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Urban planning in current events

Started by noahclem, November 06, 2014, 06:04:14 AM

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noahclem

In hindsight it's clear that American urban freeway building made a lot of mistakes. The videos do an excellent job pointing out the worst of them and I agree with the vast majority of the content. That said, I do love highways and cars, though I haven't driven mine for about 15 months (too expensive to register, insure, and inspect, plus the heater isn't working which is rather important up here). I especially love tunnels as a solution for urban highways though they're often prohibitively expensive. Was really fun seeing the road system in Tromso, Norway, where not only were the thoroughfares almost all underground but much of the parking as well. Elon Musk's "boring company" is also very interesting and presumably his tunnels would save money on ventilation were they to allow only electric cars.

The tide is already turning against vehicle emissions in urban areas and within a couple decades it may be that the idea of biking or walking next to emission-spewing cars seems a lot like eating at a restaurant next to smokers does now. Shared and self-driving cars may drastically reduce the need for parking. I'm about as pro-rail as someone can be (while still liking cars) but I don't see the end of cars in cities anytime soon. Cleaner, safer cars limited to certain areas for through traffic and not taking up half the landscape with parking lots will make things a lot better for drivers and non-drivers alike.

And those giant, disruptive right-of-ways carved out for the highways in urban centers? They may just end up being the cheapest and least disruptive ways to get high speed rail into more city centers. Renewal projects like Boston's can make those corridors into pleasant, greener spaces that would never have appeared without the old highways cutting a gash through the cityscape.

j-dub

After that Fast 8 film though, and Charlize Theron hacks all those people's cars, I can see why more folk at least won't buy into this whole auto-park/driverless car thing. Money is wasted on building two bike lane wide paved paths next to pavement, and what do these tight dressed speed cyclists all do? They all go in the road slowing what's supposed to be 45 mph traffic down. Of course I pick a fight with these guys.

Wiimeiser

This is interesting, they want to make this interchange into a DDI...
Pink horse, pink horse, she rides across the nation...

Wiimeiser

Well, it appears the North East Link's eastern option (the VTA proposal via Coldstream to avoid building tunnels) is too destructive for the environment to even be considered and may in fact be illegal. It's clear it's been dropped entirely, but I can't seem to find any information on this. Is anyone else having any luck?
Pink horse, pink horse, she rides across the nation...

Nanami

Quote from: noahclem on April 18, 2017, 01:58:05 PMAnd those giant, disruptive right-of-ways carved out for the highways in urban centers? They may just end up being the cheapest and least disruptive ways to get high speed rail into more city centers. Renewal projects like Boston's can make those corridors into pleasant, greener spaces that would never have appeared without the old highways cutting a gash through the cityscape.
Well this statement indeed very valid if you can see what became the trends here in Jakarta. Almost every current highway toward the suburban cities became the route of currently in build LRT projects (picture below) even the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project also planned to use the side of highway in order to save money and time from land clearance. Maybe in future we can see american city has HSR in every interstate as well?  :D



as can see from both image, the LRT is build right next to highway


here from this map can be seen that the LRT route is indeed follow the current highway route.




vester

In Copenhagen area a new rail line into the city is been build. From the junction at Ringsted and until around 4-6 km from the main train station the new rail line (Copenhagen - Ringsted) is following the highways.
The area has been zone as transport corridor long time ago, which makes it easier to expropriate the ground along the rail line.
People would have known it for a long time, that the area was reserved for motorway or railroad.

brick_mortimer

About them freeways...

Read about a new 5-level interchange in Chongqin, China in the paper yesterday.
Had to look it up and this is what I found: http://metro.co.uk/2017/06/02/mind-blowing-overpass-with-five-layers-20-ramps-and-eight-different-directions-6679073/  :o

Anybody up for a challenge with the RHW?  :satisfied:
Busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest
Me no coffee function without so good

911Diva

We could always try one of these!!         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD-0QnUlLOQ

eggman121

The 5-Level interchange documented would require some new pieces and code to get the right footprint. Not an easy feat.

Quote from: 911Diva on June 08, 2017, 03:50:41 PM
We could always try one of these!!

Anyway the DDI and other RHW/ REW to surface road intersections are planned however.

Maybe as early as NAM 37.

-eggman121


vester

That 5-Level interchange is just crazy.

Try to document some error on a column, it the 163rd on the expressway to the .... argh ?
Hope they have figure out a good way to make inspections and make the follow documentations.

Not sure I would like to use it..... " just went part by off ramp"


brick_mortimer

Quote from: eggman121 on June 08, 2017, 04:07:33 PM
The 5-Level interchange documented would require some new pieces and code to get the right footprint. Not an easy feat.
...

Just to be clear, my "challenge" didn't refer to the NAM team.
I think I should have gone with this :popcorn: in stead of :satisfied: in my post

You guys are doing an amazing job as it is, and I don't think anybody is waiting for a 5th level for the RHW.
Busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest
Me no coffee function without so good

911Diva

I just added the crazy diamond intersections as a joke!!  One of my LT's at work showed us, I think I would have to surrender my driver's license if we built one of those in my city!!!

vester

#92
Seen that they are building a Diverging diamond Interchange, south of Odense (Denmark).
Not sure its that hard as you are more or less guided through.
Between the two light crosses, you can consider it as two one way streets passing each other:


Its just a matter of following the lanes you are in.

Youtube - NCDOT: Diverging Diamond Interchange Visualization

romualdillo

I didn't understand how that diamond interchange worked until you put the last picture  :-[. Here roundabouts are more common. About the 5-level interchange, it looks impressive, but I think it stays on the opposite side of what I consider urban planning should be. I'm not a huge fan of motorways...

art128

I took one the other day for work. It's okay. Though there was some congestion around it. Not sure if that was just general A86 congestion or specific to this interchange.
I'll take a quiet life... A handshake of carbon monoxide.

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Odainsaker

#95
Quote from: Nanami on May 15, 2017, 07:54:16 AM
Quote from: noahclem on April 18, 2017, 01:58:05 PMAnd those giant, disruptive right-of-ways carved out for the highways in urban centers? They may just end up being the cheapest and least disruptive ways to get high speed rail into more city centers. Renewal projects like Boston's can make those corridors into pleasant, greener spaces that would never have appeared without the old highways cutting a gash through the cityscape.
Well this statement indeed very valid if you can see what became the trends here in Jakarta. Almost every current highway toward the suburban cities became the route of currently in build LRT projects (picture below) even the Jakarta-Bandung HSR project also planned to use the side of highway in order to save money and time from land clearance. Maybe in future we can see american city has HSR in every interstate as well?  :D

We may soon have no choice.  My hometown of San Antonio, Texas, has long been trying to set up a commuter rail link with Austin, a city 80 miles north, as the highway link of Interstate Highway 35, the "NAFTA Superhighway," has become hopelessly congested with traffic.  Most of the proposals have involved using the current Union Pacific freight rail right-of-way, the most direct existing rail route between the two cities, and shifting UP's freight traffic onto an alternate route.  Amtrak already uses UP's lines for its long-distance, bi-weekly service to Chicago, but on the condition that UP's freight traffic has priority.  Union Pacific will not allow its slower freight service to share tracks with a commuter system whose trains need higher critical priority, and, while UP is willing to transfer ownership of its tracks to a commuter rail system in exchange for an alternate route, they insist that any alternate route not create any significant increase in its own freight transit times.  San Antonio, Austin, and their Lone Star Rail project had been looking for that alternate route and a means to finance it.

Union Pacific ended involvement in the Lone Star Rail project last year, as it was ultimately seen that an alternate route matching UP's current time requirements cannot be found.  Stretching between San Antonio and Austin are a number of small cities and towns who are all undergoing expansions as the IH-35 corridor continues its rapid growth boom.  Many of those expanding suburban and exurban municipalities and residential communities do not wish to be bisected by a new freight rail line, and a number of them have enacted ordinances specifically designed to block such lines.  Such legal walls in layered depth, breakable only by a State legislature loath to interfere with local property control, has made the effort to free up Union Pacific's current rail right-of-way through the construction of an alternate bypass virtually impossible.

However, there is still a single, sufficiently wide, flatland right-of-way cutting straight through all the local municipal barriers via unified State control and which directly connects downtown San Antonio to downtown Austin:  Interstate Highway 35.  While the notion of running commuter trains down the median of the highway has already now been suggested, some have gone so far as to even suggest that if we are going to try to reconstruct the cross-cut profile of IH-35, we might as well bite the bullet now and just run elevated high-speed rail lines down or alongside the highway.  After all, the now burgeoning San Antonio-Austin IH-35 corridor, among the top growth corridors in the nation, is already promoted as a national planning target for future Federal investment in high-speed rail, so, with the right proposal pitched to unlock Federal transportation dollars, we can kill two bird with one stone.

The current Texas Central Railroad project to connect Dallas and Houston with high-speed rail has promoted the use of Japanese Nozomi N700 Shinkansen trainsets on its proposed line, and President Donald Trump, during the February visit of Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, boasted of his having corralled Japanese future investment in American rail infrastructure by actually highlighting plans for Japanese bullet trains in Texas.  I recall earlier that as President Barack Obama brought forth his national high-speed rail plan, Abe's then government, in a bid to export its newly developed maglev train technology in the face of HSR export competition from China, had offered to freely license and fully finance the first 40 miles of an American maglev line.  They were aiming at the time to connect Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, but 40 miles would already cover half of the roughly 80-mile distance distance between San Antonio and Austin.  Trump just gave another speech earlier this week promoting reinvestment in crumbling infrastructure, and while I think he was really just trying to change the topic from his political troubles just before a bombshell Senate hearing with the fired former FBI Director, I am willing to entertain the notion of testing Trump at his word here.  C'mon, Mr. President, make it happen:  let's build the nation's first maglev rail line between San Antonio and Austin!  Your friend Abe and the Japanese offered to provide the immediate technical know-how and can pay for half of it up front already!  "Make America Great Again"..."Texas Tokaidō, Banzai!"

Okay, none of that will really happen anytime soon, and even conventional commuter rail between San Antonio and Austin remains a struggle to establish.  But, it's entertaining to see how our options can be inadvertantly narrowed into something visionary.


eggman121

You where wondering about Divergent Diamond Interchanges?





Also posted in the REW Dev forum.

-eggman121