“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
Theyre extremely car-centric, space-inefficient, wildly expensive, and don’t do anything to solve traffic.
None of which are problems they’re actually trying to tackle.
They improve traffic a bit (not solve), and are substantially safer. They’re only meant to do those 2 things, and they’re good at it. Nobody thinks a single intersection idea will fix transportation as we know it.
Together we’re advancing initiatives focused on creating safer, more efficient travel options for all modes of transportation, from vehicles to bicycles to pedestrians
They spent $25M not making travel safer for bicycles and pedestrians, and explicitly making travel less efficient by inducing car demand. $25M could buy Caltrans an entire set of one of their new Stadler kiss trains, to go from 24 trains sets to 25.
edit: Actually this intersection is more dangerous than the existing intersection. It doubles the amount of pedestrian signals that pedestrians have to cross, and eliminates the sidewalk on the east side. Plus, they’re cutting down like 8 trees and not replacing them. This is urban decay.
That quote isn’t referring solely to this specific intersection design.
But yes it’s also safer for bicycles and pedestrians. Just not as safe as not using cars.
And spending $25 million on a 25th train instead, wouldn’t make this interchange 60% safer. Or even 5% safer.
Again. It’s better. Nobody claims it’s perfect.
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.
It just seems strange to portray highway interchanges in a positive light. Like, they might be the safest interchange for stroads intersecting an interstate, but that’s kinda like putting a $25M bandaid on a bullet wound.
I want you–a random individual–to go on stage, and tell the country that just elected Donald Trump to make cities walkable.
Have a ball.
DDIs are the best we have right now. At the very least, the conservative nutjobs in my city don’t detest them to hell… much. They can be scaled down, and single lane versions would be perfectly acceptable in a walkable city.
they solve far more problems than they introduce.
It is worse for pedestrians, who now have twice as many traffic signals to wait for. It is worse for cyclists, with “gauntlet” bike lanes running between through- and right-turning lane. It is only better for cars…so hardly the “best” interchange in existence.
I’m analysing my local interchanges, and the DDI still appears the safest large intersection in my entire city for pedestrians and cyclers. Add barriers that stupid Americans seem all too eager to detest, and you’ve still got something far safer than anything else available. Make the interchange single-lane at that, and it integrates nicely with a hypothetical walkable city.
I just don’t see how it’s more dangerous than standard intersections for others. Bicycles still ride the same path that the cars do, and pedestrians needn’t worry about right turns on red.
This is a trivial matter compared to the entire rest of the city.
Highway interchanges aren’t good places for pedestrians or cyclists at the best of times. Just take a look at the current intersection.
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.
These are legitimately some of the only interchange designs which integrate nicely with pedestrian paths and bike lanes.
I’m not sure if there’s any safe way to have level crossings for bicycles and pedestrians across highway ramps. The safe ones are almost always underpasses or overpasses. There’s a bicycle path in Stockholm at the end of a highway ramp as it merges onto a 50 km/h road, and I’m terrified to use it.
