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#1

Off-Topic / Re: What else are you geeky ab...

Last post by NWI_Irish96 - Today at 04:46:28 PM

Football, both college and NFL
International soccer (World Cup)
Indy 500
Geography and demography
Politics

Forgot to add: "Weird Al" Yankovic

#2

International Highways / Re: UK Roads Thread

Last post by kphoger - Today at 04:45:09 PM

Interesting. I'll have to (mostly) disagree with that. Practically the entire motorway network in the southern half of England radiates from Greater London, so if your origin/destination is in Greater London there's almost certainly a motorway connection to M25 (all bets are off for destinations inside the M25, of course). If we're talking east-west specifically, there's M3, M4, M2, and M20, plus the north and south sides of M25 itself which function as an east-west connection of sorts.

|vdeane| didn't say that.  You need to fix your quotes.

#3

Mid-Atlantic / Re: Key Bridge (Round Who Know...

Last post by kphoger - Today at 04:43:47 PM

The bottom line is they are already in $700M

Phase 1 wasn't $700 million ... There was also no "settlement." Kiewit wasn't fired, and Phase 2 was never authorized or funded, so there was no termination payout to make.

The news article reporter slipped a digit -- added a zero. The editor didn't catch it.

The $700 million claim comes from a reporting error.
Bottom line: the number is real at the project level, but it has nothing to do with what Kiewit is being paid.

Spoke with a member of MdTA's Key Bridge team today over the phone ... He confirmed that yes, $700m is indeed the number that will be paid to Kiewit ... He did say that even the $700m price tag for this Phase 1 work was one of the reasons Kiewit was "let go" (his words).

But, but, but, but....

#4

International Highways / Re: UK Roads Thread

Last post by english si - Today at 04:32:57 PM

Interesting. I'll have to (mostly) disagree with that. Practically the entire motorway network in the southern half of England radiates from Greater London, so if your origin/destination is in Greater London there's almost certainly a motorway connection to M25 (all bets are off for destinations inside the M25, of course). If we're talking east-west specifically, there's M3, M4, M2, and M20, plus the north and south sides of M25 itself which function as an east-west connection of sorts.

Unsurprisingly the motorway network is focused on the urban area with 17% of the population of England...

And, wow, two east-west routes and a short bypass in an area covering 45% of the UK population (London+SE+East) is really lots compared to. I'll throw in the M27 for another short route.

There's a dearth of E-W motorways, and they are fairly well spread across the country. More so if you add in the expressways.

The only real outliers are places that don't have a motorway connection to anywhere - like East Anglia and most of Wales.

That's my point.

There's a simple tier system in the US?

I assume he means interstate -> US route -> state route -> county route -> local.

Yup, particularly the first three (since the last two can vary quite a bit between and even within states).
[/quote]But a US route (and in some states a state route) can be anything from a wide long-distance freeway to a road that no through-traffic should be using. That's the same as A roads - hence why we have motorways and primary routes for through traffic and non-primary routes for local traffic - a distinction that the US is lacking below the interstate level.

Looking at that road, I have to wonder if it was originally a three-lane road, where the center lane would be useable by vehicles in both directions to pass over vehicles in front of them. Obviously such "suicide lanes" were eventually deemed dangerous and I believe they've all long since been eliminated, though many were just simply restriped to being extra-wide two-lane roads like that one, IIRC.

It was not originally 3-lanes, opening in 1991, long after suicide lanes were a thing of the past. It has 5m (16'5") lanes, instead of 3.6m lanes (12'), which, even if you shrink the margins, doesn't quite work. Arguably there's just about enough space to put three lanes there if it was one half of the Expressway-grade road it was meant to become part of (one narrow inside lane and a narrow inside margin) - which is what the NIMBYs of Wing believed when rejecting their bypass (having read their complaints), but I think the standard would have been D2 with a full shoulder on the carriageway they'd made out of this existing road just because the tarmac was already there.

Yep, you nailed it. The striping has been changed to two lanes but people still drive it like it's three. The lanes are so wide that faster traffic can pass on the inside without fully merging back to single file for oncoming traffic, so there was some pretty wild passing going on both times I drove it; stuff like this (but with regular traffic instead of a slow moving tractor) seemed to be the norm. The locals even mentioned that it was known to be a dangerous stretch.

I've dealt with it not ever being striped as three lanes, but also people don't drive it like it's three lanes - they drive it like it's four lanes (cars can pass two abreast without crossing the white line, though it's a bit hairy) with speedy drivers hugging that centre line and seeking slower cars to move and hug the edge line, or like it's two lanes with cars in the middle of the lane and not allowing any use of the extra-width to overtake.

Usually they widen the margins a little either side and put wide permissive hatching down the middle when they resurface these WS2 roads - people can still overtake, but they are dissuaded not to. I don't know why Central Beds hasn't done so, especially as that road is notoriously bad.

I'm not one to be rah-rah-America, but colouring signs according to function rather than route number seems quite a bit more, well... functional.

But that's what the UK is doing using the colour as a function in saying 'this is a main road' and 'this is a local road'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_traffic_signs_in_English-speaking_territories suggests that UK uses different colours to express different functions more than the US (WP rather than AARW as it's an image-intensive page and there's the thumbnail generation issue).

#5

Off-Topic / Re: What else are you geeky ab...

Last post by Voyager - Today at 04:31:37 PM

Star Trek, maps, buildings, bridges.

#6

Off-Topic / Re: voyager's cosmic bbarr

Last post by Voyager - Today at 04:31:21 PM

Should we reopen the bbarr?

We'll sell bbloody Marrys, and several types of bbranddy.

Don't forget all the bbeerr on ttapp.

#7

Sports / Re: Claude Lemieux former NHL ...

Last post by Big John - Today at 04:28:15 PM

Rumored to be suicide.

#8

Mid-Atlantic / Re: Key Bridge (Round Who Know...

Last post by Rothman - Today at 04:13:16 PM

Spoke with a member of MdTA's Key Bridge team today over the phone (protip: Fill out the contact form rather than e-mailing them directly).  He confirmed that yes, $700m is indeed the number that will be paid to Kiewit.  He said that cost will continue to be reimbursed by the Emergency Relief program, along with State contributions from insurance and litigation payments (he did say such payments would replace the federal portion of the $700m, rather than represent first-instance funding).  $73m was indeed only the price for the design itself and he considered it part of the $700m.  The $700m is for a whole host of pre-construction activities, including pile driving, a lot of additional foundation work, concrete approach work, and building some serious temporary bridges to assist with future construction of the actual bridge (said they'd be a couple of miles long altogether somehow).

He did say that even the $700m price tag for this Phase 1 work was one of the reasons Kiewit was "let go" (his words).

#9

General Highway Talk / Re: Daily conversation: What ...

Last post by kphoger - Today at 04:01:57 PM

KP, I take it that she does not share in the enthusiasm of the roadgeek collective. 

She assumed that the church bus didn't detour through Nevada just to see the I-11 signs. 

#10

Sports / Claude Lemieux former NHL Star...

Last post by bing101 - Today at 03:59:09 PM

https://abc7ny.com/post/claude-lemieux-feisty-winger-time-stanley-cup-champion-canadiens-devils-avalanche-dies-60/19188278/

He was best known for his time with the New Jersey Devils in the 1990's.