Stupid Restripings!

[Mergingtraffic]

CT has recent;y restriped a few sections of roadway that seem to hinder traffic rather than help it.

The first on I-84 EB between the CT-8 NB onramp to I-84 EB.  The auxillary lane used to extend from the ramp to Exit 22 giving people coming from the ramp more time to merge, plus if drivers wished to get off at Exit 22, they never had to merge with the mainline.  NOW, the auxillary lane ends at Exit 21.  This makes the onramp merge very short and forces ramp traffic wishing to get off on Exit 22 to merge into the mainline for 500 feet.  The map below is after the change, you can see the old striping still there.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=waterbury,+ct&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=29.910058,59.765625&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Waterbury,+New+Haven,+Connecticut&ll=41.551844,-73.045161&spn=0.001722,0.005692&t=k&z=18

The 2nd is the I-84 EB off ramp of Exit 26 for CT-70.  When I-84 was widended here a couple of years ago, the off ramp was put on new allignment and made a single left turn lane with double right turn lanes.  NOW, the ramp was restriped with a single left turn lane and signle right turn lane.  It just boggles my mind that this changed when there are other areas that could use a restriping.  The map below is before the change.  Granted, the traffic volume is low on this ramp, but why take away a lane!?!??!!

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=cheshire,+ct&sll=41.551844,-73.045161&sspn=0.001722,0.005692&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Cheshire,+New+Haven,+Connecticut&ll=41.540817,-72.950699&spn=0.000861,0.002846&t=k&z=19

[jemacedo9]

The NY 590 / NY 104 interchange was just recently re-striped, and then there was a loud public outcry, so now it is going through a second restriping.  There was a couple of articles I'll try to find the link to.

[vdeane]

Overall the new striping there makes sense, but there are a few issues with it that I can identify (other than "it's different than it was before"):
-They just shove traffic to the left, resulting in ultra-wide right shoulders that look very, very ugly
-Heading south, the lane just disappears into nowhere at the ramp from NY 104 west (this has been fixed; traffic now has until almost Norton St to merge right)
-It does not tie well into the Titus Ave roundabout; the roundabout was clearly designed for two lanes, and the DOT very clearly came up with the new striping after all work was completed.

[hbelkins]

The NY 590 / NY 104 interchange was just recently re-striped, and then there was a loud public outcry, so now it is going through a second restriping.  There was a couple of articles I'll try to find the link to.

Are they going back to two lanes? We noticed the new striping pattern during the Rochester meet recently.

[Michael]

Doofy's second map reminded me of the west end of the NY 5 freeway near Camillus.  The freeway was originally intended to continue westbound to Auburn.  The freeway narrows to one lane just before the ramp to continue on NY 5 West, and then widens to two lanes at the end of the ramp.  One lane is a left-turn lane for NY 174 South and the other is a right-turn lane to continue on NY 5 West.  This has always been the setup for as long as I can remember, but why not just keep two lanes all the way down the ramp?

Heading east onto the freeway, there are two lanes downhill.  At the first onramp along the freeway at Newport Road, the lanes have been restriped to have the onramp become an added lane.  The right lane going down the hill becomes the middle lane of the freeway until the NY 695 interchange.  Google Maps' satellite view shows the road before the restriping.  When I first saw the change, the diagonal stripes across the old lane were distracting because I could see them in the car's mirrors and they reflected from the lenses of my glasses.  I wasn't driving, though.

[froggie]

The freeway was originally intended to continue westbound to Auburn.  The freeway narrows to one lane just before the ramp to continue on NY 5 West, and then widens to two lanes at the end of the ramp.  One lane is a left-turn lane for NY 174 South and the other is a right-turn lane to continue on NY 5 West.  This has always been the setup for as long as I can remember, but why not just keep two lanes all the way down the ramp?

Probably because the upper half of the ramp is not wide enough for two lanes.  The more appropriate question here is:  what's stopping NYSDOT from (or why should they) widening the ramp to accommodate 2 lanes?  IMO, the existing configuration is safer, as it's better to have everyone merging/jockying for position on the freeway mainline than it is to have them do so on a curvy, downhill-grade ramp.  If you widen the ramp to 2 lanes, you'd have everyone wanting to continue west on NY 5 jockying and cutting over on the ramp.

[algorerhythms]

I think I may have been on the champion of stupid restripings. On Avenida Boa Viagem in Recife, Brazil, I thought I was about to die when the taxi driver crossed the double yellow line before I realized it was a one-way street that nobody had bothered to repaint.

[agentsteel53]

I think I may have been on the champion of stupid restripings. On Avenida Boa Viagem in Recife, Brazil, I thought I was about to die when the taxi driver crossed the double yellow line before I realized it was a one-way street that nobody had bothered to repaint.

a stupid restriping would be the opposite.  this one fails safe in the most technical sense, with the taxi driver having the out-of-band knowledge of its true configuration.

imagine a street that had been converted into two-way but no one had bothered to paint a double yellow line.

[realjd]

I think I may have been on the champion of stupid restripings. On Avenida Boa Viagem in Recife, Brazil, I thought I was about to die when the taxi driver crossed the double yellow line before I realized it was a one-way street that nobody had bothered to repaint.

A bit OT, but this reminded me of a road I drove down last summer in Cozumel. Mexico tends to be haphazard in their use of yellow vs. white for road lines, but this one is bad even by Mexican standards:
http://goo.gl/i3uUW

[mightyace]

...  The freeway narrows to one lane just before the ramp to continue on NY 5 West, and then widens to two lanes at the end of the ramp.  ...  why not just keep two lanes all the way down the ramp?

Probably because the upper half of the ramp is not wide enough for two lanes.  The more appropriate question here is:  what's stopping NYSDOT from (or why should they) widening the ramp to accommodate 2 lanes?  IMO, the existing configuration is safer, as it's better to have everyone merging/jockying for position on the freeway mainline than it is to have them do so on a curvy, downhill-grade ramp.  If you widen the ramp to 2 lanes, you'd have everyone wanting to continue west on NY 5 jockying and cutting over on the ramp.

Plus, if the ramp was widened to two lanes throughout, you might have people going at freeway speed until the near the end of the ramp.  The lane narrowing should slow down some traffic.

[hm insulators]

How about striping that's difficult or impossible to see? I was in Los Angeles during Thanksgiving week, and on Thanksgiving day, I drove I-5 south from I-210 to California 170. That stretch through the construction zone between I-405 and California 118, it was nearly impossible to tell which striping was the valid one; the paint was almost the same color as the concrete! That was scary!

[vdeane]

I've seen some strange stuff in NY.  Some newly resurfaced roads are nearly impossible to see the stripes on at night when its raining.  Some roads lose a lot of their striping in the winter due to snow plowing.  But the exit 39-40 reconstruction zone on I-90 takes the cake - even though traffic is on the normal traffic pattern (and will be forever on most of the road), the temporary striping for the work that was done this year is still on the road in addition to the regular striping.

[Quillz]

US-101, southbound/eastbound Exit 29, Calabasas Road. Quite possibly one of the worst striping jobs ever. It's been redone at least 5-6 times now, and every time they get it wrong. What happens is the road goes from being divided to giving way to two left turn lanes, so the striping has to do a huge inward curve to accommodate the lanes. The problem is the division was so wide that the only way to actually get into the far left turn lane is to completely drive over the stripe and basically be on the wrong side of the road. Couple this with the fact that this occurs immediately after the onramp/offramp and it can cause serious issues.

It's hard to explain, you'd have to see a pic of it, then you'd get what I'm talking about.

[roadman65]

Central Florida Parkway near Sea World has three lanes between I-4 and Sea Harbor Drive going EB.  The problem is after Westwood Boulevard the left lane is striped for left turn only with a solid white line and arrows with ONLY markings.  When you are in the left through lanes before the Westwood Boulevard signal, it becomes the left turning lane imdiately! There are no dotted lines across the intersection guiding drivers across as they need to be.  I drove in the left lane and got nailed for the light at night. When I drove across the intersection, I got confused for a moment and was ready to move over one lane thinking it was my lane.  Luckily, I remember that Orange County (who maintains this road) is trying to let tourists know that this lane becomes a soon to be ending lane.  Good thing, because if a car was next to me I would have had a swipe.

Dotted lines are needed here badly!

Also, at the entrance to Sea World  further up the road there are two left turning lanes into the theme park driveway that is properly marked, but for some reason unknown to me, motorists only seem to be using the far left lane and leaving the other turn lane empty!  This causes lane overflow onto the through lanes creating bottlenecks that would be avoided if drivers used the both lanes as they're supposed to.  Here, an overhead sign with lane control turn signs or LGS with black on yellow arrows with BOTH LANES in bold letters is needed.

[Ian]

PennDOT really seems to be very sloppy with the way they restripe their passing zones...
http://g.co/maps/dq2xv

[The High Plains Traveler]

I think I may have been on the champion of stupid restripings. On Avenida Boa Viagem in Recife, Brazil, I thought I was about to die when the taxi driver crossed the double yellow line before I realized it was a one-way street that nobody had bothered to repaint.

a stupid restriping would be the opposite.  this one fails safe in the most technical sense, with the taxi driver having the out-of-band knowledge of its true configuration.

imagine a street that had been converted into two-way but no one had bothered to paint a double yellow line.

Well, let's see if I can make this work.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1st+and+Greenwood,+Pueblo+CO&hl=en&ll=38.268136,-104.612841&spn=0.002426,0.004801&sll=38.268266,-104.612321&sspn=0.004852,0.009602&hnear=N+Greenwood+St+%26+W+1st+St,+Pueblo,+Colorado+81003&t=h&z=18

Elizabeth St. and Greenwood St. are a southbound/northbound respectively one-way pair through Pueblo CO. Elizabeth curves around and intersects 1st Street (two-way from east of this intersection) and Greenwood (two-way south of this intersection). For the first ten years after this intersection was configured, Greenwood was one-way northbound from this intersection; then, a new development on the northwest corner was constructed and the city converted Greenwood between 1st and 3rd to two-way traffic. This would be a major change for anyone accustomed to going northbound, obviously, but the only street marking indication drivers had was that the center stripe went from a white broken to a yellow broken line. There is also a dual arrow two-way traffic sign on the right side of the street. Finally, just recently the broken line was replaced by a double line which is a much more obvious indicator; however by this time local drivers have figured out the change.

What I would have done from the first day of the change is make the center stripe a double yellow line, paint arrows in the street and post two-way traffic signs on both sides.

[bassoon1986]

Texas does well with construction zones and making temporary lanes. They will make new lanes out of pretty much anything - medians, shoulders and the like- so that they don't close down any lanes. And instead of restriping the lane shifts they use the reflector bumps to make it super obvious

[Brian556]

In Flower Mound, Tx: The intersection of FM 1171 & Morriss Rd was restriped and modified to add right and double feft turn lanes. unourtunatly, this resulted in horrible offsets for the through lanes. This situation is unsafe in my opinion. There are no advanced warning signs for the sharp offsets, and one is so bad that it could cause a driver to end up on the wrong side of the median. The intersection was normal and good before the modifications. I'll try to get some pics.

[vtk]

Back in about 2001—04 it seemed ODOT couldn't make up its mind how to stripe I-70 in a few places on the west side of Columbus. 

Eastbound at the I-670 split, the exit had been for years two mandatory lanes and an optional lane; a grand 3-lane exit to Grandview Ave.  Then they changed it to simply a two-lane exit, which gained an additional lane just downstream from the gore.  Finally after I-670 was completed in '03, they reverted to the optional-lane configuration. (Westbound appears to have been designed originally as a 3+2=4 merge, but since at least the 90's the right lane of I-670 has ended just before meeting I-70.  I don't personally know if it ever existed in the "inside lanes merge" configuration, but the pavement is sufficient for it.)

Westbound the exit for I-270 is two mandatory lanes and an optional lane; those three lanes then split into two and two for northbound and southbound.  This means the left two lanes are for I-70 west, the center two lanes for I-270 south, and the right two lanes are for I-270 north.  In afternoon rush, most traffic is going west or north, so this works decently.  Circa '03 it was for some reason changed to a simple two-mandatory-lane exit, with a third lane appearing on the right just at the gore.  This meant traffic heading for I-270 south was shifted into the right two lanes approaching the exit, and traffic heading for I-270 north – the greater volume – was sqeezed into the right-most lane, causing daily backups.  This was fixed after a few months. 

Downtown, WB I-70/71 approaching the West Split was changed a few times in about the same time period.  (I didn't drive that stretch myself until around '01, and then not with any regularity, so I can't report on changes before that.)  Currently (and I suspect through most of the 80's and 90's) the 3 "mainline" lanes are joined by the ramp from 2nd St, making four lanes.  The left lane is mandatory I-71 south, which peels off of I-70 pulling with it an optional lane for OH 315 north.  That leaves three lanes, the rightmost of which is then a mandatory exit to Rich St / Town St (and which is often misused as another ramp to OH 315 north).  I think a few different alternate versions were tried.  One of them had the OH 315 traffic in the leftmost lane along with I-71 south, making a single mandatory exit lane that split after the gore.  Another gave I-71 south and OH 315 each mandatory exit lanes; the consequence of that was I-70 had only one lane until the ramp from 2nd St joined, and then only a short distance for traffic to get into that lane to make room for traffic trying to get out of the OH 315 exit lane.  I think that configuration only lasted a couple of weeks.

[Brian556]

Here's the location I metioned previously. FM 1171 at Morriss Rd. Flower Mound, Tx
The right lane is now a right turn lane, causing the thru lanes to make a sharp jog to the right. They also added double left turn lanes for both directions, where there had been only single ones before.
I really dislike "jerry-rigging" like this. I'm wondering how many accidents this had caused.