The most annoying intersection in your hometown?

[tradephoric]

Almost all intersections here are completely sensor-actuated, therefore the level of service outside of rush-hour is pretty good.

So I don't have any annoying intersections to state. Thank you, CalTrans. <3

This logic is flawed.  Signals with sensors don't fix the underlying problems of a poorly designed arterial system.  The 1/2 mile grid is a nightmare to provide good signal progression and this is exactly what you deal with in Orange County, CA.   Here's a typical time-distance along a major high speed arterial with traffic signals every 1/2 mile (ie. Beach Blvd).

[tradephoric]

^ I should have specified DUAL signal progression.  

It's not too hard to provide good signal progression in one direction of travel. 

[agentsteel53]

It's like saying planes and trains run on time, except when there's a blizzard.
It's like saying orders are processed very quickly, except during the holiday season.
It's like saying you're a brave man, except when facing death.
I mean, really, what do you expect?

only the middle of those is analogous.  it's an even whose timing and intensity can be predicted with almost complete certainty, and therefore infrastructure should be capable of handling it. 

[sp_redelectric]

Lake Oswego's six-way, ALL STOP intersection of Country Club Road, Iron Mountain Boulevard, C Avenue, and Bayberry Road.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Lake+Oswego,+OR&hl=en&ll=45.422891,-122.67812&spn=0.00144,0.002642&sll=37.269174,-119.306607&sspn=9.454681,21.643066&hnear=Lake+Oswego,+Clackamas,+Oregon&t=h&z=19

[tradephoric]

This newly constructed Parclo A4 interchange is annoying because it ruins good traffic signal progression along Crooks Road.  Crooks road is designed for good 2-way signal progression but this is lost once you get to the Parclo A4 off-ramp signals that stop both directions of travel.  Freeway off-ramp signals naturally create those "half mile" signals that are nearly impossible to coordinate. 

Had a Parclo B4 interchange been constructed, good signal progression could have been maintained along Crooks Road (since Parclo B4 traffic signals only need to stop one-direction of travel) but MDOT decided against that design.  SPUI's and Diverging Diamond interchanges have the same problem of ruining any potential 2-way signal progression between major mile roads.

[Billy F 1988]

Wow. That's just plain stupid. What a way to waste taxpayer money for such a stupid interchange like the Crooks Road interchange.

[agentsteel53]

Wow. That's just plain stupid. What a way to waste taxpayer money for such a stupid interchange like the Crooks Road interchange.

I'm assuming they named the road after the parties responsible.

[Billy F 1988]

Maybe.

[kphoger]

I just found out from an engineer who wishes to remain annonymous that his firm conducted a study on the stoplight timing at the I-235/Zoo Blvd interchange in Wichita, and determined that it is likely to have been timed poorly in order to cause traffic to back up onto I-235, as a passive-aggressive way to push for the construction of another I-235 access point.

[Bamaroadgeek]

Any intersection on US 280 in Birmingham. ALDOT has failed to upgrade a road with a capacity of 50,000 when traffic counts are now nearly 100,000 daily and are projected to reach 150,000 by 2030.

[hotdogPi]

Not quite in my hometown (it's about 3 towns away), but in Chelmsford MA there is a 5-way intersection with routes 110, 4, and 129 (all state routes, and west end of 129). It is a bit confusing.

Similarly, but 2 hours away, in East Longmeadow MA, there is an intersection with routes 83, 186, and 220 (and Maple Street), with part of it being a rotary. However, it says "dangerous intersection".

[sammi]

Apparently, 1 has a habit of resurrecting old threads over 4 months old.

In Toronto, there is no single most annoying intersection, although Yonge / Bloor comes close with construction on all sides and the single walk cycle where pedestrians can cross from any corner to any corner. >.>

(I'm not from here, but there's nothing I can say about my *actual* hometown.)

[Thing 342]

This intersection near my house. The rightmost lane has a divider to prevent traffic from I-64 from weaving across the road in order to reach the Wal-Mart. However, this divider also makes it almost impossible to make a right turn from Jefferson Ave NB to Brick Kiln Blvd during rush hour. The fact that there is a bottleneck on 64 WB just past this interchange (with no exits for another 5 miles) does not help things at all.

This interchange between I-64 EB and VA-105. Traffic on the leaves (going about 25 mph) has about 400 feet to merge with traffic going 70 on an already crowded road. Worse, traffic going from 64 WB to 105 EB or 105 WB to 64 WB has to make both a left and a right turn. Just a poorly designed interchange all around.

[ET21]

87th Street and Pulaski Ave in Chicago, where the intersection is a heavy truck route and has a railroad crossing right in the middle.

Don't even bother during rush hour 

[mapman1071]

In the Phoenix area, the Grand Avenue (US 60) corridor with a closely paralleling railroad track and the three-way intersections was always a bear. In recent years, many of the intersections were improved somewhat with overpasses to eliminate some of the hassles, but I still usually avoid trying to cross Grand Avenue unless I use a bridge. I've never been much for waiting for trains to go by.

Interchanges Coming Soon to Grand Avenue

Bell Road Overpass with either Diamond or SPUI from Bell To Grand (Under Construction will be complete in 2014)

Bethany Home Road Underpass Under Grand and the Tracks
(Planed for 2016-> )

19th Avenue/Mcdowell Road
(19th Avenue Overpass over Grand Avenue & Mcdowell Road, Ramps From NB 19th Avenue to NW Grand Avenue &  SE Grand Avenue to SB 19th Avenue)
(Planed for 2016-> )

[DSS5]

The only good answer in Boone is the infamous "big" intersection where US 321 and NC 105 meet. Crossing it on 105 isn't too bad, but if you hit that intersection on 321 on a busy day or trying to turn left from NC 105, you could be waiting for 5 minutes.

I wish something could be done about it, but part of the problem is the fast food restaurants lining 321 on both sides of the intersection.

The street view image is old, but it hasn't really changed since then.

[Molandfreak]

Not in town, but this one is a pain in the ass to cross. Not to mention that it's frequently backed up: http://goo.gl/maps/r7djc

[Scott5114]

Discussion about thread exhumation was moved to https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=10156 – discussion about yawns and the yawny yawners who yawn them has been sent to Alanland.

[Alps]

Discussion about thread exhumation was moved to https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=10156 – discussion about yawns and the yawny yawners who yawn them has been sent to Alanland.

yawn

[briantroutman]

If by "hometown" we mean native and not current, my choice would probably be the roughly six-way intersection at Market and Hepburn Streets in Williamsport, PA. It's known as "Confusion Corner" locally. The reason this intersection exists in the first place is that the city grew outward from two sections–one which had a grid that was more or less north-south and another that was diagonal. Both sections grew outward from the Susquehanna River and met here in the late 19th century.



The intersection has no signals, which is perhaps a little unusual for an intersection with such odd geometry that passes more than 10,000 vehicles per day. Five of the six inbound lanes have stop signs–northbound Market has no stop whatsoever. This is a holdover from when US 220 was routed on city streets and through traffic had to make an almost 180° turn from Market to Hepburn. So northbound Market St. was given preference, and it remains this way today even though 220 moved to its present freeway alignment over 30 years ago.

If you're heading south on Market, you have to take turns with all of the other STOPs including anyone on southbound Hepburn–who would actually behind you to your left. You also need to yield to any northbound Market vehicles which may be turning, many of which might not have their signals on–particularly if the driver thinks Hepburn is "left" and Rural Ave. is "slight left". A little further down Rural is Williamsport Hospital, which is a significant generator of traffic, including many people who may legitimately be in a hurry or have their mind elsewhere.

If you're driving north on Hepburn, you have to yield to vehicles on northbound Market who are obscured by trees that go right up to the edge of the intersection.

In most cases, the intersection becomes something of a chicken match.

[empirestate]

Let's discuss this intersection, shall we? The red light applies to the cars on the left, which have stopped for it, and the green light is for the road we're on. Except, see that Yield sign? That also controls the same merge as the traffic lights, so there's a conflict of information.

And routinely, motorists coming in from the left will shunt themselves over as far to the right as possible and decide that the right-hand signal face now applies to them, because it turns green first. (Note that the right turn only lane is no longer striped as such, but that doesn't really matter.)

What's your interpretation of this mess?

https://www.google.com/maps?ll=40.883047,-73.887126&spn=0.001783,0.003473&cbp=12,244.85,,0,1.29&layer=c&panoid=4uG-KaBCQgAkHjuOcNUVFg&cbll=40.883046,-73.887639&t=m&z=19

[1995hoo]

Seeing as how there's another Yield sign and no-left-turn sign out of the image to the right, clearly those apply to traffic coming through where the GSV car is. Seems odd there's no separator curb or other channelizing setup there to prevent what I'd expect to see–I'd expect the guy in the silver SUV (looks like a Nissan–the guy waiting on line behind the blue Honda CR-V) to cut over to the right and then go through the green light without stopping. That's what would happen around here in the DC area.

[empirestate]

Seeing as how there's another Yield sign and no-left-turn sign out of the image to the right, clearly those apply to traffic coming through where the GSV car is. Seems odd there's no separator curb or other channelizing setup there to prevent what I'd expect to see–I'd expect the guy in the silver SUV (looks like a Nissan–the guy waiting on line behind the blue Honda CR-V) to cut over to the right and then go through the green light without stopping. That's what would happen around here in the DC area.

Yup, that's exactly what happens here as well, which is what I meant by the shunting over thing. But that raises the point of whether, if the green signal face on the right applies to the right lane, wouldn't it apply just as well to the left lane, meaning you don't have to shunt over at all? In other words, don't all the signal faces at an intersection have to apply equally to all lanes making the same movement?

And yes, the Yield signs control the approach from the north, where the Street View car is coming from. But how is this movement controlled by a Yield sign, if it's also controlled by the traffic signal ahead? Because if you argue that there's first a merge (controlled by the Yield sign) and then the signal, the signal indication would apply equally to traffic coming from the right as from the left, because those two streams have already been combined into a single one governed by the same signal, which can't then be both red and green.

But it's clear that the signal configuration suggests this is a five-way intersection, and the merging streams shown here are two of those five. In that case, the Yield sign is meaningless because there's nothing to Yield to, as all conflicting traffic is governed by the red signal.

So to summarize my two basic questions: 1) Is this intersection governed by both a sign and a traffic signal, and if so, how is that permissible and which device takes priority? And 2) for those motorists who do shunt over from left to right and then drive through the green, can we find fault in this maneuver, or is it a reasonable way of interpreting which signal indication applies to this traffic? (Or does it, in fact, need to be treated as a signal malfunction because conflicting aspects are displayed?)

[1995hoo]

Do all the lights ever go green at the same time? If so, then perhaps the yield signs serve a purpose in terms of helping drivers coming from the left who want to turn right at the second light (although from looking at the map I'm unsure why they'd want to do that except to park on the curb along there).

[empirestate]

Do all the lights ever go green at the same time? If so, then perhaps the yield signs serve a purpose in terms of helping drivers coming from the left who want to turn right at the second light (although from looking at the map I'm unsure why they'd want to do that except to park on the curb along there).

Not all at the same time. When the signal in the background is green, one or the other of the foreground signals will also be, but not both. I think the only time the second signal goes red is when Dickinson Ave. has the green.

And you're right, there's not much non-redundant reason to turn right on Dickinson other than parking and a couple of service entrances for the senior apartments there.