Sorry to hear about your ear problem, Matt! Hope you get well soon, of course!
I am a research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, and I have seen successes and failures of such schemes. The failures were usually a result of lack of public input before implementation. I live in a condo in central Austin, walk around 4 miles a day on average, and use public transit.
Here's an example of what the residents of a village in Scotland believe was a failure:
"Residents of a sleepy Scottish village are being driven round the bend – by wiggly white lines painted on the road.
The loopy lines were meant to be a traffic-calming measure on the A811 in Arnprior, Stirlingshire. But they’re having the opposite effect on motorists.
Councillor Ian Muirhead said: 'In common with many residents, I find the wiggly lines to be not only ineffective but also look stupid.
'They were put in place as a supposed traffic-calming measure by Stirling Council. I think the idea is that people see the wobbly lines and assume it’s going to be a bumpy road so they slow down.
'But many people have said it just looks like the lines were painted by a drunken road worker.'"
I thought you were talking about putting peanuts in your coke or buying pizza flavored combos at the gas station in the middle of that long family car ride.
That's also crazy about your ear! I hope you're ok.
I was waiting for a list of “underrated/overrated” foods or places to eat on the road! I’m still kinda confused at how an eardrum bursts, but as long as it makes good content then I’m all for it! (Kidding of course-I hope you are doing better-isshhhh).
And the question of Rush’s best album involves a multi-part analysis that [ed. -- This goes on for like 7,000 words. So we’ll cut to the only arguably interesting point.] ... and I caught a guitar pick from Geddy fucking Lee when he played his old school bass/6-string double-neck on “Xanadu” on their last tour. (This is true.)
Meh. I am just a city gal with no engineering degree, but Vision Zero is just a pie in the sky idea that doesn't make sense in some communities (may make sense in some). CA has definitely gone all-in with it but it has led to disaster after disaster. Pedestrian deaths akshually went UP, emergency vehicles can't get to where they need to be, and businesses that were once successful are losing customers due to a lack of parking. We have had at least 2 major fires, Paradise & La Tuna Fire, where people cannot evacuate & actually died sitting in traffic. Am I supposed to drop my kids off at school on my bike? And don't even get me started on LA's public transit system. Just leave us alone & stop doing everything in your power to make our lives miserable. https://www.wsj.com/articles/vision-zero-a-road-diet-fad-is-proving-to-be-deadly-11547853472
I feel like this must be one episode where I zoned out during that part. As often happens and is related to another more recent episode where I guess some fellow BarPod listeners profusely say you folx mentioned that "sister podcast" but alas I can not place where.
MATT! OMG you got Keith Moon’d! Seriously tho, you are still now tho less tonedeaf then the SuderPods I’ve been having to make it through recently. Miss you bro, next time ur at Shannon’s Bayshore I’ll buy you a shot for ur shot ear drum
I don't give a shit about road diets one way or another. I'm just a blue collar schlub. I drive where I need to when I need to and if I can take a route that goes through old neighborhoods with interesting/quirky art deco/post-war architecture or zones with lots of trees then that is the way I go. My C-20 has the steering radius of an aircraft carrier and I can't hang a U turn on any street with fewer than three lanes without running over the curb, but that is typical of full sized trucks. . .which goes straight to the heart of my tepid objections over all this shit. The people putting forward propositions such as these, unlike the city planners of day's past, are only thinking of people like themselves and not accounting for the fact the world is filled with delightful variance.
Matt, hold the line, remain sensible, and don't listen to these classist Robert Moses acolytes with their segregating instincts who want to improve their quality of life by culling whatever undesirable they're most concerned over from their immediate field of view. They are not solving problems, they are simply compounding them and shunting them off on others too far off to be seen or heard -namely those without any option but to put up with squalor, gridlock and congestion.
Roads are a fucking market distortion. Weeping, creeping, Christ. This is precisely the sort of shit that reveals libertarians as absolute idiots to anyone who has to be useful for a living.
I could actually see the value of a road diet in some capacities, but my main issue, living in Florida, is that the transit people frequently put the cart before the horse with some of this stuff. In the island of blue I live in (Alachua County,) they don't have anything resembling the zoning/density/city planning/weather (daily thunderstorms during the summer) to actually make cycling a realistic choice for people to switch over reliably, but they have put a lot of effort to do exactly that with some of their attempts at road diets. I could see their argument more if they were putting in dedicated bus lanes or something but, no. Cycling lanes for the twenty psychopaths that bike during the Florida summer to work who, frequently, aren't on these new protected bike lanes but are still cycling on the actual roads.
Of course, the thing that has seen to taking more people off the road than any road diet design has been the move to hybrid and remote work.
While I think there is some silliness in the new urban/road diet crowd, the best argument is the narrowing lanes (which subconsciously causes people to slow down and drive more carefully) and get rid of all 4 lane roads with no turn lane (unless there is a grass median). We’ve recently done some road diets here in birmingham on no turn four lane roads to much success, though in some communities where following the law is not high on the list of priorities, people will use the center turning lane as a passing lane.
I’m currently pushing the councilman to work on a residential street with single family homes on 50 foot lots that is technically two lanes, but wide enough for 5, that is often a racing strip. The speed limit is 25 but even I find myself accidentally going 40, and 45+ is not uncommon. It’s super inexpensive to restripe roads and has a dramatically positive impact for safety and quality of life.
An addendum though, the people who want to get rid of interstates are looney tunes. Maybe it would have been better to not cut them through the middle of major cities when they were built but eliminating them in most places would be a nightmare because communities developed based on their existing as quick ways to get from burbs to the city center.
As with many things, on this topic firmly planting a flag might be fun, but "it depends" is probably right.
Without planting a flag, I would offer that an insane arrangement exists just north of Washington, DC on Connecticut Ave. I believe that this stretch of road used to be two normal lanes north and two normal lanes south, with a median in between. Then some genius decided that it would be better as three in each direction. They didn't widen the road. They didn't get rid of the median. Instead, they narrowed the lanes enough to squeeze in two more. So, now there are three anorexic lanes in each direction, with hardly enough room in each lane for normal cars, let alone trucks and buses. Traffic is always snarled in part because two of the lanes are unusable, instead serving as de facto turn lanes. And, because it is tough to see beyond the opposite turn lane, each turn lane is treacherous to boot.
In this case, four lanes with a four-foot median should have become an odd number of lanes with no median and a dedicated turn lane. Whether there should have been three lanes or five, I don't know. In this situation and in general, I think that good cases can be made for the virtues of a restrictive diet and the indulgence of more.
When I heard this segment of the pod, my mind keeps going to the wasted space we have for highways. There are certain small ideas that could make these projects cheaper on the margins and result in less environmental damage.
It's not exactly the same topic, but my undergrad minor was in energy and sustainability and this was one of our main focuses in our case studies class with not-infrequent Fox Business guest and former Shell CEO John Hofmeister, author of Why We Hate The Oil Companies.
Road diets... I'm definitely no city planning expert, and I haven't read through all of the academic papers extolling their virtues, but I actually got to live through a "road diet" so instead I've got that rare privilege of first hand experience instead.
I'm sure there are situations where the idea of a road diet works -- the Times Square example being a pretty good example. But, not every street in America is Times Square, and not every city has the excellent public transportation, existing bike culture, or perfect grid-like street layout as Manhattan.
I live in a small neighborhood tucked in between some of the busier parts of LA's West Side. A few years back, they tried the "Road Diet" on the major streets in my neighborhood, and it turned my 25 minute commute into a 45+ minute commute, with all 20 extra minutes coming from the 1.5 miles of those streets.
It turns out our roads weren't actually fat, they were just big boned. The problem is that the city implemented the road diet without actually improving on or incentivizing the alternative means of transportation that were supposed to replace driving. Sure, we had nice new bike lanes, but they all ended before connecting to any other existing bike paths in surrounding areas, forcing anyone using them to still have to negotiate busy street traffic -- completely defeating the purpose. I spent plenty of time sitting in gridlock -- staring at the mostly empty/unused bike lanes that used to hold car traffic -- to ponder this.
Fortunately, it "only" took about 9 months of public outrage and misery (and a few recall votes on city council members) for them to decide to "undo" it aside from a few speed humps and speed signs to make it look like a success.
I took an Urban Economics class for B School with Paul Romer (the actually dude who said never wast a crisis, not Rahm) and the first reading was about why Houston is a piece of shit city. Alot of it was about multi lane causing issues and lack of zoning.
Also, I think you should auction off your bloody pillowcase for charity
I hate to admit this, but I've witnessed a road diet in action (Ayd Mill Road corridor). It was a two-lane paved road through a grassy corridor that ducks around railroad bridges and underpasses in St. Paul. I've heard it likened to Chutes and Ladders. They reduced the lanes to three total and put in a bike lane (which I vociferously opposed), and I'll be damned if it isn't a more pleasant driving experience. What is it exactly that I'm experiencing here? The absence of lane-switching? Less checking my blind spot?
Yeah, Jess, I have to agree with you that Ayd Mill is much improved since the redesign. Although I think it mostly has to do with just getting it repaved from the pothole hellscape it was for years.
It's still a mostly pointless road though, as its history proves. It's really just the "batcave" road for St. Paul.
Sorry to hear about your ear problem, Matt! Hope you get well soon, of course!
I am a research engineer at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, and I have seen successes and failures of such schemes. The failures were usually a result of lack of public input before implementation. I live in a condo in central Austin, walk around 4 miles a day on average, and use public transit.
Here's an example of what the residents of a village in Scotland believe was a failure:
"Residents of a sleepy Scottish village are being driven round the bend – by wiggly white lines painted on the road.
The loopy lines were meant to be a traffic-calming measure on the A811 in Arnprior, Stirlingshire. But they’re having the opposite effect on motorists.
Councillor Ian Muirhead said: 'In common with many residents, I find the wiggly lines to be not only ineffective but also look stupid.
'They were put in place as a supposed traffic-calming measure by Stirling Council. I think the idea is that people see the wobbly lines and assume it’s going to be a bumpy road so they slow down.
'But many people have said it just looks like the lines were painted by a drunken road worker.'"
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/wiggly-lines-drive-arnprior-residents-2558549
I thought you were talking about putting peanuts in your coke or buying pizza flavored combos at the gas station in the middle of that long family car ride.
That's also crazy about your ear! I hope you're ok.
I was waiting for a list of “underrated/overrated” foods or places to eat on the road! I’m still kinda confused at how an eardrum bursts, but as long as it makes good content then I’m all for it! (Kidding of course-I hope you are doing better-isshhhh).
Get well, Matt!
And the question of Rush’s best album involves a multi-part analysis that [ed. -- This goes on for like 7,000 words. So we’ll cut to the only arguably interesting point.] ... and I caught a guitar pick from Geddy fucking Lee when he played his old school bass/6-string double-neck on “Xanadu” on their last tour. (This is true.)
Meh. I am just a city gal with no engineering degree, but Vision Zero is just a pie in the sky idea that doesn't make sense in some communities (may make sense in some). CA has definitely gone all-in with it but it has led to disaster after disaster. Pedestrian deaths akshually went UP, emergency vehicles can't get to where they need to be, and businesses that were once successful are losing customers due to a lack of parking. We have had at least 2 major fires, Paradise & La Tuna Fire, where people cannot evacuate & actually died sitting in traffic. Am I supposed to drop my kids off at school on my bike? And don't even get me started on LA's public transit system. Just leave us alone & stop doing everything in your power to make our lives miserable. https://www.wsj.com/articles/vision-zero-a-road-diet-fad-is-proving-to-be-deadly-11547853472
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-paradise-evacuation-road-20181120-story.html
Sorry to hear about the ear! At least I assume your pillowcase isn't faking it like Curt Schilling's sock.
I feel like this must be one episode where I zoned out during that part. As often happens and is related to another more recent episode where I guess some fellow BarPod listeners profusely say you folx mentioned that "sister podcast" but alas I can not place where.
Get well soon Matt!
MATT! OMG you got Keith Moon’d! Seriously tho, you are still now tho less tonedeaf then the SuderPods I’ve been having to make it through recently. Miss you bro, next time ur at Shannon’s Bayshore I’ll buy you a shot for ur shot ear drum
I don't give a shit about road diets one way or another. I'm just a blue collar schlub. I drive where I need to when I need to and if I can take a route that goes through old neighborhoods with interesting/quirky art deco/post-war architecture or zones with lots of trees then that is the way I go. My C-20 has the steering radius of an aircraft carrier and I can't hang a U turn on any street with fewer than three lanes without running over the curb, but that is typical of full sized trucks. . .which goes straight to the heart of my tepid objections over all this shit. The people putting forward propositions such as these, unlike the city planners of day's past, are only thinking of people like themselves and not accounting for the fact the world is filled with delightful variance.
Matt, hold the line, remain sensible, and don't listen to these classist Robert Moses acolytes with their segregating instincts who want to improve their quality of life by culling whatever undesirable they're most concerned over from their immediate field of view. They are not solving problems, they are simply compounding them and shunting them off on others too far off to be seen or heard -namely those without any option but to put up with squalor, gridlock and congestion.
Roads are a fucking market distortion. Weeping, creeping, Christ. This is precisely the sort of shit that reveals libertarians as absolute idiots to anyone who has to be useful for a living.
I could actually see the value of a road diet in some capacities, but my main issue, living in Florida, is that the transit people frequently put the cart before the horse with some of this stuff. In the island of blue I live in (Alachua County,) they don't have anything resembling the zoning/density/city planning/weather (daily thunderstorms during the summer) to actually make cycling a realistic choice for people to switch over reliably, but they have put a lot of effort to do exactly that with some of their attempts at road diets. I could see their argument more if they were putting in dedicated bus lanes or something but, no. Cycling lanes for the twenty psychopaths that bike during the Florida summer to work who, frequently, aren't on these new protected bike lanes but are still cycling on the actual roads.
Of course, the thing that has seen to taking more people off the road than any road diet design has been the move to hybrid and remote work.
While I think there is some silliness in the new urban/road diet crowd, the best argument is the narrowing lanes (which subconsciously causes people to slow down and drive more carefully) and get rid of all 4 lane roads with no turn lane (unless there is a grass median). We’ve recently done some road diets here in birmingham on no turn four lane roads to much success, though in some communities where following the law is not high on the list of priorities, people will use the center turning lane as a passing lane.
I’m currently pushing the councilman to work on a residential street with single family homes on 50 foot lots that is technically two lanes, but wide enough for 5, that is often a racing strip. The speed limit is 25 but even I find myself accidentally going 40, and 45+ is not uncommon. It’s super inexpensive to restripe roads and has a dramatically positive impact for safety and quality of life.
An addendum though, the people who want to get rid of interstates are looney tunes. Maybe it would have been better to not cut them through the middle of major cities when they were built but eliminating them in most places would be a nightmare because communities developed based on their existing as quick ways to get from burbs to the city center.
As with many things, on this topic firmly planting a flag might be fun, but "it depends" is probably right.
Without planting a flag, I would offer that an insane arrangement exists just north of Washington, DC on Connecticut Ave. I believe that this stretch of road used to be two normal lanes north and two normal lanes south, with a median in between. Then some genius decided that it would be better as three in each direction. They didn't widen the road. They didn't get rid of the median. Instead, they narrowed the lanes enough to squeeze in two more. So, now there are three anorexic lanes in each direction, with hardly enough room in each lane for normal cars, let alone trucks and buses. Traffic is always snarled in part because two of the lanes are unusable, instead serving as de facto turn lanes. And, because it is tough to see beyond the opposite turn lane, each turn lane is treacherous to boot.
In this case, four lanes with a four-foot median should have become an odd number of lanes with no median and a dedicated turn lane. Whether there should have been three lanes or five, I don't know. In this situation and in general, I think that good cases can be made for the virtues of a restrictive diet and the indulgence of more.
When I heard this segment of the pod, my mind keeps going to the wasted space we have for highways. There are certain small ideas that could make these projects cheaper on the margins and result in less environmental damage.
Look to projects like the vertical wind turbines of Istanbul (https://www.thebetterindia.com/281730/istanbul-vertical-wind-turbine-street-traffic-electricity-innovation/) and solar panel placement on highway signs (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth542393/ but for highway signs) to power lighting for major highway systems and capture the energy lost from normal automobile usage.
Further look to the use of sulfur slag from coal plant stack scrubbers to decrease the carbon footprint of the roads themselves to create a stronger roadway (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11356-022-20456-y).
It's not exactly the same topic, but my undergrad minor was in energy and sustainability and this was one of our main focuses in our case studies class with not-infrequent Fox Business guest and former Shell CEO John Hofmeister, author of Why We Hate The Oil Companies.
Glad the listenership clapped back on this one, we’ve suffered a lot from ignoring or not understanding induced demand
Road diets... I'm definitely no city planning expert, and I haven't read through all of the academic papers extolling their virtues, but I actually got to live through a "road diet" so instead I've got that rare privilege of first hand experience instead.
I'm sure there are situations where the idea of a road diet works -- the Times Square example being a pretty good example. But, not every street in America is Times Square, and not every city has the excellent public transportation, existing bike culture, or perfect grid-like street layout as Manhattan.
I live in a small neighborhood tucked in between some of the busier parts of LA's West Side. A few years back, they tried the "Road Diet" on the major streets in my neighborhood, and it turned my 25 minute commute into a 45+ minute commute, with all 20 extra minutes coming from the 1.5 miles of those streets.
It turns out our roads weren't actually fat, they were just big boned. The problem is that the city implemented the road diet without actually improving on or incentivizing the alternative means of transportation that were supposed to replace driving. Sure, we had nice new bike lanes, but they all ended before connecting to any other existing bike paths in surrounding areas, forcing anyone using them to still have to negotiate busy street traffic -- completely defeating the purpose. I spent plenty of time sitting in gridlock -- staring at the mostly empty/unused bike lanes that used to hold car traffic -- to ponder this.
Fortunately, it "only" took about 9 months of public outrage and misery (and a few recall votes on city council members) for them to decide to "undo" it aside from a few speed humps and speed signs to make it look like a success.
I took an Urban Economics class for B School with Paul Romer (the actually dude who said never wast a crisis, not Rahm) and the first reading was about why Houston is a piece of shit city. Alot of it was about multi lane causing issues and lack of zoning.
Also, I think you should auction off your bloody pillowcase for charity
I hate to admit this, but I've witnessed a road diet in action (Ayd Mill Road corridor). It was a two-lane paved road through a grassy corridor that ducks around railroad bridges and underpasses in St. Paul. I've heard it likened to Chutes and Ladders. They reduced the lanes to three total and put in a bike lane (which I vociferously opposed), and I'll be damned if it isn't a more pleasant driving experience. What is it exactly that I'm experiencing here? The absence of lane-switching? Less checking my blind spot?
Yeah, Jess, I have to agree with you that Ayd Mill is much improved since the redesign. Although I think it mostly has to do with just getting it repaved from the pothole hellscape it was for years.
It's still a mostly pointless road though, as its history proves. It's really just the "batcave" road for St. Paul.
I love it for that very reason. It's diagonal! And fast! And green :)
Now we can lobby for a Twin Cities live pod!