Another B.S. list ... Fortunately for Cincy and Cleveland, we are doing fairly well ...

 

Cincinnati 18th of 25 in rude driver rankings

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

 

For the second consecutive year, rude Miami drivers have earned the city the title of worst road rage in a survey released Tuesday.

 

Cincinnati ranked 18th in the survey.

 

For more information, click below link.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/05/15/road.rage.ap/index.html

 

Midwest:

 

Residents in the following 25 cities were surveyed and are listed in order from those reporting the most incidents of road rage to the fewest:

 

1. Miami

2. New York

3. Boston

4. Los Angeles

5. Washington, D.C.

6. Phoenix

7. Chicago

8. Sacramento, Calif.

9. Philadelphia

10. San Francisco

11. Houston

12. Atlanta

13. Detroit

14. Minneapolis-St. Paul

15. Baltimore

16. Tampa, Fla.

17. San Diego

18. Cincinnati

19. Cleveland

20. Denver

21. Dallas-Ft. Worth

22. St. Louis

23. Seattle-Tacoma

24. Pittsburgh

25. Portland, Ore.

Glad to see Chicago up there at 7 although it could probably be #3 too! 

Pittsburgh and Portland drivers are wimps.

I would rather be sitting in the 25 spot, but Cincinnatians are assholes on the roads (a lack of LRT? ;) )

Great Lawn overpass disputed

Waterfront agency says it must OK state design

 

This ought to get great  :whistling:

IMO, it was foolish for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to quickly dismiss the arched span alternative for the span over the Great Lawn of Waterfront Park. That part of the viaduct is scheduled for demolition when the Spaghetti Junction is redesigned. The other designs are bland, boring concrete and steel structures with pretty much the same amount of piers. The arched span alternative appeared briefly on several media web-sites, but were ordered by the state to take them down. The Courier-Journal, of course, refused to and made it a headline on the front page  :thumbsup:

 

The arched span would be ideal in this situation, but overall, the viaduct should be demolished.

 

Great Lawn overpass disputed

 

Notes --

1. The Waterfront Development Corp, who is overseeing Waterfront Park, has warned the state it has the legal power to approve a design for an overpass at the Great Lawn. It was not pleased with two early designs the state proposed for a wider stretch of Interstate 64 over the lawn, as part of the Ohio River Bridges Project.

1a. A 2004 city law created a special district for the waterfront and allows the agency to review and approve of development within the district -- including the overpass. The law stemmed from a state law allowing such districts.

1b. The 15-member board is largely appointed by Louisville's mayor and Kentucky's governor.

2. The agency prefers a span that has the least amount of impact on the Great Lawn.... like the one proposal the state rejected quickly and did not release publicly. It would require the fewest pillars and would cost more than the other two.

2a. 95% of those that voted in an online C-J poll voted for the arch design.

2b. Plans call for the widening and raising of I-64 over the Great Lawn to 40 feet -- 8 to 10 feet higher than it is now. This would improve views of the park and the Ohio River.

2c. The "concept" arch span is "too expensive to consider" and "cannot be built from an engineering standpoint."

3. KYTC disputed their claim of legal authority, stating that federal guidelines trump local planning laws. (My note: There are no federal guideline on how a bridge should be built!)

4. KYTC refused to answer questions, stating instead that the record of decision authorized the project in 2003, and that other laws supplant local laws.

4a. In response, the agency stated that KYTC needs to quote the "chapter and verse of where the federal law allows them to ride over the top of the local community and ignore state and local metro legislation."

4b. KYTC also refused to release more information regarding the project as a whole to the agency. They also denied a C-J request under the state's open-records law to review documents on the possible arch span. KYTC stated that the design plan was still in its preliminary stages.

5. Waterfront Park has been selected as one of the top 10 urban parks in the nation.

6. The $3.9 billion Ohio River Bridges Project cost will consume 18.5% of Kentucky's discretionary highway money over 24 years.

 

Alternatives --

1. Arched span: $160 million cost; 10 pillars on the lawn.

2. Steel 'Haunched Box' girder span: $48 million; 40 pillars on the lawn.

3. Conventional steel-box girder span: $36 million; 55 pillars (pretty much what is there now).

 

Article information: "Great Lawn overpass disputed, By Marcus Green, The Courier-Journal, Saturday, May 15, 2007"

Watchdog Earth:  All for the love of a view...

 

The I-64 crossing over the Great Lawn was to be 308 feet (154 feet currently), but this was reduced to 225 feet.

Washington D.C. is NUTS. I've never seen so many accidents actually happening, let alone all the aftermath that I saw.

That @#$@ing ugly bridge is finally receiving one coat of paint!  :clap:

 

Bridge finally getting a fresh coat

 

Notes --

1. The state has tried for six years and has spent $23 million to paint the Kennedy Bridge that carries Interstate 65 over the Ohio River.

2. Intech Contracting of Lexington, Kentucky should complete the bridge painting project August 9. The project cost is $14.7 million. The contract was received last fall; the company has 50 people working the bridge on three shifts, 22 to 24 hours on most days.

2a. The work proceeded slowly thorough the spring because of cold and rainy weather.

3. The new color is beige. It was last fully painted in the late 1970s.

3a. Me: Holy crap! I know bridges that were built in 1985 that are just now receiving their first paint job after their primers started showing!

3b. The first attempt at a repaint came in 2001, when the state paid $20.7 million to two contractors. The contractors only completed part of the job; the state later had to settle a lawsuit over how the bridge should be painted. The bridge colors, which were represented on part of the span (lower-bottom segment), were three earth-tone colors that were recommended by the Waterfront Development Corp.

3c. A state bridge inspector went to prison on bribery charges in connection to that 2001 paint job.

3d. In early 2006, KYTC paid nearly $2 million to another company -- but the job fell behind schedule. Two subsequent bid openings in 2005 produced only one bid -- which was unacceptable.

3e. In order to entice more interest to contractors, KYTC split the bridge painting project in half. It was also decided that the color would be beige to save money and headaches.

3f. The entire bridge, including the portions that had already been painted, needed to be repainted.

4. The Kennedy Bridge opened in 1963 and carries 125,000 vehicles per day.

 

Article information: "Bridge finally getting a fresh coat, By Sheldon S. Shafer, The Courier-Journal, May 20, 2007"

I've got a lot of photos of Big Dig construction that I'll post here someday but they're all on film (digital cameras barely existed).  I walked over the Zakim bridge on the day it opened and got to walk into a finished part of the main tunnel but I haven't been back to the city since it all opened to traffic so I can't comment on how the city's changed.  Until I saw this article I wasn't aware that there was a previous design for the Zakim bridge, as built it's just another cable-stayed bridge that they light up like a piece of candy every night.   

 

 

Lessons of Boston’s Big Dig

Nicole Gelinas

 

America’s most ambitious infrastructure project inspired engineering marvels—and colossal mismanagement.  States, cities, and towns across America must spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually to preserve the nation’s infrastructure—the backbone of its private-sector economy—and yet more to build the next generation of roads, bridges, tunnels, and dams. Spending so much money wisely is daunting. The good news: no matter how complex and expensive any future project is, it’s unlikely to be more so than the Big Dig, Massachusetts’s three-decade-long quest to bury and expand the Central Artery, Boston’s major interstate highway, and carve out a new underwater tunnel to Logan Airport.

 

more below:

http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_big_dig.html

That data on the travel times is impressive.

Here's an aerial of downtown Boston in 1946:

 

Keep in mind all of what you see here is only about 1.5 by 1.5 miles.  Downtown Boston is very small but because of the chaotic street layout it seems much bigger.  Really only the downtown and a section near Harvard have this kind of European street layout, but the rest of the city and metro is no easier to navigate! 

 

The Big Dig project included a lot more than just the downtown tunnel:

Irregular shaped blocks such as ones in older parts of Boston, look very organic and are aesthetically pleasing. You never get tired of walking through them and taking pictures. Just like the older parts of Europe (though I've never been there in person). It may be harder to drive through them but the irregularity makes it easy to spot landmarks and know where you are and where you're suppose to go. An interesting streetscape also makes people more likely to walk than drive. I'd rather walk down a crazy block in Boston than one in irongrid Manhattan.

 

I think DCs layout is very interesting yet more oganized but it was modeled after Paris.

Ah yes, but Philadelphia is much better for facilitating a market in property. Europeans don't particularly like their core styles which is why they came up with the grid and in most places followed a version of the grid in their new towns.

^The grid arrived in Philadelphia as a response to London *not* reorganizing its street layout after the fire of 1666.  The story as to why it didn't happen there and why it happened here is the same -- it takes took too much time and litigation to determine where property lines were then due to crude tools.  In short grids can be surveyed, sold, and disputed in court much more easily than chaos. 

 

Still Cincinnati does have a bit of this on its hillsides and even on the west side where meandering country roads meet in improbable ways.  It's also the only city where a pre-industrial street network and the township grid interact in such an involved way.  Add to that how poorly Hamilton County was surveyed (take for example the severe jogs in Fields-Ertel Rd. and the errant use of magnetic north) and it adds up to what we have now. 

Well it doesn't seem to bother anyone in the tape-worm inspired suburbs. That part of Boston doesn't appear to even have setbacks.

Tape-worm suburbs wouldn't be possible without modern surveying tools.  That's my point. 

Tape-worm suburbs (what a great name) actually show up in the late 19th century as part of a reaction against cities. Glendale is actually one of the first suburbs in the country to self-consciously use curvi-linear streets rather than the grid. Interesting, Cincy's grid extends up the hills but obviously ends up with all sorts of unreal angles and such because well hills don't fit grids as well as a say Chicago or Philly with their miles and miles of flat space.

 

    Don't let the curved streets fool you. The typical subdivision still follows the lot and block pattern, considering lot width, setbacks, block sizes, and so on.

Good article.  It is my fear though that future large endevours will not be tried by other states as a result of the Big Dig Scandals. 

I thought Boston's odd street layout was based on Indian, and then cow paths. No matter, it is a nightmare getting around that place unless on the light rail. The tunnels are terrible during rush hour. grid lock even w/o accidents.  but then we are spoiled rotten here, so I have lost touch with most of America (cites). Everytime I travel, I think there is a wreck somewhere...but it is just status quo

All those types of street layouts are as much the result of there not being a clear distinction between private and public land.  Private land ownership was invented (yes, invented!) in England sometime in the 1600's.  The whole story of the built environment everywhere is one of consolidation and subdivision of parcels, it's the lack of a developed legal system that allowed the subdivision of parcels that resulted in the chaotic street layouts to evolve.  Also, without mechanized earth moving equipment (and stump removal), streets tended to follow the path of least resistance.  Something like San Francisco's street layout would have never happened in premodern times, nor would have the many perfectly straight suburban streets built on township section lines that bound over Hamilton County's hills.   

 

 

 

 

    Don't let the curved streets fool you. The typical subdivision still follows the lot and block pattern, considering lot width, setbacks, block sizes, and so on.

 

True but some of them can be quite obnoxious. In my mom's subdivision, people are putting fences up far inside their property boundaries, just as their neighbors are. The result is a space about 4-8 feet wide in between each lot that no one uses or mows. Go Dominion Homes!

I think DCs layout is very interesting yet more oganized but it was modeled after Paris.

 

The Paris we know of today didn't have the same layout when L'Enfant was designing Washington.  It was far more a result of Napoleon and above all, Napoleon III, dictators who could command the resources of the state to remake the largest and most important city in their realms.  I've never been to St. Petersburg (Russia) but if there was an extant model for Washington it was probably that.  After all, they were both built on swamps.

The result is a space about 4-8 feet wide in between each lot that no one uses or mows. Go Dominion Homes!

 

Wow!  What's the point of living in a subdivision if grass is going unmowed.  That's supposed to be the one thing you can count on.

^I actually took the time to read that article and it's very good.  I particularly agree with it's notion warning against outsourcing government responsibilities.

A couple things...I've never see a statistic for how much the actual downtown Boston segment of this project cost.  The whole project encompassed numerous major elements with that being just one of them and only roughly a mile in length.  That's about the distance from the Brent Spence Bridge approach to the I-471 bridge approach, so if you imagine the 3rd St. Viaduct running underground along with Ft. Washington Way that gives a good sense of how large the core section of this project is.

 

The Big Dig project also included another mile long tunnel which is the I-90 extension to the Ted Williams Tunnel, and it's here where things get murkier.  The argument for the downtown tunnel was a lot stronger than this tunnel but I think in order to receive those federal funds it didn't receive in the interstate era the connection between I-90 and the new harbor tunnel had to be built to interstate standards.  Here's where government gets really, really stupid because I don't think anyone anywhere else in the country would have minded them giving them federal money for a nice exit and boulevard with an overpass or two connecting I-90 and the harbor tunnel.  There's just no argument for such an expensive tunnel (this is the section that necessitated freezing the ground, the tunnel jacking under the harbor channel, etc.) simply to save people two or three minutes on their way to the airport.  It does divert a lot of traffic from the old Sumner and Callahan tunnels but it still would have done that with a few stop lights.     

 

The whole thing where it had to be built to interstate standards to receive the funding I bet also applied to the famous downtown tunnel.  That tunnel is 4X2 lanes but since the primary problem with the old highway was that people needing to go past downtown in either direction got hung up by the variety of local traffic, they probably could have gotten away with simply building an at-grade boulevard downtown for local traffic and a tunnel beneath with two lanes in each direction and no exits through downtown. 

 

I think DCs layout is very interesting yet more oganized but it was modeled after Paris.

 

The Paris we know of today didn't have the same layout when L'Enfant was designing Washington.  It was far more a result of Napoleon and above all, Napoleon III, dictators who could command the resources of the state to remake the largest and most important city in their realms.  I've never been to St. Petersburg (Russia) but if there was an extant model for Washington it was probably that.  After all, they were both built on swamps.

 

Really? It was one of my professors who said that. I'd be interested in seeing what the city layout was like before. When did they change their street pattern?

 

I definitely would have assumed that this came before DC

 

^Well, the Arc de Triomphe, (I'm not sure if that is spelled correctly) pictured above, celebrates Napoleon's victories, and he didn't seize power until 1799.  Easy and internet friendly way to find out more on the subject:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haussmann%27s_renovation_of_Paris

A previous poster said it best: the Big Dig fiasco has basically made it impossible for any city to replicate what Boston did.  Even far less ambitious projects are tarred by opponents as "big digs".  If anyone ought to be going to prison for this, it is the state officials who deliberately misled the public about it.

 

Note: This is a common problem on a lot of spans of this design -- including the Brent Spence Bridge. But the issues are accelerated on the Kennedy Bridge as it carries well over 120,000 VPD.

 

Kennedy span's eroding bolts to be reinforced

One-third anchoring bridge are worn 20%

By Marcus Green, The Courier-Journal, January 20, 2008

 

Repairs are planned this spring to reinforce corroded anchor bolts on the Kennedy Bridge that state officials learned about last summer.

 

A laboratory analysis dated Aug. 20 and received by the state shortly thereafter found that about a third of the 16 anchor bolts that connect the bridge to concrete piers on shore had been eroded by at least 20 percent.

Fully 1/3 of the tolls for the overall Pennsylvania Turnpike system will come from the  I-80 toll system.  Motorists won't get a ticket to drive cross state, there will be toll booths every thirty miles.  To avoid throughly pissing off the Pennsylvania public, they will have an EZ Pass system so people can go through the toll plaza in special lanes and only have to lose a bit of time.  If you're a vacationer from Jersey or O-hi-o, you probably won't buy the EZ Pass, so you will just have to put up with it.  TS, Spudboy, the Governor doesn't need your vote. 

 

This would result in a cost of about $25 for a car to cross the state, and $100 for the average truck.    Funds will be used to elevate some bridge overpasses, so that trucks don't "have to leave the interstate" (where were they going?).  Funds will be used for highway projects all over the commonwealth.

http://www.paturnpike.com/i80/

 

The PA gummit would like to assure you that none of the collected funds will be used for mass transit projects.

 

HARRISBURG, PA (09/26/2007; 1511)(readMedia)-- Pennsylvania Turnpike Chief Executive Joe Brimmeier today clarified some common misunderstandings about how — and where — any future toll revenue collected on Pennsylvania’s Interstate 80 would be spent.

 

“Not one dime of tolls from I-80 would go to mass transit anywhere in the commonwealth,” Brimmeier said. “In fact, the money collected on I-80 would first pay for maintenance and reconstruction on I-80, with remaining toll revenues supporting improvements to roads and bridges throughout Pennsylvania — including many along this largely rural corridor of the state.”

http://www.paturnpike.com/news/2007/sep/nr092607.htm

 

 

Well, that's good to know. Mass transit just attracts welfare queens and other parasites and freeloaders who sponge off the hardworking taxpayers. Anybody who's willing to get off their lazy a$$ and go to work can afford a car, and won't need no mass transit! That goes for the dadgum tree-huggers and their global warming, too. Pot-smokin' freaks! :x

 

 

 

 

:wink:

Brought to you courtesy of the Pennsylvania Democratic Government.

Actually they just really don't like folks from Philadelphia. Penn folks were worried that their hard earned bucks were going to help pay for a trolley in Philly (and yes they have real trolleys in Philly) and that was verboten.

Every 30 miles, are you serious? Has this been model been adopted by any other large states? It sounds ridiculously inefficient on all sides.

 

 

another reason to never to to that state.

The idea is to get people to use EZ Pass. Florida's Turnpike is similar, 310 miles $21, and $16 EZ Pass (Sun Pass). Sun Pass users do not need to stop at the toll booths, only drivers paying cash need to stop.

I guess I dont understand the necessity, or reasoning behind paying every 30 miles as opposed to the current system where you pay at the end or when you leave the turnpike..?

Every 30 miles, are you serious? Has this been model been adopted by any other large states? It sounds ridiculously inefficient on all sides.

The Illinois Tri-State Tollway, which is basically a bypass around Chicago from Indiana to the Wisconsin border, has toll booths at closer intervals.

 

This project reflects that America is way overextended for infrastructure improvements.  Construction costs are going up because the demand for commodities are going up due to development in countries all around the world.  Per DanB's comment, the website said it was either this or a gasoline tax hike and the government "got the message" that no one wanted higher gasoline taxes.

 

I hope that the first toll gate is pretty far east, so that travelers in the Youngstown/Sharon/Ferrel metropolitan area don't have to deal with a toll gate in their commute.  The Lockhaven-State-College and Clearfield areas are "kind of that way" too.  I was hoping they would put like four "choke points", er, make that "toll plazas" on the highway and just make them real expensive.  There is a $3.00 toll plaza on the PA turnpike as we enter PA from Ohio.  I also see obvious political patronage here as these toll gates will create new jobs for around-the-clock shifts of toll workers.  Not that breathing automobile fumes all day and handling dirty money is a great career.

 

The benefit of the EZ pass is not having to stop at any of the plazas.

Texas is all "stop tolls" as well.  They don't even have a ticket system!

Brought to you courtesy of the Pennsylvania Democratic Government.

 

Like this matters?

 

As Boreal says: 

This project reflects that America is way overextended for infrastructure improvements.

. 

 

Either you come up with a way to pay for improvements, or you keep deferring maintenance, or you rob peter to pay paul and some other program (or programs) take the hit. 

 

We've long boasted the lowest taxes in the industrialized world.  That has come at a price:  more than 3 decades of deferred maintenance on our infrastructure-- everything from roads to airports to water and sewer lines to our electric grid.  Of course, all the corporate welfare we foot the bill for doesn't help the public purse. 

Drive 55 campaign gaining speed

 

By William M. Welch, USA TODAY

 

LOS ANGELES — Though it lasted longer than disco and leisure suits, the national 55-miles-per-hour speed limit was another remnant of the 1970s that did not endure.

 

Yet with high fuel costs reviving memories of the energy crisis of that decade, proposals to bring back the "double nickel" or something like it are emerging, with backers saying federal speed limits could save fuel, money and perhaps lives.

 

"The faster you go, the more you waste," says Tim Castleman, a Sacramento man who is promoting a Drive 55 campaign.

 

 

Find this article at:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-17-Drive-55_N.htm 

 

Why try to fundamentally solve the issue at hand, when you can continually propose these band-aid solutions?

Not all cars are efficient at 55 MPH. I obtained maximum efficiency in my 2001 Honda Civic at 66 MPH on my route along Interstate 64 in eastern Kentucky, which has a lot of grades. In my 2006 Toyota RAV4 (4-cyl 4WD), it is around 59 MPH. Of course, no one wants to drive 59 MPH on an interstate, especially in the more mountainous terrain where it is downright dangerous to do so.

 

Lower speed limits do not necessarily equate to lower death or accident rates. The whole 55 MPH=safer road campaign has been advocated by the IIHS (Insurance Institute for Highway Safety), which of course is biased given that it is supported by the insurance corporations. Other non-partisan organizations, such as the TTI (Texas Transportation Institute) -- which is supported by a broad range of agencies and organizations, such as AASHTO and TxDOT, has concluded that speeds set at the 85th percentile are the safest.

 

Case in point: West Virginia raised their interstate highway speed limits (SL) from 65 MPH to 70 MPH several years ago (following the 85th percentile, which was averaging 72 MPH). Corridor highways (four-lane highways with very few intersections and some interchanges) went from 55 MPH to 65 MPH (85th percentile on average was 67 MPH). Traffic accidents and deaths on INTERSTATE and CORRIDOR highways decreased over a five-year span. Accidents and deaths on TWO-LANE roads increased, but many of the increases came from the Eastern Panhandle, where population increases have put a strain on many two-lane facilities.

 

But the popular media likes to spin this. They continuously report that accidents on the whole have increased, but look only at one subset of data or cherry-pick until they can spin it the way they like.

 

Kentucky just increased its interstate highway/parkway speed limits to 70 MPH, and accidents month-to-month have overall decreased. Other roadway speed limits have went unchanged, although 65 MPH on many four-lanes would be nice since many are designed to a 65 MPH SL. The 85th percentile on many Kentucky interstates and parkways was around 70 MPH.

Haha, because the national speed limit worked so well. Unfortunately, most interstates have a design speed of 65-75MPH, and people will drive the speed that they find to be clear an reasonable. People don't follow speed limits now... do you really think they'll follow it under a national speed limit? History shows that they likely won't.

People still speed regardless of whether the limit is 55 or 70.  However, when the speed limit is 70. However, I have a theory that most drivers tend to keep their speed within 10 mph of the legal limit.  So instead of going up to 80, most drivers would back down to 65.

 

Just me educated guess. Personally, even with my radar detector, I doubt I'd have the cruise control on 90 if the posted limit was still 55.

 

(Ohio excluded of course.  The Ohio state police are unbelievably aggressive at catching speeders compared to AL, TN, and KY)

If a speed limit is perceived to be reasonable, people are not likely to speed it. That's why the 85th percentile speed tends to be used for speed limits, as it doesn't penalize those drivers who navigate at a reasonable speed.

If a speed limit is perceived to be reasonable, people are not likely to speed it. That's why the 85th percentile speed tends to be used for speed limits, as it doesn't penalize those drivers who navigate at a reasonable speed.

 

Interesting.  I was going to argue your point until I realized the counter point I was typing turned out to be supporting your position (I hate it when that happens).  Your statement would support the idea that fewer people speed when the limit is set to 70, than at 55 (given the roads are designed for the higher speed). Anecdotealy (sp), this seems like what actually happens.

There is a diminishing number who speed as the limit is higher.

 

For instance, the TTI did some legwork and research and discovered that an arbitrary low speed limit of say, 55 MPH, will lend to more speeders. A limit set to the 85th percentile -- in this example, 70 MPH, will have fewer speeders because most traffic is flowing at a speed deemed reasonable. At 80 MPH, there will be only a handful of speeders, and most will be pegged below 80 MPH. Most drivers are comfortable at speeds of up to 70 MPH on most roads -- but driving in west Texas? 80 MPH speed limits are the norm on the interstates there.