Are you thinking particularly of northbound on Guadalupe between MLK and 29th? Almost no streets there allow a left turn, but almost every trip there's some butthead waiting to make a left turn and backing up traffic despite the "No Left Turn" sign.
I like your idea, but I wonder if people would heed the signs. I imagine a lot of "there's just about to be a break, and I've been waiting for two whole minutes, I can't leave now!" mentality.
"there's just about to be a break, and I've been waiting for two whole minutes, I can't leave now!"
But then you can just ...ease.... on up to the next street, and then ease to the next one, and you wouldn't miss the break in traffic. (Or, you wouldn't automatically miss it, at least. You might still get unlucky.)
Northbound on Guadalupe would definitely count. I was thinking of westbound on 38th*, through Hyde Park.
*I really wanted to write 38 1/2th, to be cutesy, but I am pretty sure it's just plain 38th there.
If you're at all serious about finding or creating an official sign for the purpose, you need to look at the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices.
I'm serious about complaining. I don't know that I'm serious about taking action.
I think 6 was proposed as the US motto on the new currency.
I'm not the most traffic-savvy person, but this somehow feels like the sort of innovation that would confuse people enough to cause hazards. Maybe just mark all the streets that consistently cause problems 'no left turn', and at intervals put in a street with a three-phase light with a left turn signal?
Except on foreign policy. There, we're serious about taking action and anyone who complains is a goddamn commie-lover father-raper.
8: Oh, I think the implementation makes it a total nonstarter. I'm just sharing a (boring) fantasy of mine.
and at intervals put in a street with a three-phase light with a left turn signal?
I don't think these work well in these situations, though, if you don't have room for a left turn lane.
3: Yeah, that stretch is a problem too. And you're right that it's just 38th at that point, It splits into 38th and 38 1/2th right before Red River.
I don't think these work well in these situations, though, if you don't have room for a left turn lane.
I suppose so. I'm having a hard time visualizing it, though. No room for a left turn lane sounds like a city street, at which point traffic should be moving slowly enough that just muddling through is manageable. Is the real problem that people are expecting to be able to drive at highway speeds on a tiny little side street?
You need one of the many fine options here.
I've been trying to figure out why this isn't a problem in NYC (no turn lanes on little streets) (and when I say not a problem, I mean 'no more of a problem than driving in NYC generally) and I've got it. One way streets. If alternating streets are one way, you can turn left at will when you have the light. If Austin has enough traffic to make this a problem, and not enough space for turn lanes, you need alternating one-way streets.
Or any of Sifu's ideas, except that they all seem to take up at least as much space as a left turn lane would.
LB you aren't looking to Manhattan for the solution to other place's traffic problems, are you?
You native New Yorker, you.
FAIL.
Yes, it would be nice if people would try to avoid difficult left turns during rush hour, but people in the righthand lane (the examples you've given are two-lane roads) should be better about letting people in and people going the other direction should pay attention and create breaks when they can. (Which people in Austin are generally quite good about doing. It's one of the things I particularly like about this town.)
The only signs we need are "Don't block the box"-type signs for the larger intersections.
people in the righthand lane (the examples you've given are two-lane roads) should be better about letting people in
Wait, there's another lane? I have no sympathy, then. If they're not blocking the whole road, what's wrong with letting them wait to make their turn?
Another traffic-related thing I like about Austin? Lots of suicide lanes (which, incidentally, alleviate the left turn problem).
16: All I was thinking is that most of my driving is on streets that have to be much more cramped than anything in Austin, and left turns aren't particularly a problem. Which means that the NY setup, while generally horrid, is such that the horridness is sort of evenly spread over all the things you might want to do in a car.
But you're right that appealing to NY traffic design as an exemplar is probably insane.
But, no, you're right that one way streets are probably a good solution to this problem (and to various other problems with city streets in general--they're underutilized in many cities). (And you're right that if we're talking about roads with two lanes in either direction, this shouldn't be a problem.)
At rush hour they need to all simultaneously change to British driving on the left side, then there's no problem making left turns.
In Pittsburgh, this wouldn't work for so many reasons, including the fact that the average driver is 70 years old, with semi-impaired vision and a bad temper. Also, there are lots of places where the corners with the lights don't have a left-turn lane or an arrow for the left. Going to the next block won't help and often there is no easy way around if you miss the right corner.
To get around this problem, we have the "Pittsburgh Left". Basically, if you are making a left turn, you can sometimes make the left immediately after the light turns green. This either happens because you are aggressive or because the first car going the other direction sees that not letting you go first will hold-up a dozen cars. Opposing traffic will often let people make a left even without a light as they can see the blockage.
(Apparently cyclists hate these habits as nobody looks for bikes if the other cars give them an opening.)
The Pittsburgh Left, also knows as the "Roethlisberger Smasher".
Incidentally people do the "Pittsburgh Left" and the "Philly Stop" and the "Youngstown Driving On The Sidewalk" in Boston, too, but we don't have fancy names for it. We just call it "being a Boston driver".
24: That corner is something beyond the ordinary Pittsburgh Left. It connects the South Side with downtown and is the back-way out of downtown for people who live in the southern part of the East End. You have to mash through a single, over-used and poorly planned intersection and you can see open road on the other side. There is a great deal of poorly-resisted temptation to be an asshole.
26: I can't remember the name a friend (from Cohasset) had given to getting off a highway at a right-hand exit at high speed nearly perpendicularly from the leftmost lane, but it had "Massachusetts" in it.
Has any city laid claim to "Make A Sudden Right From The Far Left Lane"? Maybe Boston could have that one.
Well that was certainly a surprising pwn.
Sometimes you actually want to turn onto a specific side street, traffic behind you or no, because it's your actual destination.
I dated a transplant from Pennsylvania who referred to two cars traveling side-by-side on a four-lane road at the exact same speed, preventing anybody from getting past them, as the "Carolina Block".
31: It's the journey that matters, not the destination. Unless you really do need groceries.
Well that was certainly a surprising pwn.
As if one were to make a sudden right from the far left lane.
Incidentally people do the "Pittsburgh Left" and the "Philly Stop" and the "Youngstown Driving On The Sidewalk" in Boston, too, but we don't have fancy names for it. We just call it "being a Boston driver".
I thought Bostonians just called this stuff "driving".
35: well, sure. I couldn't figure out how to phrase it that way. As it turns out, it's not very complicated.
Re Pittsburgh and Boston:
In Pittsburgh, other drivers, assuming they notice and aren't in a hurry or a pissy mood, will often yield in cases where they don't have to if they can see how it would help traffic or if they see that you've been stuck for a while. The Pittsburgh Left works because mostly people will let you do it. Does that happen in Boston? I was under the impression that Boston driving was more aggressive than stupid. In Pittsburgh, the stupid prevails more.
It works in Boston because the person turning left forces you to let them go- they turn whether you want to wait or not. Different mode of action, same result.
I prefer to describe Boston driving as "innovative". People will do crazier things than you can possibly imagine if they think they can get away with it and that it might get them slightly further down the road. So, if they notice that you aren't staring intently at the red, revving your engine, they might try to quick cut in front of you to make their left turn.
38: Yeah, it's really not an aggressive move, as evidenced by the fact that out-of-towners screw up by failing to take the left, leaving their opposing number yielding to a motionless vehicle. That's completely different from the turner gunning it when the cross-traffic light turns yellow (a move that almost got me killed once in DC because I forgot it wasn't Pittsburgh, and the oncoming taxi was evidently in a hurry.
39, 40: I'm not saying that is doesn't happen that way. I used to watch the light to stop people from pulling a left in front of me. Then I realized that in some cases I was the asshole. Now I left people go by me if I can see how it would clear the road. I still get angry when somebody tries to cut in front of me and there is no car behind me or no car behind them.
LA's left turn folkways mandate that three (but only three) cars get to go left after the light turns red.
"Now I left people" should be "Now I let people."
I've recently become aware that many drivers in Boston seem to have a rule-of-thumb that left-turning cars have right-of-way over cyclists in all circumstances. I have expressed my disagreement with this theory digitally, but it seems widespread nonetheless.
a move that almost got me killed once in DC because I forgot it wasn't Pittsburgh, and the oncoming taxi was evidently in a hurry
Running a red light or jumping a green is a very bad idea in D.C., because so many other drivers are doing just that. Cab drivers are major offenders, though they have plenty of civilian company.
drivers in Boston seem to have a rule-of-thumb that left-turning cars have right-of-way over cyclists in all circumstances
In at least two intersections I walk through every day, this applies to pedestrians, too. (Even in crosswalks.)
45: You mean you're in the far left of the road, and a left-turning car is turning in front of you or into you? What are you doing over there?
Maybe they have special cars that can't stop moving once they've begun turning left, lest they explode, like sharks.
48: no, I mean that I'm riding on the right of my side of the road, and an oncoming car sees me, but decides to turn left into me anyhow.
50: DON'T KNOCK IT 'TIL YOU'VE TRIED IT.
To get around this problem, we have the "Pittsburgh Left". Basically, if you are making a left turn, you can sometimes make the left immediately after the light turns green. This either happens because you are aggressive or because the first car going the other direction sees that not letting you go first will hold-up a dozen cars. Opposing traffic will often let people make a left even without a light as they can see the blockage.
I think I've seen fewer of these in the last few years (and more bicycles, though the two phenomena are probably unrelated). Much more common is just that nobody can turn left during the entire green light, so one or two cars just turn left as soon as the light turns red and the oncoming traffic stops.
It was definitely a brainstorm when I figured out that the reason it's so easy to turn left in Philadelphia, compared to Pittsburgh, is that Philadelphia has one-way streets and Pittsburgh doesn't.
There's a clever trick that will save you from getting stuck behind someone trying to turn left: be in the right lane when you come to an intersection where that tends to happen.
47: Around here, they periodically bring in a bunch of cops to ticket cars that turn into an occupied cross-walk. It's probably necessary because there are three universities and three hospitals in Oakland (i.e. Pittsburgh Oakland). But some of the pedestrians appear to have no desire to live.
(Here I'm thinking of the CMU student crossing Forbes in the middle of the block, stepping from behind an illegally parked truck, wearing a black coat after dark.)
54: Even some of the main streets around here are only one lane in each direction.
There's a clever trick that will save you from getting stuck behind someone trying to turn left: be in the right lane when you come to an intersection where that tends to happen.
Not every street is more than two lanes, Helpfulio.
But some of the pedestrians appear to have no desire to live.
Maybe they're just doing their part to combat the recession by keeping the hospitals busy. Didya ever think of that?
Oh, and funeral homes. And florists. Really, it's pretty noble of them.
54: The maddening corollary to that on a lot of NY avenues is that if you don't want to get stuck behind someone making a left, be in the right lane. OTOH, if you don't want to get stuck behind someone doubleparked, be in the left lane. Solution? Slalom.
55.1: But don't the hospitals need the business?
56: Yes, but those aren't the streets that H-G was complaining about.
Way too slow. I plead under-caffeination.
60: The clever trick there is not to drive in NYC, I think.
Hitting pedestrians also helps lower the unemployment rate. And today we see that it's working!
(Here I'm thinking of the CMU student crossing Forbes in the middle of the block, stepping from behind an illegally parked truck, wearing a black coat after dark.)
Here I'm thinking of the bicyclist who was zooming down the hill on DeSoto St. and then turned left, through a red light, across three lanes of traffic, without slowing down, into the contraflow bus-only lane.
...into the contraflow bus-only lane.
The contraflow bus-only lane gets a person every couple of years. That's the mistake I worry most about making when pedestrianing.
Oh, geez are those scary. I suppose you get used to them, but I'd never seen one before going to Pittsburgh last year, and found them terrifying.
Hey! I need to defend some of the charges above! I'm right! Now hang on while I dredge this comment thread. Dredge the hell out of this comment thread, goddamnit.
69: I've been working within spitting distance of one for three and a half years. I still catch myself stepping out into that lane without looking the right direction.
Yes, it would be nice if people would try to avoid difficult left turns during rush hour, but people in the righthand lane (the examples you've given are two-lane roads) should be better about letting people in and people going the other direction should pay attention and create breaks when they can. (Which people in Austin are generally quite good about doing. It's one of the things I particularly like about this town.)
No, traffic is travelling too briskly in the right lane for you to get in, from a dead stop. I think it's pretty dangerous when people swerve over as they're braking, to avoid coming to a complete stop behind a left-turner.
And asking oncoming traffic to create breaks? That seems kind of ludicrously difficult. How would they have distance to see what's ahead and accomodate it? I've got my hands full already, just trying to look out for bikers and cars doing unexpected things, while texting on my phone.
No, traffic is travelling too briskly in the right lane for you to get in, from a dead stop. I think it's pretty dangerous when people swerve over as they're braking, to avoid coming to a complete stop behind a left-turner.
If they can't get over fast enough to avoid getting stuck, drop the speed limit until they can.
In Pittsburgh, this wouldn't work for so many reasons, including the fact that the average driver is 70 years old, with semi-impaired vision and a bad temper.
Don't call me average.
74 is right. If a road is designed so that cars need to be stopped on it (i.e., no dedicated left turn lanes, and or parallel parking on the right), then the speed limit needs to be slow enough that people can safely deal with stopped cars, and cars moving around stopped cars.
74:That wouldn't help. If the gaps are insufficient at 35 mph, you'll get proportionately smaller gaps at 25 mph.
Wouldn't it be easier to equip cars with some kind of a signalling device, so that cars in the left lane (who are stuck behind a car waiting to turn left) could indicate to drivers in the right lane that they wished to change lanes? Then the drivers in the right lane could slow down to allow the drivers in the left lane to merge! I'm imagining a set of two lights on the rear of the car, one on each side.
75: "Modal" would probably be more accurate, statistically speaking.
77: Yes it would. One thing a NYer knows is what you can safely do at low speeds in congested traffic, and if people are driving 25, a car can edge out into traffic from a stop and it doesn't cause accidents.
Sometimes you actually want to turn onto a specific side street, traffic behind you or no, because it's your actual destination.
If this sufficiently gummed things up, you can often make 3 right turns. Which would possibly set you way back because getting across the street would take even longer, but hopefully there's an intersection with a light.
I'm being a bit sanctimonious, but this does come up all the time.
77: It sounds like maybe people in Austin just don't know how to drive. It's not about the size of the gaps, it's about people's ability to react to a car moving over in front of them (by slowing down if necessary to let them into the lane).
And 78, of course. You signal, so people know you're going to edge out. And then they let you in.
83: Well, not don't know how to drive, but aren't accepting how you have to drive in tight, congested conditions. It involves driving slow, braking, and watching what other cars are doing.
84: Pitching a lit cigarette butt out the passenger-side window sometimes gets noticed when the signal doesn't.
81 and 83 are sort of true. I have driven in Boston and New York, and I don't drive the same way in Austin. And I assume this of other drivers.
It's not that we don't know how to drive so much as keeping up city driving is mentally intense, and if you drive a lot and the city doesn't require it, you tend to dial it back a notch.
Incidentally, although I think heebie's idea is a little silly and intend to keep making fun of it, there are signs in Boston that forbid certain left turns at certain times (like rush hour). They seem to work okay when people pay attention to them, which is about half the time.
Yeah, it sounds like the real problem is that Austin is hitting a point of congestion where it needs to flip over into real 'city driving'. Your post was resisting that -- trying to figure out a way to structure things to preserve the highway driving feel -- but if you don't have the room for things like left turn lanes and so forth, I think you just need to break out the city driving techniques.
It's not that we don't know how to drive so much as keeping up city driving is mentally intense, and if you drive a lot and the city doesn't require it, you tend to dial it back a notch.
I had a friend who grew up in New Mexico who had the most insane driving habits because of this tendency. Crosswalks? What are those? Got the cruise control on? Then why not put your legs out the window? Bored while driving? Read a book!
I meant to say above that the problem sounded like one of insufficient density, but I didn't, and now you all probably think I'm just making that up.
But it's really only city-driving at peak hours. This is a flexible system that allows people to behave sensibly in a wide variety of traffic levels. I'm sorry that you all are so attached to your hobgoblins of little minds.
Bored while driving? Read a book!
My dad reads the paper sometimes. At least he doesn't engage in the most popular New Mexico driving technique, "DWI."
I'm sorry that you all are so attached to your hobgoblins of little minds.
My hobgoblin is named Steve. When I need to look my best, he pops out of my mind and onto my scalp to cover the bald spot.
88- Yes, there's one right in front of my house, and people sit on their horns the entire light cycle when someone is turning left. They also honk even when it's not during the forbidden period. I'm thinking about getting a green laser pointer to shoot out my window into the eyes of people who honk even when it's a legal turn.
92: But asking people in the right lane to be flexible enough to let stuck drivers in is impossible?
What seems unworkable about the post is the burden it places on drivers to make a judgment call against their own interest. "Yes, it's legal to turn left here. But it's not legal to turn left in such a way that any other driver has to slow down." Are they allowed to hit the brakes to evaluate whether the left is possible? How long can they pause? The guy who wants to go straight behind the wanna-be turner seems to have the right of way - who's wrong if the guy behind rearends the wanna-be turner?
City driving is a solved problem. A nasty, ugly, awful problem, but it works kind of. If you're in a city, for driving purposes, you have to drive like it.
There is a related point on which all right-thinking people agree: anyone who sits in the left lane at a red light and then flips on the left turn signal when the light turns green should be summarily executed.
But I'm coming at this from a NY driver's point of view, and what I notice as very different about out-of-towners is that they mostly seem very road-ragey to me, in that they think they have rights to progress forward smoothly at the speed limit, and get angry if someone interferes with that. And if there's enough other cars on the road, you don't have those kinds of rights, and thinking you do is just going to make you blow a bloodvessel in your brain.
For a fun experiment along the lines of 98: find a 4 lane road with street parking in Los Angeles. Attempt to parallel park in the usual manner (by pulling ahead of the spot and backing into it). Observe cars pulling up to your bumper and drivers angrily honking the horn.
American parallel parking skills are in sad, sad shape.
97: summary execution is a little strong; I'd be fine just slitting all four of their tires. I do that mentally now, but would like to see the law amended to allow me to keep a knife in my car for this very purpose.
There needs to be a special sign that allows drivers to merge right when the car in front of them is unoccupied because the driver is slitting all four tires of a third car which only turned its blinker on when the light turned green.
(There's actually a long list of infractions that ought to be punishable by vigilante tire-slitting.)
101: My personal fantasy involves one of these, but I suppose we could try less extreme measures first.
An argument could be made that widespread slashing of the tires of otherwise operable cars in the middle of the road wouldn't improve traffic conditions. But not by me.
There really is some cognitive dissonance between the expectation (that we've all been sold) that driving your own car will give you freedom, speed, and insulation from everyone else, on the one hand, and the actual experience of driving in cities and/or traffic, on the other. 98 gets at that nicely and makes me think of the New Jersey and Long Island drivers who pull the most sociopathic shit on the roads around here.
97: Totally. That, the thing apo calls the "Carolina block," getting angry at better drivers than you who can manage a zipper merge, and other passive-aggressive practices are hallmarks of Portland driving.
what I notice as very different about out-of-towners is that they mostly seem very road-ragey to me, in that they think they have rights to progress forward smoothly at the speed limit, and get angry if someone interferes with that
So, so true. Although I don't actually notice this much in Boston, where the out-of-towners more often seem paralyzed with fear than aggressively road-ragey. Where I notice it is everywhere else, where when I do something perfectly legal and sensible that happens to interfere with someone else's smooth-forward-progress they flip the fuck out and act like I'm the idiot.
(And, not coincidentally, this "right to keep moving forward smoothly" seems to be exactly what Heebie is asserting in her post.)
An argument could be made that widespread slashing of the tires of otherwise operable cars in the middle of the road wouldn't improvewould have a scarcely noticeable effect on traffic conditions.
107: Yeah. I don't have an intuitive feel for the American love affair with the car, because the vast, vast, overwhelming majority of the driving I've done is the sucky city kind. (And when I've gotten a taste of driving around on open roads, I like it as much as anyone else).
But the fun, happy kind of driving really isn't available as soon as people are living or working in any serious kind of density, and there's just no way around that.
And asking oncoming traffic to create breaks?That seems kind of ludicrously difficult.
I mean when people are slowing down as they're approaching a red light. You can often see from way back that the light is red.
111: What could possibly go wrong? I love that emergency vehicle, though.
I'm being a bit sanctimonious, but this does come up all the time.
It sounds like maybe people in Austin just don't know how to drive.
Heebie & I have very different experiences of driving in Austin. I've never found left turners to be a big problem. In genral, I find Austin drivers to be pretty considerate.
115: Are you from someplace denser?
28, 29: I like to think of that one as "The Limo Driver Who Got Pulled Over on my Wedding Night." (And yes, the driver told the cop it was my fault.)
Solution? Slalom.
This is why I love driving in NYC.
117: Yup, D.C., though I logged plenty of time in Northern Virginia, which is a whole other kind of traffic nightmare. I don't think it's just a matter of contrast to D.C., though. Austin drivers don't speed a lot (except on the highway), are pretty good about pedestrians and bikes (regular cyclists might disagree, but I usually see people giving them a wide berth), don't run red lights, are pretty good about letting people in, and almost never use their horns, which is so, so nice after D.C.
All of this is in the aggregate, of course. There are plenty of individual exceptions.
They do seem to lack a fundamental understanding of the four-way stop, which I've also noticed lots of other places, too. I think everyone should have to get retested for their license every 5 years or so and get a refresher course in the rules of the road.
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England and US draw into the same group- suck it, hooligans!
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they think they have rights to progress forward smoothly at the speed limit, and get angry if someone interferes with that.
I confess that this is, in a sense, me, except that, as per 119, I think that progressing forward at the speed limit involves a lot of lane-switching and planning several moves ahead. My anger (annoyance, really) is with people whose response to city traffic is just a sort of paralyzed passivity, like they're waiting for the flow of traffic to sweep them to their destination without any input from their steering or acceleration mechanisms.
It's not that people feel entitled to "right to keep moving forward smoothly". It's that if things start to get gummed up, you can wind up with an entire traffic jam.
Keeping traffic moving freely is absolutely key for large scale traffic smoothness.
Also, sure, big cities with awful traffic don't have to deal with my piddling problems. That doesn't make my pain any less real.
124 was me again. Proctoring a test. I had a student come up just now and say
"You probably can't answer this. But is the square root of 7 times the square root of 7 equal to 1?"
find a 4 lane road with street parking in Los Angeles. Attempt to parallel park in the usual manner (by pulling ahead of the spot and backing into it). Observe cars pulling up to your bumper and drivers angrily honking the horn.
Incredibly enough, I had (more or less) this experience in the Strip District* a few weeks ago. Two lane, one way street with parking on both sides. Everyone on the road is there for the Strip, and there is constant parallel parking. I came up on a space, slowed down before I reached the space, signaled, then crept forward... and the idiot behind me followed my bumper. I was incredulous. She was then stuck behind me because of a fairly steady flow to our right. All the while giving me the hairy eyeball. Unbelievable.
* produce/ethnic/Steelerswear shopping district that is totally ped-oriented; they should just shut down the street every Saturday, but they haven't got the guts.
And I think 122 works to 123. Traffic can move fairly freely so long as people use city-driving skills (staying out of the left lane if you don't need to be in it, driving slow enough to let lane-changers in, and so on). Past a certain density point, though, you just can't drive on automatic any more and have it work.
On a freeway, of course, excessive lane changes are the prime contributor to traffic jams. The driver who allows themself to be passively swept up in the flow of traffic -- without trying to pass or merge or anything -- is the good citizen.
And, yeah, 123 is absolutely incorrect in a city. The key in a city is to throttle the free flow of traffic in a controlled way, so it doesn't back up at choke points and cause gridlock.
I grew-up in a town with one stop light and never really adapted to bigger cities very well. If it weren't for the inhumane crowding and my need to tote a pre-schooler, I'd take the bus to work. However, I still feel the romance of the road. Most of my late adolescent memories involve simultaneous DUI, MIP, and open-container violations in a series of large American sedans.
Past a certain density point, though, you just can't drive on automatic any more and have it work.
And right around that density point is where it would be really nice if people paid enough attention to avoid doing the small stupid things that tip you from heavy but moving into the bumper-to-bumper crawl. Also a pony.
Downtown Austin has the one way street system and it works fine. The stretch heebie's specifically thinking of is only two lanes (i.e. one lane in each direction, so someone trying to turn left holds up all traffic in that direction).
It's a pretty busy east/west throughway, but that portion is through an old historic neighborhood, and it being a pretty busy east/west throughway is relatively recent, so there's not an obvious good solution. You can't make it one way because there's not another parallel street that would work to go the other way. You can't widen it without messing up the neighborhood.
Also a pony.
I had a pony, back in the day.
And to clarify 134, the stretch heebie's thinking about is not downtown.
Northern Virginia, which is a whole other kind of traffic nightmare
My first highway driving experience as a new, teenage, driver was the Beltway as rush hour was getting underway. The one bad habit I picked up there that doesn't work in Boston is assuming that because I'm driving a beat-up looking car, other drivers will want to keep their pristine BMWs or whatever away from me, which gives me more room to maneuver.
134: What surrounds the stretch? Parking, buildings, open space? When I lived in slightly less urban western MA for a couple of years, I was surprised by drivers habitually weaving around cars turning left on two-lane roads, using the shoulder and very close passing, which was something city driving doesn't really let you do.
The solution to the problem as described in 134 is to install mini traffic circles at every intersection. It'll slow down traffic overall, making the road less useful as a trunk road (a task it wasn't designed for) but will keep traffic from stopping outright. This kind of thing.
127.last: I thought they closed at least some of the Strip District streets on the weekend.
138: Yeah, this sounds like a speed problem. Streets I know like that, even if there isn't a turn lane the wanna-be turner eases left, so their wheels are right on the line, and other cars sneak around to the right at 10mph. Slow, but not stopped.
What surrounds the stretch? Parking, buildings, open space?
Single family houses.
141: On certain streets around here, the bike lane works very well for that sneak.
139: There really isn't room.
141: That sort of works on this stretch, but with the number of huge SUVs on the road, not always.
138/139/141/the comment I'd started to type but deleted since it seemed not worth the energy all seem seem like decent solutions. The point on which there seems to be unanimous agreement is that Heebie's proposal is a terrible idea.
139: That's a good idea if there's space for it, but this sounds like something with historically protected buildings on the corners.
Also, with regard to the section of Guadalupe that I mention in 1 (which is four lanes, two each way), the stay in the right lane gambit gets messed up by the fact that buses stop in the right lane. Generally it's best to stay in the left lane but keep an eye out for the left turners.
140: No. They've done it a few times around the Super Bowls (and it was so fucking great), but otherwise every street is open to traffic, for better and worse.
You can't really get a sense of scale, but those traffic circles are no bigger than a regular intersection. It also sounds like 88 could work okay, even if it's pretty retrograde as far as current traffic engineering theories go.
I'd like to actually see this road. Can somebody who knows where it is google map it.. at.. me?
139, 44: They did this in Chicago on a whole bunch of residential north/south streets that folks were blowing down in order to escape the more heavily trafficked Clark, Broadway, Sheridan, etc. And really, they weren't quite traffic circles in the most common sense, really they were little landscaped islands in the middle of each intersection that prevented drivers from simply going straight, and forced them to honor stop signs, slow down, and jog around the island.
148: I guess it must be the Super Bowls I was thinking of. As long as they leave Liberty open and keep a couple of streets going so you can get to the parking lots, I don't see the problem.
151 describes them accurately. I've also seen them in Berkeley.
The point on which there seems to be unanimous agreement is that Heebie's proposal is a terrible idea.
I'm pretty sure you all are contrarian old fogeys. I'm pretty sure that is the problem.
At some point, if there's just more traffic using the road as a major thoroughfare than the road was designed to handle, and there's no way at all to expand the road, then the road is just going to back up frequently, and you just have to deal with that.
(One other solution I've seen is just to prohibit left turns altogether (possibly even by building a barrier down the middle of the road) except at certain designated spots every few miles or so, whereever there is room to put a dedicated left turn lane. This is a pain if you want to get someplace that's on the other side of the road, since you have to circle back, but if the improvement in traffic flow is significant it could be worth it.)
150: Here ya go.
38th Street between Guadalupe and Duval, basically. The rest of 38th is wider, with two lanes each way, but that strip is only two lanes wide.
154: Steve says the problem is you, not us. He likes the traffic circle idea and would really like to put one at Beechwood and Forward.
How on earth is 155 not addressed by the original post?
151: They've actually put those exact things in the neighborhood surrounding this particular stretch, because people try to cut through there to beat the backed up traffic on 38th.
How on earth is 160 not addressed by 158?
160: It's because you're an old fogey.
At some point, if there's just more traffic using the road as a major thoroughfare than the road was designed to handle, and there's no way at all to expand the road, then the road is just going to back up frequently, and you just have to deal with that.
And while you are patiently sitting in backed up traffic, you could dream up idyllic solutions like the one proposed in the original post.
160: You need to upgrade your hobglobin.
What a terrible place for a trunk road.
Have you considered building a subway?
Or adding left turn arrows to the lights at the already-signalized intersections and banning lefts at all the other streets.
164: This really sounds like a job for a Faceless Bureaucrat somewhere in the Austin Department of Transportation. That street looks like a little side street where the limit should be 25 to me, and if people want to drive on it like a highway, it's only going to lead to sorrow. I don't know what the answer is, but I bet there's some way to make it a less attractive alternative (like, fuck with the timing on the lights. Come to think of it, shouldn't there be some way to mess with the timing of the lights to make openings for left turners, also?) and route people who want to drive fast around the adorable historical neighborhood.
Looks like your real problem there is the misaligned cross streets. Fix that and people would have room to duck around the left-turners at the intersections.
I'm disappointed no Faceless Bureaucrat sprung for high-res aerial photography of that road. How can we pointlessly debate this on the internet using only low-res satellite imagery?
If you want to see how dangerous crossing the street is in Oakland, do street view looking north at this intersection. Poor guy lost his legs and hasn't hit the ground yet.
The stretch described in 156 is only like 7 blocks long. What's the problem with just banning all left turns along there, again?
That street looks like a little side street where the limit should be 25 to me, and if people want to drive on it like a highway, it's only going to lead to sorrow.
While sorrowful, this is not really a description of the problem.
170: that's not a real guy. That's one of those pedestrian decals you can get for your pickup.
171: Oh, there are a bunch of residential streets throughout Austin that have become heavily trafficked during rush hour. That one street is representative.
Saying no left turns on any street at any time would work fine at rush hour, but is idiotic for 3 am. A perfect solution would be a sign that says "Good Judgement Is Required Here." Hey, that's what the original post proposes!
Saying no left turns on any street at any time would work fine at rush hour, but is idiotic for 3 am.
There are those light-up no left turn signs that are only on at certain times, perfect for your needs!
And if we lined every freeway with billboards saying "Don't Be An Asshole" nobody would vote for Republicans.
But the needs are more refined than strict hours! Why not a good judgement sign? If the traffic light elsewhere happens to provide a break, feel free to take it. But don't back up traffic.
Yeah I've seen signals that are basically just red arrows.
And if we lined every freeway with billboards saying "Don't Be An Asshole" nobody would vote for Republicans live in Texas. Problem solved!
Why not a good judgement sign?
Besides that it's totally unenforceable?
How about signals that are triggered by traffic conditions?
178 to 175. Or whatever you feel like.
How is my actual proposal, which tries to quantify "good judgement" less enforceable than all the other traffic rules which try to quantify "good judgement"?
But the needs are more refined than strict hours! Why not a good judgement sign?
Because, I fear, good judgment is not highly amenable to enforcement via sign.
Pwnage makes me look especially jerky! Sorry.
What are other traffic rules which try to quantify good judgment?
177: Well, it's a combination of totally unenforceable and an incentive to floor the accelerator to get through a too-small gap rather than waiting until it's safe. It just sounds like a recipe for honking and T-bones.
On the faceless bureaucrat end of it, I really do wonder if there's some way to mess with the lights to create gaps for left-turners.
The thing is, the intent of this stretch is clearly "Don't turn left anywhere." Unfortunately, it's only marked at the traffic lights. The solution is not to really accomodate the left turners, because the street can't handle them.
You need these bad boys, hooked up to real-time traffic conditions.
What are other traffic rules which try to quantify good judgment?
"Speed limit as posted or lower, depending on adverse weather conditions"
I remember neighborhoods installing circles to discourage through traffic. As a teenager, this seemed to be an encouragement to slalom.
191: well, right, and in practice what that means is that everybody goes 10-ish MPH over the posted limit regardless of conditions.
189: How does a stretch of road communicate intent?
194: sidelong glances, a carefree laugh.
I really do wonder if there's some way to mess with the lights to create gaps for left-turners.
Of course there is. Have the ilght for one direction go green (ideally with both a straight light and a green arrow) about 15 seconds before the light for the other direction turns green (and that one would have no green arrow). At every other interection you reverse which direction of traffic gets a 15-second green-arrow jump.
193: Sure. And I've gotten pulled over for going at the speed limit, when it was really foggy.
You all are behaving like a bunch of freshmen with an assignment. "Is this on the test?" "If I get to drop my two lowest homework scores, then Jimmy is going to get a free ride when I had the flu and had to use my free drops up!"
Traffic laws work pretty well when 80% of us act sensibly around them. This would, too.
Takes square root of seven times square root of seven to know the square root of seven times square root of seven.
That would not work here, but I want to write a new post instead. I just saw a picture that made me sad.
You could make it a post about the picture that made you sad and the Boston meetup on Tuesday!
Of course there is. Have the ilght for one direction go green (ideally with both a straight light and a green arrow) about 15 seconds before the light for the other direction turns green (and that one would have no green arrow). At every other interection you reverse which direction of traffic gets a 15-second green-arrow jump.
I've seen the first half of that in a lot of places, but it never seems to alternate. One direction gets left-turn rights while the other one doesn't.
A perfect solution would be a sign that says "Good Judgement Is Required Here."
Back on the bong, are you?
202....oh. I certainly could have. Details?
Also, today is my least favorite school day of the year, because I have to listen to (painful) senior seminar presentations for the next four hours.
Off to swim be painfully bored.
Here's to hoping you don't wear a nose-plug by mistake.
Possible pwnd by prevous hundred comments I haven't read, but London has signs like this in English
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_HxwBGrG_8zA/SN9Dp8eiZtI/AAAAAAAABVQ/j0G5AtTzYPc/s1600-h/25+P-Turn.jpg
I'm pretty sure the text below that sign says "you can only turn left if you're not blocking traffic." Wow. Sometimes it hurts to be so right, but the forthcoming flood of apologetic wows helps cut the pain.
The wowed aplogize to you in e-mail.
