American roads

Kermit.de.frog

Are we seriously suggesting we can not discuss USA roads on this forum? Tell me why we can not discuss roads in America on Boards?

Really? A roads forum.

Really?

I'll try again

This is magnificent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDgu9Bw3-QA&t=143s

AugustusMinimus

I don’t understand why this thread is being closed constantly. There is no issue in discussing American roads in my mind.

The issue is some posters coming in this thread just arguing they are not needed when the thread was clearly labelled as an appreciation thread.

AugustusMinimus

https://youtu.be/g7SA8q6VojE?si=YjCuvm05_9TXLHyx

Sea to Sky Highway in British Columbia. Absolutely stunning drive.

(Liberal with my definition of “American”)

Kermit.de.frog

Thank you 🤗

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122018158#Comment_122018158

I’m taking it to mean “The Americas”.

SuperBowserWorld

The scenery is incredible and allways has been but the roads are very expensive monotonous concrete death trap eye sores, which are gradually destroying the scenery. But if concrete is your thing I guess they are fascinating. 😁

Dr Turk Turkelton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122018248#Comment_122018248

The op does specifically say USA roads.

Dr Turk Turkelton

You'd have a long tough walk over mountains, through canyons, deserts, rivers and swamps to get a look at the scenic sights without those roads though.

And that's without taking the weather into account.

Dr Turk Turkelton

...

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122018378#Comment_122018378

This "death trap eyesore" provides a safe crossing of the Rockies that's open all year round and can accommodate large vehicles. It is a necessity, and has most likely repaid its CO2 build emissions by now simply by providing a more direct link between places that people already needed to go. If it wasn't there, people would fly and freight would take a longer more demanding route.

And this isn't some bloated mega-highway: Like most of the Interstate network, the road in this video is 2 lanes each way for most of its length, with a cross section that is no wider than our own inter-urban motorways.

US transport planning has failed in some areas, especially in relying on private car transport around cities, but the Interstate Highway system itself is a major success story.

I had a disagreement with @Kermit.de.frog on the old thread about whether the massive freeways surrounding Dallas were a triumph or a sign of failed transport planning, but when it comes to builds like this, we're entirely in agreement.

Kermit.de.frog

One thing about crossing the Rockies on I70 is how you go from flat green plains to mountains to desert so quickly.

This is another one from Flagstaff to Pheonix which shows what the gradual loss of elevation does. I think it's fantastic. You don't see such contrast anywhere else. The elevation drops by over a mile here and you're in to desert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el3lLaTUZ_M

KylaDecker

We can easily discuss roads in the USA on this forum. I see no reason why we can't discuss road systems and infrastructure in America here. This is a completely natural and interesting topic for discussion on a forum dedicated to roads.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122055803#Comment_122055803

that’s fair enough, hopefully this time the op can stick to your reasonable expectations and not start posting lies again in a troll fashion. Thats what happened the last time and it was the constant corrections of the OPs lies that caused it to be locked (eg dumb things like posting pictures of roads and claiming it to be in Europe when it was an Asian road or posting empty us roads at night claiming zero congestion because in reality during the day it’s a car park).

Kermit.de.frog

Could be Cork, Limerick or Waterford if we get our act together

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUNqsCRO3rE

Cookiemunster

Stop talking through your rear end. It could not be anywhere in Ireland

San Antonio has a metro population of 2.6m people.

Cork City's population is 224k.

Limerick City's (metro) population 102k

Waterford City's (metro) population 83k.

The total population of Munster is 1.37m.

We don't need to get any act together as we have zero need for any roads like this.

cantalach

Even ignoring the population discrepancy to which the previous commenter has referred, why on Earth would we want our Munster cities to look like that? It’s soulless dystopian sprawl. The closest we have to that in Ireland is the Blanchardstown, Lucan, Clondakin, Tallaght continuum. That’s not a development pattern why should be proud of, and definitely one we need to recreate elsewhere in the country.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122515732#Comment_122515732

What a dump.

Are you saying our road deaths are not high enough and we should build an environment that encourages 10 times more road deaths/100,000 inhabitants?

It's a bold move. Have you ran your proposal by someone who has lost loved ones on our roads for their thoughts?

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122537389#Comment_122537389

What on earth are you on about? Who mentioned anything about road deaths?

I suggest to those who have issue with Kermit’s posts to simply avoid this thread. It’s not that difficult to do.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538317#Comment_122538317

Road deaths happens on roads.

There are more road deaths in American roads than on Irish roads.

Kermit seems to want American style roads introduced to Ireland.

This is not complex logic, I don't know why it needs to be explained in simple terms to you.

KrisW1001

Also, the design standards for highways in Texas are very high in terms of safety.

The appalling road deaths figures in the state are down to driver behaviour, particularly a high tolerance of drinking and driving added to the reluctance of a significant minority of drivers to wear safety belts... there's no road-engineering that can make those problems go away.

I was making a point on another thread about how bad design can increase the chance of accidents, but there's no amount of good design that can compensate for dangerous driving habits.

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538598#Comment_122538598

Why are you automatically blaming the roads and not the drivers.

What features of American roads make them more dangerous. I doubt it’s the consistently better road surface or much better and consistent sight lines.

Anyways, you are the one bringing roads deaths into the conversation where it has nothing at all to do with this thread. This is an American road appreciation thread yet you are trying to derail and hijack it.

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122538618#Comment_122538618

Bang on the money.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122539511#Comment_122539511

You seem confused on how forums work. People are allowed to give opinions for and against. It is an echo chamber you are looking for it seems, not a forum.

I don't care what makes American roads more dangerous, but it is not insignificant when their rate is 10 times ours. Anyone with the slightest bit of interest and knowledge in road systems should know the horrific carnage on their roads.

Dr Turk Turkelton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122539820#Comment_122539820

Seems like you are confused about how forums work.

This thread is for the appreciation of road in the USA.

Use the magic of how the forum works to start your own thread and see if anyone wants to get into the crap your peddling and leave this thread for what it's intended for

AugustusMinimus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122539820#Comment_122539820

Well, you are talking rubbish so. If you claim that the design of American roads is the reason for American’s higher road death rate per capita compared to Ireland, you’ve got to support it. That’s how discourse works.

I see no evidence on how American road design is fundamentally more dangerous than Irish designs.

KrisW1001

The US road fatality rate is not "ten times higher". US deaths in road traffic accidents were 43000 in 2022. Ireland's in 2023 were 184. Ireland's per capita rate applied to the current US population of 330 million would work out at 12,000 per year, so the US rate is 3.5 times the Irish, not ten. I found those numbers with just two Internet searches... I'd hope that anyone who was serious about discussing the issue would do the same basic factchecking before making sensational claims..

But: that figure is a basic per capita count, and it makes Ireland look good for two reasons. First, we have fewer private vehicle users per capita than the US, and second, Irish drivers travel far fewer kilometres per year than their counterparts in the States. Basically, your chances of dying in a car accident dramatically improve if you spend less time in a car, but Americans are the highest users of private cars in the world. (Taking that logical error to its extreme, I could say that not only are amazingly safer drivers, we also kick their ass on bear safety...)

Account for those factors, and the US is still higher, but nothing like "multiples". To account for that there's the social aspects I mentioned before, but road design is not a factor in their higher fatality rate, except to reduce it.

Kermit.de.frog

...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122540071#Comment_122540071

That's precisely my point, thanks for backing up my argument! The ridiculous nature of American roads causes induced demand. More capacity, therefore more cars and trips are made to fill that capacity. Their road design leads to more sprawl which leads to more trips and for greater distances and make having a car a necessity for living.

This really is simple, simple stuff and generally accepted as a massive failure in planning in US where they are now trying (half-assed) to build train routes and cycleways. There are multiple YouTube channels dedicated to the subject. I can't believe I have to spell this out in a Roads forum.

From Wikipedia the rate there is 6 times greater. From memory, I thought it was around 10x times higher.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122543277#Comment_122543277

No, you're still wrong.

"Induced demand" isn't the reason why Americans drive further. Look at a map. Preferably one with a scale.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122544028#Comment_122544028

Well done you, you can read map. I can also see the massive sprawl in America on a map, as a result building roads everywhere.

Just because a country is large doesn’t mean you have to pave so much of it.

Anyone encouraging such road building ought to be ashamed of themselves given the damage to society it has caused in the US.

I like the way you totally ignore the impact of induced demand in commuting patterns despite it's affect being universally known by any civil or transport engineer.

The ignorance is breathtaking. At least the Americans had the excuse in the 50s the impact of OTT road development was unknown.

KrisW1001

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122544113#Comment_122544113

Your original claim was that American road designs are dangerous, and now you're aiming your ire at car dependency, so I will assume that you've conceded the design safety point, and are now moving onto fresh ground in your apparent grievance against the United States.

As it happens, there is only a weak link between car commuting and traffic fatalities. Commuter corridors at peak periods have the lowest fatality rates; most road deaths occur at night on local routes. That's true of both the USA and Ireland.

On car dependency being a terrible thing, I agree with you. But it's also something that is extraordinarily hard to reverse once it has shaped your built environment. The "Western" USA developed most of its transport infrastructure in the second half of the 20th century, and that made it especially vulnerable to car-centric planning.

But even in Texas, where the state DoT is legally forced to prioritise roads by the (almost permanently Republican) state government, the trend is away from more roads. Urban densification, trip avoidance programmes, increased occupancy rate promotion and even passenger rail expansion are all being pursued in the large cities.

None of that's on topic here, though. This thread was killed before by people using it as a soapbox (and I hold my hands up to that too... Sorry, Kermit). Let's not repeat that. I'm happy to discuss with you or anyone else how a car-dependent society can try to wean itself off cars, but on a new thread, and in good faith please. But if you just want to gripe about "America is bad", take it elsewhere.

(For the record, I "love" the US so much that on two separate occasions I have turned down very lucrative opportunities to live and work there…)

KrisW1001

[accidental posting, deleted]

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122544567#Comment_122544567

This is what I said originally. I did not mention anything about the design of the roads

Are you saying our road deaths are not high enough and we should build an environment that encourages 10 times more road deaths/100,000 inhabitants?

Damn right, I'm gonna raise a grievance against any suggestion we should increase our rate of road deaths.

People like the OP who watched too much Dallas and have idealistic notions of US roads need to be brought back down to Earth with some facts.

Kermit.de.frog

https://twitter.com/the_transit_guy/status/1840742862968754273

Good stuff. No half measures, no penny pinching. Get the job done and do it right.

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122676493#Comment_122676493

Why did it need to be widened?

Cookiemunster

It's amusing that you can post a tweet in obvious opposition to this project and call the project good stuff.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122676641#Comment_122676641

Can you not just acknowledge that US highways and freeways are vastly superior in terms of design, scale, and ambition to anything else in the world?

Widest freeway in the world in Houston (29 lanes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVcJXkvCjaY

Cookiemunster

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122678670#Comment_122678670

No. There should never be a need for such a road. It points to nothing more than a transport infrastructure failure. There's a reason that no other countries have such roads.

flyer_query

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122676493#Comment_122676493

Excellent news for Kermit who doesn't care care if the 309 businesses close down (probably 1,000 plus workers) or if the 1,079 homeowners (probably 5,000 plus people) go homeless.

Roads rule dude, beautiful concrete for the single person cars to admire while they are "parked" in traffic on their beautiful 29 lane highway. Living the dream

hans aus dtschl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122678670#Comment_122678670

But why did it need to be widened? Did they cut corners the first time? Could they be cutting corners now? Is there an argument for a couple more lanes to be added? I'm worried they're adding too few.

scrabtom

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122678670#Comment_122678670

A 29 lane motorway is like something out of a horror film. I'm shuddering even thinking about that. How would you get from one side to the other?

Yeah Right

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122679631#Comment_122679631

"Those damn middle-lane hoggers, I have to keep moving over 27 lanes and back again to get around them" is the stuff of Freddy Krueger alright

Sam Russell

Mod: This is a forum dealing with infrastructure, not a motoring discussion forum.

If you post about how people drive - well that is for the Motors forum. If it is about how roads are constructed, or how that construction is going. It extends to the need for roads.

It does not extend to how roads are used or misused by drivers. Some posts may get deleted.

nearby_cheetah

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122676493#Comment_122676493

Is this you criticizing the road on an American roads appreciation thread? I mean you must be criticizing it when you bring to attention that it needs $9 billion worth of improvement works done to it.

Kermit.de.frog

Replacing the collapsed Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore after the accident

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AeOA9djnmU

Kermit.de.frog

I10 toward and through Phoenix. Ireland can only dream of such roads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3FpLMnoTJI&ab_channel=InterstateKyle

Cookiemunster

Ireland doesn't need such roads. Why are you unable to just post your videos without the ridiculous comments?

Kermit.de.frog

We do. Infrastructure is key and proper roads are a part of that. We should not be mentally restricted by the EU and British small scale mentality. We need to think big.

In America the Red Cow would have been correctly built like this at the start. No bs. Get it done is the attitude.

https://youtu.be/ay2LIfk8fN0?t=184

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122516593#Comment_122516593

You should try living here. City has a lot of character, it’s partly why we moved here.

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2023/06/12/san-antonio-river-walk-named-one-of-most-beautiful-sights-in-the-world/

Park and ride is about eight minutes from my house, bus is $1.25 and only stops at the airport on the 20 mile drive downtown which, courtesy of 281, is only a 25 minute trip. If I go door to door in my car, it’s less than 25 minutes, but parking downtown is a bit annoying. Believe me, the “dystopian sprawl” is incredibly convenient for general needs, and I like living on 2/3 of an acre with a bit of space from the neighbor.

Speaking of airport, (12 miles from my house), I have twice gone from my garage to sitting on the airplane seat in under 30 minutes, including self-parking. Again, courtesy of 281. I routinely leave the house an hour before flight departure.

Because we are so spread out, we have a surprising amount of wild green space. I don't know how "soulless" it is when I look out the front window and see wild deer roaming the neighborhood.

The problem I have with the induced demand argument is that it assumes that there was no pent-up demand which had been suppressed due to lack of capacity. If a lane is added and capacity increased, that means that people who had been wanting to make trips prior now feel able to make them, the road expansion didn’t suddenly make a trip necessary. City planners can certainly make arguments about the lack of population density being inefficient when it comes to things like provision of utilities (eg sewer/water), but the roads aren’t that argument.

I agree, you don’t need the urban sprawl in Munster, but neither can you afford it. You can’t really fit San Antonio there. The city, with pop 1.4mn, is just bigger than Co Longford. The metro area, pop about 2mn, is Bexar County, the size of Co Tyrone. You would replace the eighth largest county in Ireland with a road network and suburbs and that would be noticed, but Bexar is only one (the 37th biggest) of over 250 counties in Texas. It’s a blip on the map, we have the space to expand, and trust me, there is a lot of space between San Antronio and the next major city West, El Paso. (About 900km, I used to drive it a few times a year).

Manic Moran

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122679631#Comment_122679631

You can’t. It’s divided into tollway, expressway (for those just passing through), freeway interchange lanes, local off-ramp lanes and frontage lanes. If you watch the video above (which is mislabeled, the Katy is the widest freeway in the US, not the world), you will see he’s only got five or six lanes to choose from. If you’re on the tollway, there are flyover ramps. If you’re on the expressway, you shouldn’t be worrying about getting off before the freeway narrows again (its actually a relatively short stretch of wide freeway). The freeway interchange lanes have their own flyovers and that’s just leaves the local lanes which connect to the frontage lanes which are the ones with the traffic lights and wouldn’t be considered “motorway” in Europe.

cantalach

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122764585#Comment_122764585

You’re trying to make the case for a place having soul using mostly arguments related to time, distance, and money. It’s X minutes to get here, Y miles to there, and Z dollars to pay for something. Nice deer admittedly.

Let me put it this way…

If highly surbanised U.S. cities really are as awesome as you say, why do U.S. cities consistently fail to even make the top-20 in the widely quoted liveability index published by the Economist every year?