Traffic Congestion and Highway Construction

[Jasons0013]

On 9/10/2019 at 4:44 PM, NCMike1990 said:

NCDOT has a page with maps here.

Harris realignment

 

Any idea when this starts? 

[southslider]

4 hours ago, Jasons0013 said:

Any idea when this starts? 

2023 per NCDOT STIP:

https://ncdot.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=cb02f4f828974670ad01bb83be91b18c

[Jasons0013]

6 minutes ago, southslider said:

2023 per NCDOT STIP:

https://ncdot.maps.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=cb02f4f828974670ad01bb83be91b18c

Thank you for this. 

[KJHburg]

I-77 between 277 and I-85 northbound and the express lanes construction.  This should be done this year barring any long period of wet weather.  Today.  Really tall sound walls too. 

[NCMike1990]

^ Thanks for the updates, KJ. I believe they still have to paint those noise walls too. Some have already been painted in that area.

[KJHburg]

38 minutes ago, NCMike1990 said:

^ Thanks for the updates, KJ. I believe they still have to paint those noise walls too. Some have already been painted in that area.

Yes they paint them like a red brick pattern.  

[jednc]

On 9/15/2019 at 6:17 PM, KJHburg said:

I-77 between 277 and I-85 northbound and the express lanes construction.  This should be done this year barring any long period of wet weather.  Today.  Really tall sound walls too. 

Sometime this year? Wasn't it supposed to be finished this month? Well, after they missed their two deadlines last year? No one holds these contractors responsible.

[kermit]

Not exactly sure where to put this but its a big deal for projects in the city. It means that all those neighborhood plans we have that mostly get ignored may actually get some use now.

 

 

 

[southslider]

^NO cost-sharing for construction of bike-ped elements, IF consistent with an ADOPTED plan, BUT still locally responsible for maintenance. 

[kermit]

 

 

[nicholas]

17 hours ago, kermit said:

Not exactly sure where to put this but its a big deal for projects in the city. It means that all those neighborhood plans we have that mostly get ignored may actually get some use now.

 

 

 

This is big, but only if NCDOT is willing to build non-superstreets for this to happen.  Unfortunately many recent NCDOT projects are ridiculously wide roads (usually four or six lanes) with no curb cuts and few left turns. Bike lanes and sidewalks are included seemingly out of spite; no one is going to bike or walk directly adjacent to a road where drivers are flying past at 60+ mph unless there is literally no other option.

4 hours ago, kermit said:

 

 

To continue my rant against the DOT, narrow the freaking roads!!!  Barring unusual circumstances such as the Stockholm example, drivers typically drive at the speed they feel comfortable driving.  You can line the roads with all of the "25 MPH Speed Limit" signs you can find, but if the roads are too wide/have too many lanes, and the speed limit isn't enforced aggressively, no one is going to drive at 25 mph. They are going to rocket past at 35+ mph because they feel comfortable doing so. 

I have to drive down N Tryon St into uptown a lot (mainly between 36th St and uptown), and in general people have actually stuck pretty close to the 35 mph speed limit in that stretch because the lanes are narrow (probably 10 feet) and the road is bumpy.  Now that N Tryon is split for a few blocks between the train station and Bojangles (likely with wider lanes), and the stretch north of that has been resurfaced, I will be interested to see if people continue to generally observe the speed limit, or if it becomes a drag strip once all the construction is done.

[sakami]

4 hours ago, kermit said:

 

 

Amsterdam highways check driver speeds between multiple points along the roads. If you reach one point faster than you should based on maximum allowed speeds you get a ticket in the mail and it seems like it is very accepted. 

[XRZ.ME]

Using radar is old technology. 

Currently we have machine learning based computer vision system can detect if a car park at wrong place, right turn/change lane at wrong place/time, did not stop at stop sign or did not yield to pedestrian at crosswalk sign.

 

Edited September 20, 2019 by XRZ.ME

[grodney]

On 9/20/2019 at 2:01 PM, sakami said:

Amsterdam highways check driver speeds between multiple points along the roads. If you reach one point faster than you should based on maximum allowed speeds you get a ticket in the mail and it seems like it is very accepted. 

Couldn't tickets here (such as Monroe Bypass) be issue based on time between two toll cameras?  Seems like a no-brainer.

 

[nicholas]

On 9/23/2019 at 8:39 AM, grodney said:

Couldn't tickets here (such as Monroe Bypass) be issue based on time between two toll cameras?  Seems like a no-brainer.

 

Idk, I think there's a time and place for speed cameras, and a bypass leading away from a major city isn't either of those.  If anything it would probably deter people from driving on it.

[ertley]

2 minutes ago, nicholas said:

Idk, I think there's a time and place for speed cameras, and a bypass leading away from a major city isn't either of those.  If anything it would probably deter people from driving on it.

IMO, speed cameras should almost exclusively be used within city limits--in place of speed humps/bumps (I *hate* them)--because I think they're a much better deterrent than any other mechanism to stop speeders in residential neighborhoods and where children play, etc.

Multi-lane and controlled access highways should be free of them, though, and law enforcement just needs to ensure proper and regular patrols on those to deter reckless and other bad drivers, IMHO.

[grodney]

Yeah I'm not talking about speed cameras......I'm just talking about the time between two toll checkpoints.  The distance between checkpoints is known (or can be easily known), and the time between checkpoints is known.......so if the calculated average speed is over the limit, then send the driver a ticket.  Interesting point about that being a deterrent to use......I'd have to think about that more.

[kermit]

32 minutes ago, grodney said:

Yeah I'm not talking about speed cameras......I'm just talking about the time between two toll checkpoints.  The distance between checkpoints is known (or can be easily known), and the time between checkpoints is known.......so if the calculated average speed is over the limit, then send the driver a ticket.  Interesting point about that being a deterrent to use......I'd have to think about that more.

They could just tack a penalty onto your toll charge -- toll billing already includes time-distance information.

But yea, the entities that run toll roads really don't want to discourage use.

all this is small potatoes compared to our future privacy violations while traveling in a car (pay per mile gas tax, insurance behavioral billing, autonomous routing....)

Edited September 25, 2019 by kermit

[ChessieCat]

Dunno if someone posted this somewhere else but Charlotte ranks among the bottom 10 metros to live without a car :

https://www.citylab.com/life/2019/09/where-live-no-car-america-public-transit-transportation/598606/

 

Edited September 25, 2019 by ChessieCat

[go_vertical]

I'm calling BS on that list because Orlando isn't in the bottom 10. Everyone should go and live in almost any Orlando suburb and then they would say the same thing. 

[southslider]

^^They used metro area, instead of city. Hence, why Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia is in the bottom 10 of large metros. Also why Durham-Chapel Hill is in top 10 of medium metros.

[go_vertical]

Oh I know they were talking about metros. Orlando proper isn't all that bad, it's a fairly solid grid in most areas. But go outside the city limits and nearly every road is at least a 6 to 8 lane drag strip with massively wide concave medians needed for water runoff. I mean it'll sometimes be up to a half mile in between intersections and the county can't be bothered to put down pedestrian walkways in a lot of areas. So a 104 heat index on a narrow sidewalk close to 60+ mph traffic and no destination in sight. I'll pass. 

[KJHburg]

on my trip up to Lexington today on 85 noticed the southbound lanes have their concrete barriers removed and it looks like they could open in weeks southbound from south of Salisbury to Kannapolis.  Expect Rowan and even southern Davidson county to grow with metro Charlotte commuters.  today northbound and southbound shots. 

1st shot northbound  2/3 photos southbound.

[nyxmike]

I'm assuming the freeway lighting project was never finished. Last time I was in town (a month ago) a lot of the freeway lights still weren't working, especially around Uptown. I get if a few are out here and there, but large sections of lights were just out. It's crazy to me that the DOT can't keep them working. 

[cowboy_wilhelm]

3 hours ago, KJHburg said:

on my trip up to Lexington today on 85 noticed the southbound lanes have their concrete barriers removed and it looks like they could open in weeks southbound from south of Salisbury to Kannapolis. 

Nice. If they'd just get that cluster of an interchange fixed at 485 and southbound 85 on the west side it will finally be a pretty decent drive.

It's amazing to think that at the start of this decade construction hadn't even started on the new Yadkin River bridges.