what I come here for
“One of our nation’s finest Springfields” is a great line.
This was an absolute wild trip, no drugs required! Just the brain-breaking insanity of efficiency for the sake of "car numbers go up". Great video.
how the hell is there a freedom planet fan here
@@Thiricola We are e v e r y w h e r e
Also it's crazy how many poor nations try to copy this kind of designs, investing millions of dollars, ignoring that most of their citizens do not even have cars.
Ahem Mexico, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Brazil.
Literally they're playing catch-up by going through all the different eras that us in the west went through. So give it 50 years or so and they'll see their mistake
11:10 This is one of those videos where your sense of scale breaks down. I didn’t comprehend how ridiculously massive that intersection was until you zoomed in and started panning away.
Logic breaks down too!
If your interchange is less efficient and takes up more acreage than an international airport runway, you’re designing roads wrong. Full Stop. Period. End of Story.
I'm a roadgeek and a public transportation geek who lives in Salt Lake City, which means your remarks about Utah hit hard. We have all the weird interchange types you mentioned: SPUIs, DDIs, and DLTIs (or, as we call them, CFIs [Continuous Flow Interchanges].) Every time I drive Bangerter Highway, I wonder what the heck they were thinking with that road. It's half traffic lights (usually with DLTIs) and half interchanges, as if they thought they may have had to deal with pedestrians but then changed their mind later. They are upgrading that road to be a full freeway for its entire length, thankfully.
I believe they are in the process of converting Bangerter Highway into a interstate. That's the reason for the odd interchanges and traffic lights
One of the crazy things about a lot of these designs is they seem to manage to make driving worse too. Like having to wait at an intersection twice to make a left turn has to be one of the most unpleasant experiences, especially when you consider these intersections are all designed to handle a lot of traffic so the cycles are super long too.
ITS TIME TO BAN CARS!!!!
And only makes demand scaling worse
Just put tolls on roads. According to the usual theories on supply and demand, and based on the traffic of most roads, I'd say tolls every 10 miles at $5 would be a good start, with discounts if you have an in state plate. Rural areas won't need the tolling, it would just be a city thing. Should make things very clear that you are paying for the privilege to drive on public roads
@@Demopans5990Yeah so that's a terrible idea. Fix public transit, don't punish people for using cars when most of the time they are the most viable option.
Babe wake up CityNerd just posted another banger.
Idk how u keep doing it man, but keep at it!
Back in the mid 90's I was on my way to school. Standing in line at bus stop on busy road. In the blink of an eye everyone in front of me was dead after a truck lost control and drove over the curb. I remember the cops commenting to firefighter how expensive it was going to be to fix truck. He was running the victims for warrants before letting the ambulance go as he was certain ppl riding the bus were up to no good.
What the hell. I'm so sorry you had to experience that.
How truly terrible. And let me guess - because it would have been deemed "an accident", there would have been minimal consequences for driver, let alone for the engineers & planners who prioritise high speed vehicle traffic over everything else.
That is just horrible! And the cop---what a bastard! I hope you didn't get hurt 😢😔
That's sickening. Sorry you experienced the tragedy and also that response.
That sounds like something that happened.
The sarcasm in this video is off the charts
I am still waiting for my welfare check.
As a traffic engineer in Texas, I agree with 95% of the content of this video. I dislike urban freeways, but when they get built I am a proponent of tight diamond interchanges with pedestrian recall on the city arterial. No buttons to push and usually the cycle length let's you cross both frontage roads without stopping. Good signal timing let's them operate well for vehicles too! I also keep cycle lengths in high pedestrian areas relatively short even if it constrains vehicle capacity.
and you guys keep putting lanes on the freeway.
More roundabouts, less lanes.. Better pedestrian crossing. Problem solved. Diamond interchange still force people to stop for lights... twice. It only solves a left turn issue... not the traffic issue.
kernals12 is an infamous poster, he shows up in the BikePortland comments sometimes. Peak car-culture man, I expect him to show up in your comments any day now. Best of luck.
My jaw almost dropped that his name was mentioned. That guy is prolific, though not in a good way. He is a mod/creator of just about every anti-urbanist forum/subreddit and constantly trolls on every urbanist forum. I can't believe my reddit interactions have somehow bled over to a CZcams video
Does CityNerd realize the portal to hell he just opened by calling attention to the AARoads forum?
Apparently he deleted his reddit account, but yeah, he was the biggest carbrain on the internet. There was nothing anybody could say to convince him otherwise. And I'm amazed that simply personal experience wasn't enough to teach him that driving in urban areas generally sucks and riding public transit is a better experience.
It took us 3 tries to get through the intersection in Las Vegas. It was night and when you come off you would swear you are on a one-way street going the wrong way. It really was the most horrifying intersection I have ever seen.
Seems like eBikes are essential as a pedestrian in Vegas xD
where I live it took engineers 2 decades to fix the bridge off ramps, the bridge itself is fine and well maintained but for 2 decades on one side whe you go on the off ramp the exits were pretty atrocious for the longest time, if you live here it's one thing, you get used to it but every out of towner get's turned around so finally in the 2000's after the 10'th or so redo they got it right....lol now the exits have a stop light at the end right then you ca bypass the stop and shoot a right turn but still come out downtown or can keep going down the bypass and well exit the city eventually or shoot out at the mall
if you go straight that shoots you into a side road that is now a main artery since it's connected to the bridge but even on this road several right turns puts you into downtown or you can keep going and end up on the west side, it sounds complex but like I said if you live here it's easy to learn but the basics are the straight shot actually goes somewhere as does the right turn....
Prison Yard Chic would be hilarious if this weren’t in fact a real life location intentionally designed to look that way.
Really enjoy your delivery style -- your mild sarcasm and intelligent whining about things you don't like while at the same time speaking truth about road system design in the hope that engineers can do better. Many drivers wonder why the architecture of freeways and highways are the way they are but just shrug their shoulders and keep driving. You nicely break down the concerns many of us have racing around in our heads, which provides a level of understanding of this very important thing called traffic engineering. Your content forms a basis around which we can focus our scattered personal gripes about our system of roads. And that’s a good thing for motorists, pedestrians, traffic engineers, and even city planners. Thanks for thinking all of this stuff through.
That couldn't be said better.
Just one more lane bruh..that would solve traffic
@@missingsig What an innovative solution. give this person an award.
Solving traffic is really easy, but the solutions are really unsexy, and not intuitive to most people. The way you reduce traffic is Mixed use - IE bringing stores close to houses, and increasing the connectivity of street networks, so traffic can distribute itself rather than concentrate it on stroads and freeways.
bulldoze downtown and turn it into a giant freeway
Regarding left turns - from Polish perspective, I would actually say that protected left turns are a great thing, at least when crossing more than one lane of oncoming traffic. Also, they are safer for pedestrians and cyclists, cause while left turns are more "challenging", drivers concentrate more on finding a gap between vehicles rather than pedestrians. In Kraków we constantly got rid of unprotected left turns if there was more than one lane to cross for last decade. On the other hand, I'm scared of intersections in Warsaw - you often have to cross: two tram tracks, 3 general traffic lanes, cycle path and pedestrian crossing - all with yielding to them at once!
I am pro public transit and pedestrian. You sir are like my advocate for walking the streets and stroads of life because these designs you truly point out do make me feel as though designers and traffic planners are really just going out their way to both troll and punish me for not owning a vehicle and not wanting one!! Lmao. CityNerd your insightful delivery as always and dry wit in both my, and other like minded folk's plight and punishment to dare walk places like its a sin and heresy to use my legs to get places with cruel designs like this, I truly and fully commend you my good man!
sorry for the typos i had to edit but i think apple engineers designing autocorrect share a lot in common with these traffic designers.
The sarcasm is dripping...and well deserved.
Fun fact, the reason that the left hand turn structure in Tucson is called a Michigan left, is because Michigan does not allow U-turns at intersections. In practice, Michigan does a lot better with the form than Tucson did, however. Here, there tends to be wide grassy medians, often tree lined (similar to the Boulevard concept you’ve previously discussed). It is actually a more pedestrian friendly way to go because you do not need to wait for traffic to turn one more direction before getting a walk signal. It also cuts down on car accidents in speeds up traffic, so it is a win-win-win.
it also shatters the brains of non-michiganders when they visit detroit lol
Ideally nobody should be turning while pedestrians are crossing. They should have more of those X intersections where all the pedestrians get the walk sign at the same time and all the cars get red lights so they all must yield.
Tucson is a lovely place to see urban planning history, by which I mean that the city has many of the popular urban planning designs strewn about the city because they catch wind of the new popular thing that will supposedly fix the same problem the last one didn't.
I was gonna say, the Tucson example is how not to do. Like someone from Arizona went to metro Detroit and saw Woodward Ave in royal oak/berkley/Ferndale and thought “yeah, let’s do that” and then just did everything wrong. Adding a u turn area. Not making the middle have cool stuff and being boring.
If an actual example of a Michigan left in Michigan were shown (like area of woodward I mentioned) it would be a lot more representative
@@jarrod7394 and that’s why we do it. Nothing I love more than an Ohioans face at a Michigan left
What you mentioned at the end is an excellent example of Goodhart's law. When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
But when the target can be measured from the start is it a good or bad measure?
Lol. I love watching this guy solely for his cadence. The seemingly Xanax/Valium fueled, stream of consciousness defeatism cracks me up. I would love to meet his cats and see his basement rock collection.
Diverging Diamond crossing is very effective at preventing crashes though. I agree it shouldn't be anywhere near a city center, but for interstate crossings in non-urban areas it seems very reasonable.
Hey, by chance that you read this. If you’re up to making a few people less than happy, you should make a video on the affects of car-dependent suburbs on racial inequality and segregation. I suspect that requiring everyone to own the most expensive form of transportation possible in order to participate in society probably affects the most disadvantaged groups of the community.
Yes! US suburbs promote segregation because everyone lives in their bubble.
The shopping mall is a perfect example of this, as they were access-controlled and car-dependent to specifically keep "undesirable" people out of public view (i.e. minorities, prostitutes and homeless people). Even worse, they blurred the line between public and private to such a degree that the "town center" feel they were originally aiming for became impossible.
People want to be with their own. Simple as. Nothing wrong with that tbh.
Makes me think that unfortunately we will slowly start getting this car dependent stuff here in Sweden too with time.
@@JakobHill yeah, I sure would like to see more prostitutes, homeless, and drug addicts when taking the kids shopping in the future. You truly sold me on the idea of getting rid of shopping malls now...
Love your covering my hometown of Vancouver! I love biking around the city, its an absolute joy. I used to complain how we didn't have highways, and it was always full of traffic. You've made me realize that the reason its so great for biking is really because of the lack of freeways. Thanks for opening my eyes, and for the great content!
I might have to figure out how to move there. Love it every time I go.
Always interesting comparing the driving in Vancouver vs. Seattle. BC drivers are speed demons; across the border in Washington they'll actually let peds cross the intersection and not run you down.
@@CityNerd You should! Just be prepared for some sticker shock...
I think a lot of hate for Vancouver is really due to the car-dependent nature of the rest of the province. I used to live in Interior BC and the only practical way to get to Vancouver is by car, especially if you have multiple passengers, but then you get there and you're stuck trying to manage your car. Either you fight the "insane" traffic, where cars are lower priority than most of the rest of the province or you pay fairly high prices to park your car and take transit. Overall it's not a recipe for transportation to be a good experience as a visitor, especially a visitor conditioned to drive everywhere.
Loving the channel! Especially like the dry humor. Great content. Who knew I had such an interest in city planning and traffic engineering. Keep it up!
One of the good things about living in MA is we avoid a lot of these traffic disasters. Our worst interchange is the Leverett Connector and I am sure you'd get a chuckle trying to figure out that mess.
Yep, the MassDOT engineers take their history seriously. Route 9 in Newton is unchanged since the day it opened in 1932- and plenty of others like that. Tough on the drivers but the walkability is so much better than most of these other states.
Quick note from a Vancouverite: we do in fact have a downtown freeway interchange (albeit for an unbuilt freeway) at the Georgia/Dunsmuir Viaducts and Main Street. The Viaducts were built as the first stretch of a downtown freeway network, but thankfully the plan was stopped there by freeway revolts (but, of course, not before having bulldozed a few blocks of one of the only largely Black neighbourhoods in the city to build this interchange). City council did finally vote to tear them down a few years ago and replace them with a surface boulevard (oh the joys) à la Seattle's Alaskan Way but they haven't actually started work on that yet as far as I'm aware
Okay that is news to me, though I'm too young to remember a time before the viaduct (or to ever live in the city proper, for that matter). I always knew Chinatown is there but had no idea about there having been a historically Black neighbourhood there, though that sadly tracks. That being said, with the SkyTrain tracks also around that right-of-way I don't know how much demolishing the viaduct would change things at this point, but I guess it's at least easier to build around those.
We also have the Granville bridge ramps/loops at either end, though the downtown loops are planned to be removed soon.
@@brydonchakrabarti2470 oh right, though that area on the south was always industrial, wasn't it?
Because of my dystopian life working as a planner amid traffic engineers, I really look forward to your weekly videos. Keep it up. 🙂
Thanks for the video. I used to think it was just me thinking that traffic engineers never drive anywhere with the outrageous designs they come up with as "improvements". Nice to know a traffic movement expert as yourself agrees.
I think a lot of things were never used by the people who designed them to see if it was a good idea or not
I've followed this channel for a while, but as a European, when you zoomed out at 3:20 that gotta be some of the most bizzarre dystopian stuff i've ever seen. I literally had to rewind and pause and go "W...T....F....". That parking lot area is the size of my town...
I literally just measured on Google Maps. Just that commercial area alone is 1,70km2. The town i live in is 1,5km2. We have 2500 citizens (And everyone has a car, it's the middle of nowhere), 3 grocery stores, 2 daycares, a school, library, doctor, large dentists office, church, cemetery, 3 car dealerships, 2 inns, an industrial area with 4 large warehouses, 4 soccer fields, a indoor sports hall with pool and gym, a kayak club, a boat dock, a swimming area in the lake with water slide and bridge, 5 parks and green areas with benches and BBQs, a camping ground with free shelters and fire pits, 4 hair salons, and 10+ other small businesses. All in less area, and it's not even dense buildings.
As a civil engineer, I am happy I found this channel. These videos are insightful. I find your videos ridiculously hilarious discussing how we over design americas highways.
Maybe it's time planning professionals were steered to look beyond American shores to how European cities do things? Work up KPIs for active transport, liveable, walkable neighbourhoods, reduction in vehicle mile's travelled? Not all U.S. cities will be receptive, but some will be. I dare say those receptive cities which are able to implement worthwhile reforms will be better off in the years ahead.
@@myword1000 Or to the past because we started to develop good habits leading into WWII, but Eisenhower destroyed that with his highway dream.
Over design? I cannot see any design.
Over design? This looks like a frankenstein nightmare looks like something a 10 year old would draw.
“A true alpha intersection” got me good 😂
It's kinda horrifying that usually at the same time the US realize something was a bad idea, it becomes really popular in Europe.
In my personal rankings, "One of our nation's finest Springfields" definitely makes the Top 5 Cutting City Nerd Designations.
Loving this channel. Thank you for being a great voice for this topic as well as being respectful to cities that have gotten a bad rap for silly reasons.
They are not silly reasons, because history is not silly. Disobey the lessons of the past, repeat it over again.
I remember watching a video some time ago about how the diverging diamond was a good and efficient interchange. I mostly agreed with their points, however I wasn’t very versed in urbanism and highway planning at the time. This is a good video because you showed it from the perspective of a pedestrian. I would’ve thought twice about it now if I was forced to walk across it, let alone any of these. Nice video as always!
Yeah that video just ignores the actual points of the guy criticizing the interchange for being unfriendly to pedestrians.
Honestly, they cause mental distress to motorists, too, forcing them onto the "wrong" side of the highway against every instinct drilled into them by years of driving. Little alarm bells are going off in your head screaming at you to get back to your lane before you're flattened by an 18-wheeler. And if people ever get desensitized to them, that will probably just make regular highways more dangerous.
It's not just cars vs. pedestrians; it's theory vs. reality.
Putting peds in a cattle chute in the middle of the overcrossing. It blows my mind.
@@CityNerd if u didn't show a pic, I would not have believed it. yep, that curved piece of page wire truly is prison chic !
@@Bobspineable it might be acceptable if there were pedestrian bridges over the motorway nearby. That would, however, require a completely different road layout with "pedestrian arterials" planned in from the start.
"Just become used to being second-class citiziens" is a rather weak argument.
I'm a civil engineer with Caltrans and have designed many interchanges, roundabouts, including CAS first DDI, among others. I enjoyed your video. Thank you
Thoughts:
1) Those aerial shots of all those parking lots made my brain cry out with joy, "Look at the sheer size of those poorly utilized land banks!" Then my mind's eye filled them up with four- or five-story residential-above-retail walk-ups in orderly rows. Would that the developer's mind had done so before breaking ground.
2) Springfield, MISSOURI??? Sir, I'll have you know that Springfield, Virginia, is probably the finest Springfield among all the Springfields! Where else can you view that magnificent monument to the pitfalls of traffic engineering, the notorious Springfield Mixing Bowl that has been constructed, deconstructed, reconstructed, and misconstructed nearly an infinite number of times since the 60s and STILL fails to perform as promised? On the plus side, all the 18 series buses avoid it by taking the HOV/express lanes to Pentagon Station, and I avoid it (when I visit) by driving my car on the back roads to the massive Metrorail parking garage at Springfield Mall, where one can catch the Metro or the VRE into the city.
3) TxDOT has gone completely bat-guano crazy for diverging diamond interchanges in Central Texas, especially in and near Round Rock. They work well, but only if you're driving a motor vehicle. Everyone else is totally screwed. Just a few miles down RM 1431 from its interchange with I-35, there is an infestation of contraflow lefts. It seems traffic engineers are as easily suckered in by silly, pointless fads as teenaged girls.
4) Remember the famed freeway revolts in NYC and SF? Let's do more of that! It's the only way that politicians and engineers will learn.
I love the sarcastic tone in your videos, makes it one of my favorite channels to watch. I definitely see a lot of “prison chic” pedestrian architecture in my area.
13:24 the bowtie thing is so ridiculous. a regular roundabout would achieve the same effect.
Yep, I made a similar comment
my understanding is that the bowtie is coming off of a freeway, and sudden circles on freeways could get *exciting*
Topic suggestion:
As many advantages as urban stadiums have, they can also be quite corrosive to the street life of surrounding neighbourhoods. This is because they can deactivate hundreds of metres of street frontage with blank perimeter walls and gates that are locked for the 95% of the time when the stadium is not in use.
What are some examples of urban stadiums that make a positive contribution to the surrounding 24/7 street life?
One interesting (not quite urban) example I can think of is the Queensland Tennis Centre. It gets used for precisely one ATP / WTA tournament every year, and sees practically no professional tennis for the other 51 weeks of the year. But, in these weeks when it is idle, the stadium (as well as the outside courts) are available to the general public to hire by the hour for the purpose of playing tennis. This means that the stadium precinct (which is otherwise total garbage) always has people coming and going.
Kernals12 posts on the Dallas subreddit a lot, it's interesting you featured a post by them. It's hard to believe a real person is behind the account given how enthusiastically they worship cars and roads. They once said cities are bad because tall buildings will be so tall you won't be able to breathe anymore. They literally have the worst take on any urbanist topic imaginable.
I will be impressed the day materials engineering allows us to build a tower in excess of 15,000ft. or 4.5km. I am guessing they do not realize that you have to go well outside the ability of current structural materials science to build a tower so tall it gets up into the thinner air.
Besides his obvious expertise, Ray is among my favorite and certainly the most droll of all CZcams creators.
Ray *is* Cassandra, the patron saint of urban planners.
Droll is the perfect description of his schtick. I genuinely laugh out loud at his videos, while simultaneously feeling sick to my stomach.
@@thebuttermilkyway687
Cassandra in the sense of issuing warnings: cautionary tales that mostly go unheeded.
@@rickrose5377 yes that is the point of the comment yes
The bowtie intersection could just be a singular roundabout/rotary/ciricle.
Exactly what I was thinking! One could argue that traffic would then have to slow down, but...well, there's two other roundabouts, so that's already the case.
Didn't expect kernals12 to be mentioned in one of your videos. Dude is infamous on urban planing subreddits for constantly shitting on public transit!
My personal favorite is in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak. It’s been complicated ever since it’s inception being where 4 major roads in the area all meet up (Woodward, Main, Washington, and Ten Mile) but since the 80’s has the added bonus of an interstate highway running straight through the middle.
My favorite bit is the underpass with Woodward under 696 then 10 mile above 696 as the service drive.
Can you make a collaboration with Not Just Bikes, Road Guy Rob, other urban planners?
Road Guy Rob would be quite interesting since he has a pretty neutral stance in all this I reckon.
Here's a video idea: a list of highway megaprojects that are unlikely to ever happen, but that are being presented by planners as in the works. Examples include completing the TX-99 ring road or extending I-14 east to Georgia. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about their potential utility and cost.
HS2 in the UK being claimed to go north of Birmingham is a big one too. But I suppose the engineering itself isn't the most interesting/palatable.
Hate to burst your bubble but TX99 is fairly far along. I expect to see it done in my lifetime, which to be honest I did not expect when I was in high school. See "Forbidden Gardens Katy"
As soon as you started the video I thought of Bangerter highway’s weird intersections and then lo and behold you talked about them! That’s freaking awesome!
I'd love to see a collaboration with you and Road Guy Rob.
Loved the commentary on bus usage/walkable areas that people only go to for vacation or college or in lifestyle areas. Could you expand more of college towns and where those students go to live after their years in school?
We now have two or three DDIs now in Austin, TX. You're exactly right - it's really great for drivers, but because right-on-red is still legal here, it is flat out dangerous for pedestrians because drivers are still looking left as they run you over walking in the crosswalk.
We have a few displaced left-turn intersections too. I think the example diagram on the top right of the wiki page (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuous-flow_intersection) is actually the schematic of 290 and William Cannon.
@@knutthompson7879 oh man.... I have seen so many close calls at that intersection. Not only does it confuse drivers, but the morning sun blinds them as they fly through the red light at 50mph.
I agree. When drivers can turn right on red legally it’s very dangerous for walkers. !! I was almost hit in Florida in Orlando on international drive when a driver was turning right on red and I was in the crosswalk with a green signal. She came about a foot or so from hitting me.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 imo, right turns on red should be banned in all cities period.
@@enjoyslearningandtravel7957 And the worst is when if you are driving and the person behind you expects you to turn so they lay on the angry button
To quote my favorite podcast: "left to their own devices, traffic engineers will always build New Jersey"
My favorite pastime when traveling to Texas is playing a little game where I look at any road and try to figure out how I would cross it without getting run over 3 times.
10:30 Tops for installing a bike lane between 2 car lanes left and right ! 👍
Another interesting French DDI: there used to be one at the intersection of A4 and A86 in Champigny-sur-Marne (east of Paris), and they replaced it with a very strange combination of left loops and roundabouts. I'm not too sure what to think of it traffic-wise, but they did build a new pedestrian bridge so that kids stop being killed while walking to the park nearby. That's a big plus.
I would like to submit the bercy gigantic spaghetti roundabout. But can it be called designed?
did you mean east of paris?
Not sure I've ever seen a ped bridge go straight over a loop ramp like that! Thanks for sharing.
@@lgprod6459 Classic spaghetti nest 🍝
@@CityNerd I seem to remember a Chinese interchange design document where it seemed that they ran a ped/bike track in each direction and then wrapped motor traffic lanes around them. North American engineers generally lack imagination when it comes to 3 dimensions. Most overpasses are 2D structures over a 1D highway. The giant highway stacks in Houston impress me but I don't think much imagination was used. Maybe the engineers need compulsory courses in paper folding?
Very informative video, thanks.
I loved your approach and need to check your other videos, regardless of the subject; u r simply hilarious!
Excellent as always. We need a restaurant review in each episode! ;^)
I'm always amazed by the lengths we go to with our roads when roundabouts would be the solution in so many cases.
But that would lower average-crossing-speed!!!
I heard they were going to put a roundabout in an intersection that would greatly benefit from it. I was very disappointed when they threw a traffic light at it instead. Worse yet, they installed flashing yellow arrows, but almost never use them. On the bright side, the pedestrian situation isn't great, but it's nowhere near as bad as in the video
@@steemlenn8797 Not if the traffic doesn’t have to stop.
@@givenfirstnamefamilyfirstn3935 First, it was irony. Second, yes, it would. There is no way that you can go round a roundabout with the same speed as through a normal crossing.
@@steemlenn8797 Glad you agree that the roundabout traffic does not go through at the same speed, it is widely accepted that roundabouts are somewhere around 40% faster than light controlled junctions.
Safe Home!
This video made me grateful for living in my sketchy pre war neighborhood.
Your dry sense of humor is really becoming a finely-tuned machine.
Real civil engineer has been a real quiet civil engineer since this dropped
What are your thoughts on traffic circles? I have dealt with non-signalized traffic circles on busy roads in Athens, Greece. It is almost impossible to cross the street because you can't be sure when a car is going to turn out of the circle. The safest approach is to jaywalk across the street mid-block from the traffic circle so you can at least be sure when there is a gap between the cars. In Washington, DC, this problem is addressed by placing a signal light at every intersection within the traffic circle, which completely defeats the purpose of having a traffic circle.
Here in Buffalo we have a fair number of traffic circles, and I can't think of any that are signalized. We don't have traffic anything approaching the scale of Athens (the circles I'm used to have only one or two traffic lanes), but even here I don't feel all that safe crossing traffic circles on foot. I usually go around them. One of the circles near me has a nice little park in the center of the circle with benches and a fountain, but there's no pedestrian infrastructure, not even a paint-only crosswalk.
Yeah, roundabouts are a nightmare for pedestrians and take up a lot more space than a normal intersection.
Big roundabouts just shouldn't be built in places where people walk. Small roundabouts usually have drivers yield to pedestrians though here in Germany, they're not as common as I'd like but there's no big unaccessible ones at least!
Traffic circles, aka roundabouts, reduce gaps in traffic. Great for efficient traffic planning - bad for pedestrians. This is especially true on large multilane junctions. On small roundabouts, the islands between directions make it easier to cross since you only have to look one way. In 1960s New Towns in the UK, where roundabouts are very common, they often built separate over or underpasses for pedestrians. Walking in new towns such as Stevenage or East Kilbride, you can go a long way by foot without even seeing a car.
There are two main types of roundabouts where I live, ones with signalized crosswalks on each spoke and ones without.
The ones with are found in cities, are high-traffic, often have multiple lanes per spoke, and stop car traffic for pedestrians at regular time intervals.
The ones without signals are usually found in less dense areas (smaller towns, suburbs, and rural), are low-traffic, have only two lanes per spoke (1 entrance 1 exit), and are easy to cross because traffic is sparse enough to allow frequent pedestrian crossings without signals.
It sounds like your bad experiences are from designs that try to be both, i.e. multiple lanes per spoke in an urban setting with high traffic but crucially without signalized crosswalks.
It always saddens me how many engineers prioritize vehicle traffic over pedestrian mobility and safety. I also agree with your statements about Ina/Oracle intersection in Tucson. I live nearby that intersection and I believe they could have done far better.
some low key heaters in this video lol love your sense of humor
Shout out arbor lodge and the I-5 Rosa parks “boring” exit haha. Great work as always 👍🏼
The bowtie might come into existence somewhere by accident: when you have two roundabouts next to an intersection, you might eliminate left turns there, bowtie complete. So it might actually be - in this instance - a design change that inconveniences a few drivers slightly while improving life for everyone else, including (but not limited to) the majority of drivers.
The Spaniards have a similar design, where there are only right turns. To travel straight ahead, it's a right turn, 360 degrees on the roundabout, and right again. With pedestrian crossing ramps on both sides of the junction, which slow traffic, there is no need for traffic signals. KPI met!
I'm a traffic engineer and I love making things difficult for pedestrians...muh-haha. But seriously, most of us (at least where I'm at) want things to be efficient for EVERYONE. We'd prefer more transit and better bike/ped access. But we are typically hamstrung by politicians (where the money comes from) who wouldn't know a good design if it smacked them in the face.
This was truly entertaining and informative. Well done! Maybe I’ll move to Europe in a few minutes
Hearing the Missouri DoT get specifically called out is very cathartic. Thank you for this priceless gift of validation after a lifetime of cycling, walking, and suffering here.
Michigan lefts are actually fairly nice for pedestrians. There is no conflict with people turning left and not paying attention to you walking across the street. In Michigan they are often on boulevards with wide grassy/tree-lined medians so it's fairly pleasant if you get caught only being able to cross half-way near the end of a signal. For an example, look at Grand River Ave north of MSU campus. It separates the dorms from all sorts of walkable shopping, and even less than sober college students make the crossing fairly easily.
The example took the idea of the Michigan Left and applied it to a style road where Michigan would never implement it. As Joseph mentions they are mostly implemented on major streets/stroads that have wide boulevards between the lanes which allows for easy U-turns.
Just experienced my first Diverting Diamond Interchange on I-75 in the northern Detroit suburbs. I was surprised how logical it was from a driving perspective. I couldn't tell how pedestrian unfriendly it was.
They're the nicest way to deal with left turns on a stroad, but unfortunately in the end it's still a stroad.
I would love to see a show on "Cross traffic does not stop" and other crazy signs in North America.
Yeah, a video just flipping through the MUTCD and having a bunch of deadpan sarcastic delivery on some of the truly horrific signs and designs you can find in there would be awesome
Loved seeing that you happened to pick St. Ambroise Station, that was my local when I studied abroad.
Thank You ~ Each one of your videos makes me laugh out loud at least 3 times!
My week wouldn't be complete without you deadpan roasting Cheesecake Factory.
seriously, thought they would sue him by now.
Always so informative and your sarcasm is unmatched 😆
Cool to see in-depth coverage of an interchange I bike through literally everyday. Shoutout to North Portland!
Keep up the great work!
Thanks, will do!
Checking in from Salt Lake City (not far from the intersection you featured in this video, which was neat to see). I occasionally drive on Bangerter Highway and it can definitely be a nightmare. UDOT is working to eliminate all of the traffic signals along the highway between 6200 South and 1300 South. How a "highway" got so many traffic lights on it is beyond me. Thanks for the content; I enjoy your videos.
From the looks of it Mountain View will become the new Bangerter Highway as the west side completely fills out, and I can only imagine the same nightmare of intersections will be made before they then have to spend millions retrofitting on/off ramps
I used to drive for a company with a yard off the Bangerter/California intersection and people get very upset if you don't bother trying to go full freeway speed in the half mile from I-80 or 201 to the intersection where you'll just have to stop anyway.
Haha I was not ready for this much snark and sarcasm
European perspective: we also have some crazy intersections, nothing close to America though, but as soon as it becomes a high volume traffic area, even a simple roundabout, there's often other ways for pedestrians to get around it, like a pedestrian/bicycle bridge/tunnel. I remember in my hometown they built a new roundabout, but the first thing they made was the pedestrian tunnel. And then the construction site was already opened for pedestrians and bicycles while construction of the roundabout was still in process because the people were out of harms way.
What's stopping engineers from making a tunnel or a simple bridge to just bypass the intersection altogether? If you need to dig up the soil anyway to put a new road surface in, then why not just dig 2 deeper channels, slap on some concrete, and bam you got a tunnel? Or put up some metal beams with a platform on it and bam, there's a bridge? It can't be that much more expensive?
They just don't care about pedestrians. That's the long and short of it.
It makes swindon roundabout look pedestrian and bike friendly.
Where I live the DOT had to do a bunch of PR on how to navigate the intersection they're building. To replace a 4 way intersection. Instead of getting rid of flashing yellow left turns they made an incredibly complex intersection (I believe it's the first of its kind in the nation!) that shut down 2 of the most used roads in the area and will require special high priority plowing whenever it snows because otherwise nobody will know where to go. I live in Alaska. Traffic engineers do not interact with reality
Sounds like a diverging diamond?
my intuition as a software dev says: if what you are building is accessible to everyone and it needs a manual to be used safely then you have designed it very very wrong
@@SharienGaming It's even worse here as this is an example where apparently even qualified trained users apparently still need the damn manual. After all the motorists seem to be the ones that need instructions and they ostensibly have an operators licence granted on the basis of an alleged demonstration of competence at navigating their vehicle. So in this case not only does the design have to be completely wrong but clearly the competence test for motor vehicle operators is inadequate too.
@@SharienGaming Well, that’s not completely true. You still need a manual to learn how to drive.
High priority plowing 🤔
It's a good thing snow is rare in Alaska.
There was someone on a bicycle who was killed on University Parkway and I-15 in Orem Utah, and it was always interesting to see all the comments of “why didn’t he use the sidewalk” but the intersection is one of these monstrosities and would have likely been at least 6 crosswalks to get across on sidewalk compared to like 2 stoplights, even if it is a 45+MPH road
I love seeing the Baton Rouge Siegen Lane video towards the beginning. Been following your channel for a little bit
“Alpha intersection!” 😂 I appreciate you checking in on us in Florida. You are right to be worried.
I would love to see you dig into some more unique regional solutions, like the weird "Jughandles" in New Jersey
New Jersey is just weird in general. That’s the state where they won’t let you pump your own gas and force you to give your atm card to someone you don’t know in order to fuel your car. Always pay in cash just to screw around with them and make them scream in another language.