• grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
    50·
    23 days ago

    These are supposed to be satirical, but this one is literally true.

    Source: I’m a former traffic engineer.

    • olympicyes@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      23 days ago

      We have the middle design at my closest freeway on-ramp. The lights on both sides aren’t synced so it causes traffic to back up for a mile at any time more people are on the road. It is insane.

      • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        23 days ago

        When you say the lights “aren’t synced,” I assume you mean that they’re exactly out of phase such that traffic going straight can never get all the way across on one green. FYI that’s on purpose, because the whole point of that design is to prioritize the left turns to and from the ramps.

        • olympicyes@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          23 days ago

          Crossing both lights isn’t a problem. It’s the left turn onto the freeway that gets backed up.

  • stoy@lemmy.zipEnglish
    332·
    23 days ago

    The thing is that two more lanes will fix a lot of traffic.

    They have to be a special kind of lane though, made put of metal, with metal above, and require a special car, with metal wheels and a weird antenna on the roof

  • dylanmorgan@slrpnk.netEnglish
    91·
    23 days ago

    As tired as I am of this meme format, I have to agree. Traffic engineering is bunk.

    • RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
      13·
      23 days ago

      I dislike cars generally but how is engineering traffic to be safer for all parties like the designs pictured a bad idea?

      • kautau@lemmy.worldEnglish
        7·
        23 days ago

        the idea that you can design safer traffic patterns isn’t a bad idea. the idea that you can come up with some super efficient method to solve traffic in cities is. cities in asia literally were like “if your license plate starts with [x] you can’t drive in rush hour on this day of the week”. it led to car manufacturers selling more cars so that people could keep driving in rush hour, instead of any semblance of less traffic on the road

        https://www.vice.com/en/article/odd-even-scheme-coding-traffic-worse-asia-philippines-indonesia/

        • RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
          11·
          22 days ago

          … That’s not an example of bad road design.

          Incrementally making better intersections is still a good idea.

      • Yardy Sardley@lemmy.caEnglish
        4·
        22 days ago

        safer for all parties

        If you were a pedestrian who had to walk through one of those designs, I guarantee you would not feel very safe.

        The problem with traffic engineering is that it’s solely concerned with vehicle traffic. Making roads safer and easier to drive on for cars actively makes them worse for everyone outside a car.

      • jerkface@lemmy.caEnglish
        3·
        22 days ago

        The more people drive, the more we all die. Even if you manage to engineer an intersection where no one gets run over, it still causes hurricanes, droughts, flooding, etc. It’s all still enabling yet more bad behaviour.

  • Ebby@lemmy.ssba.comEnglish
    104·
    23 days ago

    The graphic designer has a misinformed idea about engineering.

    Cars are not meant to travel fast through cities.

    This is true. City traffic planning was designed to maximize efficiency, not speed. This is no longer the case of many cities which now engineer congestion into design.

    Rush hour traffic still goes to a crawl

    People assume traffic represents failure, but the road still holds capacity, even if flowing slowly. Government data collection on infrastructure utilization and traffic recovery is prohibited in my area by vocal minorities to obstruct studies countering their goal objectives.

    … Something something Trains

    Trains are fun!

    Just one more lane will fix it

    I agree adding one lane won’t “fix” traffic. Cities are organic and traffic balances out with infrastructure pressure and necessary.

    On the other hand, many lanes around my area have converted to dynamically priced toll lanes; the resulting increase in congestion for remaining lanes drives up the cost of tolls. This has been very profitable for the government and flies in the face of this argument; if it were true, it wouldn’t be so lucrative.

    • jerkface@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      22 days ago

      People assume traffic represents failure, but the road still holds capacity, even if flowing slowly

      I mean… They still hold the same STATIC capacity, but when congested, their capacity to actually move people to their destination drops significantly, further aggravating congestion. But yes, the same number of people are still able to occupy the road at the same time. More, in fact.