Happy New Decade!

[CNGL-Leudimin]

As it has been tradition for the last few years, taking advantage of my time zone which is a few hours into the future, I come from 2020 to wish a Happy New Year to all you who are still in 2019. I'm now in the not-so Roaring Twenties, and I don't expect a new nationwide system of numbered roads to be laid out during this decade.

This has been the first post of 2020, at least in my time zone (Central Europe, six hours ahead of Eastern), from Road Sign UNO:

Tennessee 386.

[US 89]

Meh, this is just another new year. Get back to me when the 203rd decade begins in another year.

[tolbs17]

This is going to be fun

[Buck87]

Meh, this is just another new year. Get back to me when the 203rd decade begins in another year.

I'm with you on waiting until XXX1 when starting new Millenniums and Centuries, but I don't mind starting decades with XXX0, and it has to do with the way they are named. No one is calling it the "203rd Decade".....it's either the 2020's or the 20's, and it just doesn't seem right to have something called the 2020's not include 2020 itself.

And yes, I fully realize that this means that I consider decades and centuries/millenniums to be offset by a year, so that all the 00's decades technically span 2 different centuries. That's also standard Wikipedia uses:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001

2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, the 2001st year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 1st year of the 3rd millennium, the 1st year of the 21st century, and the 2nd year of the 2000s decade

[jeffandnicole]

Meh, this is just another new year. Get back to me when the 203rd decade begins in another year.

Why is this so misunderstood? That's like saying the start of year 1 began 365 days after 0. No...year 1 ENDED after 365 days. Year 2 begins on day 366.

Thus, the decade ends tonight. The new decade begins tomorrow.

[Buck87]

Meh, this is just another new year. Get back to me when the 203rd decade begins in another year.

Why is this so misunderstood? That's like saying the start of year 1 began 365 days after 0. No...year 1 ENDED after 365 days. Year 2 begins on day 366.

Thus, the decade ends tonight. The new decade begins tomorrow.

The start of AD 1 began the day after 1 BC ended, there is no year 0.

[nexus73]

2020, can you see clearly now?  LOL!  At my age I have known family members who were alive in the 19th century and some who will be alive in the 22nd century.  Roaring Twenties V2.0 anyone?

Rick

[bulldog1979]

The best explanation I've seen is thus: January 1, 2020, is the start of the 2020s, but it is not the start of the decade. They are different time periods.

To say the decade ends tonight though would imply that some decade only had 9 years. The first decade includes the years AD 1 through AD 10. The second decade includes the years AD 11 through AD 20, and so on. The 202nd decade includes 2011 through 2020. If the 202nd decade included 2010 through 2019, then the first decade would have to include 0 through 9, but there was no year 0.

To get the number of a decade, look at the year ending in "0" that concludes it, and then drop that zero to divide by 10. The remainder of the number is the decade number. That's how we calculate the century number as well: the 21st century ends in 2100, and we drop the pair of ending zeros from that year to divide by 100.

[ozarkman417]

It's hard to believe I was SIX when this decade started (or 7 if the start of the decade is 2011). Since most the social media sites I use agree that the decade begins tomorrow I'm going to go with that. 
This decade will essentially be the start of my adult life. I will get my license in the next couple weeks and a couple years later I will graduate high school ('22) and then I will begin to rack up crippling student debt. Hurray 

Roaring Twenties V2.0 anyone?

Let's just hope this one doesn't end in a total economic collapse that leads to a World War.

[tolbs17]

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND DECADE FOLKS!!


IT'S 2020!!

[Ben114]

First post of 2020 (and the 2020s) for Eastern US:

I'm one of the "it's more complicated" voters.

I prefer the term "latent demand" over "induced demand" because, on a functional level, construction of infrastructure doesn't create demand - it merely allows it to be fulfilled.

There is such a thing as "induced" demand, but that is not a reason to justify opposition to highways.  I have found it to be what lawyers call "when the law is against you and the facts are against you then give your opponent Hell."

"Induced" demand happens (in classical terms) when a new highway opens up new land to development, and people move to the new communities and start using the new highway.

"Latent" demand can also be called "suppressed" demand, when travel along a certain path is so terrible that users of the system decline to go a certain path for various reasons, especially long travel times due to congestion.

But there's a way to deal with "induced" demand - price a new highway properly and the biggest result of that induced demand goes away ("the new road was congested within a year or two of opening"), since the tolls will prevent that sort of congestion. Tolling also allows the capacity of the road to be maximized, very easy to accomplish with dynamic tolling.

I don't think it is in and of itself an argument against expanding infrastructure. However, "congestion relief" is often overpromised and underdelivered as a project benefit, and I do think we need to be more honest about that. The chief benefit of extra lanes is increased throughput; this may or may not appreciably reduce congestion depending on the amount of latent demand present.

This goes for transit projects too - they deliver increased throughput as a benefit, and in any large city they can potentially be an effective means of doing so when planned comprehensively and coupled with transit-oriented development patterns. But they most likely won't appreciably reduce congestion - not just because of latent demand, but also because transit typically depends on the existence of congestion in order to be time competitive with driving. When transit usage reaches the point that it starts to reduce congestion, it will reach an equilibrium and not grow any further until overall demand increases.

Here again, pricing of highways allows those highways to provide congestion-free travel, at the cost of asking drivers to pay tolls.

Regarding transit, advocates of new rail projects frequently promise nearly unlimited highway congestion relief from new train lines, something most rail transit cannot provide (an especially egregious example is the Washington Metrorail system, where its boosters made claims that the roads would be empty because everyone would be riding the spiffy new Metro trains).  What Metro did was to take people off of buses and put them on a much more expensive train system.  It has done little to force drivers out of their cars and onto transit, in spite of numerous claims to the contrary (and since the system is mostly at capacity at the maximum load points leading to downtown D.C. and downtown Arlington County, Virginia, it really cannot attract much in the way of new riders from their cars where it would do the most good, in the peak hour or peak two hours).

You are absolutely correct that nearly all transit lines depend on (frequently severe) traffic congestion, especially on radial roads leading to downtown core areas in order to carry a lot of patrons (circumferential transit lines are not so successful at this).

[Tonytone]

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND DECADE FOLKS!!


IT'S 2020!!

Thank you AA Roads Family. Happy traveling & road geeking! & remember our motto, when you see a nimby take the back road.


iPhone

[ozarkman417]

I don't think we needed a second new years/decade thread.

I'm "in the past", as there is another 20 minutes until 2020 begins for Central Time. I have lived the majority of my life in this decade and it has been a great one.

[tolbs17]

I don't think we needed a second new years/decade thread.

I'm "in the past", as there is another 20 minutes until 2020 begins for Central Time. I have lived the majority of my life in this decade and it has been a great one.

Should we merge the posts to the other thread?

[kevinb1994]

I don't think we needed a second new years/decade thread.

I'm "in the past", as there is another 20 minutes until 2020 begins for Central Time. I have lived the majority of my life in this decade and it has been a great one.

Should we merge the posts to the other thread?

I'm sure the mods will take care of that.

[ozarkman417]

I don't think we needed a second new years/decade thread.

I'm "in the past", as there is another 20 minutes until 2020 begins for Central Time. I have lived the majority of my life in this decade and it has been a great one.

Should we merge the posts to the other thread?

I'm sure the mods will take care of that.

It appears they already have.
It is now the Roaring 20s 2.0 here in the central time zone, here is the first post of 2020 (for me):

It's almost like the theory certain people believe that left exits are prohibited on the interstate highways... it's perceived as substandard, but there's no rule against it.

They are prohibited by sound engineering judgement.

But it is not against interstate standards.

[tolbs17]

This is mine.

US 264 I-587 North-South designation sucks. they need to change that.

[Bruce]

Things are off to a bad start here: Space Needle's fireworks show is canceled because of high winds

https://twitter.com/space_needle/status/1212280030375493632

[CNGL-Leudimin]

HAPPY NEW YEAR AND DECADE FOLKS!!


IT'S 2020!!

Sorry, there's no need to create another "Happy New Year" thread. I took advantage of my time zone to do mine's just after 6:00 p.m. Eastern on 2019, December 31 (already past midnight on Central Europe, and thus 2020).

[ET21]

Happy New Years guys

[Henry]

Things are off to a bad start here: Space Needle's fireworks show is canceled because of high winds

https://twitter.com/space_needle/status/1212280030375493632

Shame it had to go that way; I always enjoy these fireworks displays.

Also, Happy New Year!

[kphoger]

I fully understand that the first decade AD started with year 1 and therefore ended with year 10.  However, having said that...

Unless you are prepared to say that 1980 was in the 1970s, then just admit that we are, in fact, actually, really, in a new decade now.

The 1980s include the ten years 1980 through 1989.  The name of the decade is the 1980s.  It began January 1, 1980.

The 2020s include the ten years 2020 through 2029.  The name of the decade is the 2020s.  It began January 1, 2020.

[vdeane]

I fully understand that the first decade AD started with year 1 and therefore ended with year 10.  However, having said that...

Unless you are prepared to say that 1980 was in the 1970s, then just admit that we are, in fact, actually, really, in a new decade now.

The 1980s include the ten years 1980 through 1989.  The name of the decade is the 1980s.  It began January 1, 1980.

The 2020s include the ten years 2020 through 2029.  The name of the decade is the 2020s.  It began January 1, 2020.

As explained by xkcd: https://xkcd.com/2249/

[Scott5114]

There was a year 0. There wasn't a 1958, though.

[kphoger]

There was a year 0. There wasn't a 1958, though.

I thought we weren't allowed to discuss Ala.nland anymore.