This diverging diamond interchange Caltrans plans to build
This diverging diamond interchange Caltrans plans to build
“Together we’re advancing initiatives focused on creating safer, more efficient travel options for all modes of transportation, from vehicles to bicycles to pedestrians,” Dave Ambuehl, the chief deputy district director of Caltrans, said in a news release.
https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/new-intersection-project-first-kind-bay-area-19901199.php
I’m not saying it’s good (those bike lanes look horrible), but they put in a diamond interchange in my city and it’s ironically the best car infrastructure we have.
To be fair this looks slightly worse than ours, ours has more separation for pedestrians, but I feel much less stressed out that I only have to look one way when crossing, and no cars should be able to go when I am.
They still do. they’ll run a green arrow light, probably because they’re used to “right turn on red”. I have been tapped by a car I was playing chicken with at that light.
But other than the presence of morons, I’d pick the FREEWAY INTERCHANGE over a normal city light any day. That’s crazy to say but it just goes to show how even slightly better designed infrastructure makes a difference.
Those bicycle lanes are ass though.
Fuck cars
But if there are cars, you want these
Yeah diamond interchanges kick ass. They made me nervous the first time I used one, since it was the kind where you end up driving on the opposite side of the road. But just follow signs and you’ll get where you need to go and there’s almost no risk compared to the garbage interchanges you usually see around interstates.
North American has this concept in roadway design where traffic engineers feel the need to make every roadway large. Think of interstate interchanges.
There is also this need to try and design roadwaya as both roads and streets, while maintaining a flow of high speed traffic at the same. This leaves us with neither good roads or enjoyable streets.
Roads get you from point A to point B without regard for what's in between or along the route. They are meant to move large amounts of traffic with minimal to no lights/stops/driveways.
Streets on the other hand are "destinations" and are meant for the people that live along them. Streets are traffic calmed, streets give the right of way to pedestrians. Streets have driveways, and multiple interaction zones between people on foot, on bikes, and on cars.
A street cannot act as a road nor can a road act as a street.
This image trys to turn the underpass into a street (which it can be), but it's main function is still designed as a high-speed roadway. So this leaves us with a combination of the two (a strode) which neight is a good road or a enjoyable street for the local community.
Some examples of simplified highway off ramps that connect directly into traffic calmed streets.
City planing also plays a role here, and its usually has to do how our we build city centres right next to highway off ramps. This leaves no room for proper roadway design where you "stepdown" your roadway classification.
Good planing would have a interstate (130-100kph) connect to a highway (100-80kph), which then empties into a high-speed road (80-60kph), which steps down to a road 50-40kph, and then transitions into a street (30-10kph).
Instead we have interstate highways empty right into a city street.
I always wondered if instead of a two lane road every block you could have a city where it's a four lane road every two blocks, with a single lane pedestrian/bicycle street alternating every other block there isn't a road.
I support a car ban, but these are actually very well designed.
As mentioned in the video, these are pretty hostile to pedestrians. Without knowing too much about the subject, I wouldn't be surprised if roundabouts beat them handily - why else would countries with better road safety opt for roundabouts over diverging diamonds?
Theyre extremely car-centric, space-inefficient, wildly expensive, and don't do anything to solve traffic.
I explicitly said I'm anti-car (read: I'm aware they're car-centric). The rest of this is either outright false, or isn't solved more effectively by any car-centric alternative.
Diverging diamonds are among the best interchanges in existence. That doesn't mean they're great, but they solve far more problems than they introduce.
Please direct your weapons where they actually matter--asphalt itself.
I have no clue how you are getting down voted in a fuckcars community for pointing out this infrastructure is still car centric and does nothing to solve traffic, only induce demand.
If this area was designed for people only it would not look like this.
This is still city planners creating a dangerous strode and intersecting it with a interstate highway and calling it good enough.
This is a meat grinder for cyclists.
Those aren't bicycle lanes, they're clear zones to protect drivers so they won't hit a tree or a pole and ding their $100k truck.
All that could happen is that they kill a bicyclist and drag them for a few hundred feet, but that washes off.
Why tho? Every possible collision point is regulated by traffic lights
We have a couple of those in Minneapolis.
these things should only exist in cities skylines
This is actually one of the most efficient compact interchange designs though. It integrates way more elegantly with accessory roads without creating huge dead zones.
...but why
