Traffic Will Never Be Fixed Here
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- Опубликовано: 17 май 2024
- The world's largest diverging diamond interchange built to fix traffic in Sarasota, Florida doesn't quite live up to the objective for a few reasons, but they might not be what you think.
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Chapters:
Intro 0:00
Diverging Diamond Explanation 0:26
Traffic Source 2:51
Flaws of the Diverging Diamond 3:29
Can we fix this? 4:40
Walking through the interchange 6:58
The Real Problem 8:36 
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Remember, compulsive traffic engineers always quit 1 lane before successfully fixing traffic
If CS1 has taught me anything it's that more lanes fixes nothing
Induce demand exist
@@XGD5layer it was a joke
@@XGD5layer Exactly. More lanes actually make traffic worse and increase the odds of a collision.
It's not about the number of lanes, it's about how you use them. Better road design would not funnel so many sources of traffic through a single choke point, but would instead direct each of them outward toward different intersections.
As a European, I've never seen such an interchange in real life, really fascinating. I've built them in Cities Skylines 1&2, but there they seem more like a gameplay concept, because nobody would be so crazy to built a five lane per direction highway. The collector road next to my apartment has two lanes in total, and that's a major traffic hotspot in the area.
Interchanges on this side of the pond are scary
Even in normal parts of America (i.e. not Florida) our diverging diamonds don't have five lanes in each direction
We do have in Europe something that looks like it, but without the intersections. Instead we have "fly overs" these replaces intersections if clover leaf intersections haven't enough capacity;
the arterial road in my neighborhood is 4 lanes wide in total and the train line on it has a daily ridership near 1 million
@@buddy1155 I think I've seen that before. The interchange of I-405 and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles has those
26 lanes clearly isn’t enough. You need at least 53. Honestly why have anything other than lanes in the city. Make it all lanes. Then traffic shall finally be solved!
More lanes = more cars
More cars = more traffic
Less lanes = less cars
Less cars = less traffic
I think it needs just one more lane
just pave the planet already and be done with it
It's simple really. Evolve into cars
@@marwanfakhradin2543 In Paris they created long time ago à périphérique of 9 lines to unclog the iner city trafic. And what happend the first day of oppening? Surprise Trafic jam. And today, in Paris they are puting à lot of bike lanes evry where. So automobilist are force to take the bike. other wise there are stuck in there cars.
We need people to keep realizing that car-dominated infrastructure is *also bad* for people in cars, as mentioned in this video. It's insane that we keep building like this! It doesn't work for anyone!
Not true. It works for industry. It works VERY WELL for the extraction industry. For them, your concern is an irrelevant externality.
The problem here is not engineering, but control of resources and the system by which those resources are distributed.
If it didn't work for anyone they wouldn't spend tens if thousands of dollars for cars every few years and thousands of dollars annually on operating costs.
People are willing to pay large sums of money to be able to go anywhere they want and transport goods on their own schedule without having to be dependent on anyone else.
As the video pointed out, you'd have to turn the city infrastructure back into the medieval village format for walkable 15 minutes cities or NOME like megacities.
Not everyone wants to live that way.
@@umaikakudo
"these people with no alternative keep choosing the one choice they have. they must love it!"
"they're not dependent on anyone as long as the government keeps spending billions on roads and mandating free parking!"
Maybe people genuinely don't want the urban planners' vision of utopia from a hundred years ago. Work is shifting from labor to information, where physical presence is less relevant. Shopping is moving online with delivery, instead of in person. Entertainment and social interaction are less centralized than ever. The more we connect electronically, the less we need to connect geographically. Urban planners are as biased about how people should live as car and oil companies.
So you think everyone should just stay at home and never go to the shops to buy anything because you can get it delivered...
Sounds like a boring and stupid lifestyle to me@@timewave02012
Those bike lanes are perhaps the most ridiculous part of the whole interchange. Yeah, does anyone really want to ride in a painted bicycle gutter with 5 lanes of 45mph traffic whizzing past them?
Great video, I liked and subbed.
its insane the department of transportation doesnt get sued over those painted bike lanes. Literally telling people to put themselves in most dangerous situation
We have a relatively new diverging diamond intersection not too far from us. For pedestrians most of the crossing has a physical barrier protecting them from cars, but they literally painted a bike lane in the gutter. I didn't realize there even was a bike lane there until about a year and a half after it was completed. It's probably about two feet wide and some of the grates take up about three quarters of it at points. It's horrible and I'm convinced it's safer to take up a car lane instead. Thankfully it's legal here to bike on sidewalks so I just take the protected pedestrian pathway when crossing there by bike and it's not the worst experience crossing a freeway that way. Most crossings of that freeway in this area don't currently have any pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure so I'll take what I can get.
given how bad American drivers are i wouldn't cycle there even if the limit was 20
There is one more improvement that could be done to these diamonds during construction - in areas where water tables allow - put lit tunnels under the road for pedestrians, rather than crosswalks. We have one near where I live, which connects "downtown" to a big park, and it is rare not to cross paths with someone walking through that tunnel.
Bold of you to assume it's only 45...
This will never fix traffic because the only solution to traffic is mass transit.
And walkability
Mass transit doesn't fix traffic either. Look a london and nyc. But it gives everyone options and that is most important
@@john-ic9vj London and NYC are bad examples because cars are still a dominant force in both cities. Mass transit is undoubtedly the solution, and is not to blame for poor development choices that the aforementioned cities, among others, have made.
London and NYC just need more transit! Look the lack of congestion in Tokyo
GO MASS TRANSIT!
This was well explained. It didn't feel like it 'hated' cars, but it just showed what the environment looks like if its built around cars and then just kind of says, "Is this what you want?"
This is a good way to put it. I like not just bikes but he is a little overbearing sometimes lol
@@JackLeeRUclips Absolutely agree, I stopped watching videos from not just bikes because of the terrible attitude of that guy. This video on the other hand is very well explained and nice to watch
Definitely why I like this video more. It acknowledges the usefulness of cars, HOW the situation happened, why etc without just saying "ban cars put rhe people in commie blocks and execute dissidents" like some of the channels are like lmao.
I don't hate cars, I have one. I hate needlessly big roads, and the thought process of "oh traffic is backed up? Well, clearly, we need to keep adding more roads instead of designing the intersection and surrounding area better!"
I'm also not a weak willed coward and can actually be outside in weather and not need to run to my car.
Agreed. I love NJB, and I know his approach is what made him become popular where more conventional (and very often boring) new urbanist channels failed, but now that he's more mainstream, I'm starting to find his angry outbursts jarring. Especially when they come out of nowhere in the middle of an otherwise calm episode. I think it's time he dialed it back a little.
@@dankmemes8619 "without just saying "ban cars put rhe people in commie blocks and execute dissidents" like some of the channels are like lmao."
I don't know if I've seen a single channel say that. I've seen it put forward as a strawman countless times, though.
We have a diverging diamond here in Denmark 🇩🇰 as well, near Odense. Here pedestrians are completely prohibited from going near it, all sidewalks are removed. The highway itself is sunken into the ground, and there are instead pedestrian and bicycle bridges at ground level nearby that you can use.
That makes much more sense!
I agree. Pedestrians and cyclists should be at least completely grade separated from the car traffic. Grade separate the transit while you're at it too!
had me in the first half not gonna lie
Keep it up, fact that I didn't realize you were new means you will continue succeeding in keeping people entertained on this platform.
omfg i just realised through this comment that this isnt an "established" content creator.
Same! The vibe is as if I had been watching this channel for years. Great start, best of luck
oh yes! very well and professionally made! Thought I was watching an episode of practical engineering until I saw a face I've never seen before :D
Yeah, the production quality, animations, and clarity of explanations are top notch for having
I swear this guy sounds exactly like william osman
This interchange is literal hell on earth for cyclists and pedestrians. Just look at the crazy zig-zag for pedestrians, when they want to cross that thing. I-n-s-a-n-e!
It's actually pretty good, Road Guy Rob did a video on pedestrian crossing for DDIs and the sidewalk in the middle worked the best because you only had to cross two ramps without a signal instead of four when the side walk is on the outside
still very long ways to walk across, far from a straight line @@AdamSmith-gs2dv
At least you only have to consider threats from one direction at a time unless somebody thinks they can back up. Beats looking at stopped traffic from one side and glancing to the other side to be sure they're not moving right before you get there!
Bold of you to assume they give one shred of care for pedestrians and bikers!
And if you want to get to frontage roads or streets near the DDI, you can't. See University Blvd over I-35 in Round Rock, TX.
I drive a bus that goes to a mall and one day, I timed how long it takes to get from the entrance to the bus stop. It took 5 minutes. And another 5 minutes to exit.
During the Christmas season, it takes 3 times as long. The parking lot is several times larger than the mall itself.
Personally, I think a better idea would be to place the main entrance to the mall on the sidewalk and place the bus stop there. Make the car drivers go all the way around back to enter the parking lot. It would save a lot of time.
That's how it's done where I'm from. The buses/jeeps get their own bay to load/unload passengers at the entrance of the mall (which is beside the road).
@@masterezekie1613It's the same in my country. Full culture.
@@masterezekie1613in my country too, I’ve never seen such huge parking lots in my life as in the us
The back parking lots for UTC mall ACTUALLY EXIST ALREADY and they work really well compared to the front side. It's too bad they didn't just build more of those where the mall is, build the little commercial strip with the book shop and bento-box place further south where the new aquarium is currently going, and put the mall up against Cattlemen proper.
This seems like one of many simple steps that just need to happen.
Its hard to suddenly flip car-centric system to a pedestrian in one go, but small things like this are certainly possible to implement straightaway.
The perception in America is that you don’t want to walk because you run into crazy street people. That’s true, because they’ve created a system where anyone who’s not crazy can afford to drive, so the streets are ONLY full of crazy street people. As a European visiting the US, I arrived with the idea of walking everywhere. After the first harrowing evening being harassed on the street or people yelling shit, I took cabs everywhere.
Interesting. In which cities did that happen to you?
On thing to keep in mind is that the transportation industry evolved in America the way it did in large part do to the size of America as a whole just the us alone is about the same size as all of Europe and has half as many people leaving lots of empty space between people and place to start with
Have you never seen south east asia?
not only that, giant cities create large uncontrolled areas causing more "crazy people" to roam free without fear of punishment or judgement
@@baconbliss4796 America is the same size & population as Europe, but Europe doesn't have any of the traffic, transit or dead city centers that the US has. There was nothing mandatory about how America designed their cities / development, it was a CHOICE. America could have protected her valuable farmland and required cities to densify rather than sprawl. She could have required every new suburban development be designed around a bus line or a regional rail station, but she didn't. She could have made surface parking illegal in her downtown cores and protected that area for commerce, recreation, and entertainment but she didn't - in fact she did the opposite she FORCED businesses to demolish productive commercial/residential buildings and replace them with the dead space of parking lots.
There's a book called "The Bottleneck Rules" which talks about how the only place you can improve the throughput of a system is at the bottleneck, but if you do that, the bottleneck just moves somewhere else. This applies to all kinds of processes (it came from the manufacturing field).
Very interesting video! Surprisingly high quality compared to the sub count, the editing is superb, keep up the great work!
If you bash cars the cult will watch. A hack like Not Just Bikes read the Induced Demand report wrong and everyone believed him. From his basement.
It is pretty much how Road Guy Rob explains. The interchange is so efficient that the downstream facilities cannot handle it. The backups are because of the other intersections that cannot handle the ability for the interchange to move so much volume.
Exactly. If you look carefully at the video you can see the problem light: a 4 phase signal for a shopping center
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv 6, 7, or 8 phase, dependent on the left-turn phasing sequence.
The first mistake was thinking that Floridians would be smart enough to figure out this intersection.
1 word: overpass viaduct.
@paulofelipebbraga9634 actually that's two words 🤓🤓🤓
The people I know retiring to Florida are the exact kind of ignoramuses that don't want to learn anything other than what they think they want
They want to drive their giant pickup trucks everywhere, hate traffic, want designers to build more and bigger parking spots, yet make all traffic flow cleanly
I have loved seeing new channels such as this one pop up in the urbanism space recently. I really hope that positive change is on the horizon!
what positive change? like destroying 2 car lines in a major chokepoint on a highway just to give it for a bike line that will be used by like 100 people per day instead of tens of thousands of cars?
11:00
"smort" "urbanism" like this is a major cause of traffic in all the eu cities that went with the "smort" urbanism changes....
@@faustinpippin9208 You're criticizing poorly implemented urban design, which I agree is a problem. It would be like me saying "Look how useless roads are! They built that road the other day that leads nowhere and no one uses it. Why do people keep building roads if they wont be used?" Was that road poorly designed? Yes. Does that mean roads as a whole are garbage? No.
@@odach2034 lol
the big difference here that road are build first abowe anything else because a road for a car is the foundation of your current civilization
nothing nowadays gets build without a road so your example is pretty weird
meanwhile something like bike lines are typically useless because you can just get a e-bike and drive with car traffic
i drive a e-bike in car traffic all the time without any problems and i actually hate bike lines because they force me to drive slow (like 30km/h) meanwhile in the car traffic i can go even 90km/h
This is such an awesome video for someone with less than 200 subscribers - Well done!
Congrats on not dying crossing that monstrosity as well. 🙏
Wow my most memorable Halo 3 era montage uploader leaving positive feedback on urban planning style videos like 13 years later?! Makes me happy to see!
Over 600 now, that was fast :)
And now 800 :)
And now 2.7k :)
I did not expect to see Walshy on the urbanism side of YT haha
The production values on this are jaw-dropping. I can't imagine how much time it took to plan and execute all these aerial shots, then layer all the animated graphics on top, plus all the other things. Really appreciate the work you do.
Very well done. I drive through this interchange fairly often and said “why am I crossing to the wrong side of the road?” You explained it so well. I’ve never had problems there, but the crossing you mentioned that is way too close to the highway interchange. And don’t get me started on the UTC mall area. That could be its own video. Thanks for this it’s very well done. There’s a lot of civil engineering urban planning stuff on yt that hit the same notes about decentralization and “stroads”
This is the best video I’ve seen in a long while.
I study infrastructure and mobility in the Netherlands and this is definitely something I’ll be sharing with others.
Keep up the good work. 💪
Thank you!
I hope you do not share this as a good idea.
for large intersections fly overs are way better, no conflicts.. just very expensive.
for medium intersections are clover leaf are better.
for small intersections two roundabouts on each side are better (what Germans do at off and onramps, and the Dutch sometimes as well)
Signalised crossings are slow, dangerous and stupid and are always the poor choice.
I've driven over the temporary DDI in Leusden (A44 /Rijnlandroute) and was impressed with the efficiency and feel of it. My past addiction to building them in Cities Skylines might have helped me understanding what I was doing when I first drove on to it. I think fly overs are better if you have the space, but this one seemed to work very well when I used it.
I think the nearest DDI is now in Belgium (Waregem).
@@buddy1155 it’s not meant as in to share this intersection type.
It’s about sharing the idea of “when will it ever be enough”.
You see this interaction and it’s massive, a insane amount of lanes.
What I find good about this video is that he shows that it’s overkill. And he shows that the urban planning is the result of all this.
He brings a solution to the problem, and that’s to fix the broken urban planning practices happening over there.
@@DobberD Ah okay, I see the real value in this video for a Dutch audience that it makes you realise how good our infrastructure is.
We don't have to fix major issues, in the Netherlands it is more a matter of fine tuning an already good infrastructure.
watched both of your videos and im blown away by how enjoyable and reasonable they are, have shared with friends i hope this channel grows this is refreshing content
Something that a lot of car brained people don't seem to understand is that reducing the number of people that HAVE to drive will significantly improve the efficiency for those that still need to. Less cars on the road = more space for your car.
typical misconception
you really think that removing roads and lines for cars is better for cars?
or you think that someone will start biking 15km to their work because there is a new bike line that removed a car line?
there is less cars on the road only when the gov makes driving artificially more expensive then the other options
look at all the countries with very little cars on the road and check the cost of driving there compared to their salaries and then do it for the US...
@@faustinpippin9208 My ~1 million European city doesn't even have 15km worth of commute... 15km from any point to another would end up just in fields. And you think everyone driving a car within that 15km radius circle is good for traffic? All 706 km^2 needs to drive because the dude at 15km radius would have a bike commute too long? Wanna walk somewhere 500m away? Wanna bike somewhere that's 10 minutes away? Tough luck, a dude 15 km away wouldn't drive his bike here so there's so sidewalk/bike path. Like, what?
Typical misconception that the very particular layout of current American cities is all there is in the whole universe.
Y'all sound like "people would weight less than 200 lbs. only if you artificially make eating more expensive".
or
"do you know that someone would need to bike 15 km in order to burn off that cheeseburger?"
Just like... don't eat that cheeseburger in the first place...
It is most likely true that the US government subsidizes driving FAR more than the Polish government does. So indeed we're not artificially making car travel cheaper to such an extend as the US does it. Not even counting the crazy expensive road infrastructure. And that's besides the point that in order to physically fit that many more cars into Kraków, as an average US city, we would probably need to bulldoze like a quarter of our city. Like the US did in the 20th century.
Indianapolis seems to have the same pop as Kraków. Yet its area is 3x larger. Seriously.
I don't know how to describe it. Like, so much of an American city looks like that area next to a shopping center. Just with the parking lot that's 4x as large.
www.google.pl/maps/@50.0667307,19.9268326,15827m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
www.google.pl/maps/@39.7722751,-86.1701537,15922m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Just as an afterthought because I can't. "there is less cars on the road only when the gov makes driving artificially more expensive then the other options". Who do you think builds and maintains the road infrastructure?
Trump?
Jesus?
Mother nature?
Manifest destiny was about going west and putting road signs on roads where no one has ever painted a lane before?
Great video! Sarasota is a really unique platform to study traffic. It's heavy dependence on one freeway (75), massive sprawl, and the endless lights and widening of lanes. Zero density and zero public transport. I visit family there often and no words describe how frustrating driving is there. I hope vids like this influence our cities for the better in the future.
Used to live in Sarasota, didn't travel around too much bc of this car centric design, pretty much stayed in the core downtown area where I lived, which was honestly pretty nice comparatively.
Awesome video and the quality of production here is incredible for a channel of this size!! Amazing work, will stick around!!
This is a great video, not only explaining the concepts behind intersection design using easy to understand visuals, but also having boots on the ground to show us the perspective of a regular pedestrian too.
Keep it up man, you’re doing a great job. Went to your channel and was amazed to see you’ve only made two videos. Your content quality is great!
That's a fantastic overview of diverging diamonds! Thank you for putting together such a well produced and concise video. My wife and I have ridden the University diverging diamond on our tandem bicycle to get from Sarasota to Lakewood Ranch and found as you pointed out, that the diamond itself is pretty simple and straightforward. Like when you were walking, we found the roadway to be not pleasant, but not threatening either. That was not the case at the huge intersections on either side of the diamond. But good news! We have 2 more diverging diamonds coming to that stretch of I-75: Clark Road is being constructed now and should be done about the time Fruitville will gets started in mid 2024. Keep up the good work, looking forward to your future efforts!
Wowowow this is honestly an A+ tier explainer. Got an instant sub from me!
My only nitpick is that I wish you had not added music over the part where you walked across the intersection. The music takes away from just how loud and unpleasant it feels to be there outside of a car.
3:19 is a WILD visual
Damm this might be the best edited video of it's genre, looking forward to what your channel will be able to do
Extremely well presented. I love seeing the modern urbanism movement grow.
You've earned yourself a subscriber. Keep it up!
I'm from NYC living in Florida and I love how much easier it is for me to get around in my car down here...
Until I started going back to school and realized my only option was to drive at rush hour daily. I took being able to study on my train or express bus commute in NYC for granted. I still love it here though and am happy to see projects like Brightline coming together.
Well, at least CS2 traffic AI makes sense now. They based it on Floridian drivers.
😂
When it comes to public transport or non-car centric infrastructure, the number 1 argument against it is: who is going to pay for it? and demanding it make a profit. When it comes to car centric infrastructure, there is never this discussion as long as it "alleviates traffic" in some way.
that place is a crime against humanity. And there is a really good way to have people cross an interchange. And that is to not have them cross it. There should be a completely different path crossing the highway that fits well in a larger network of cyclingroutes away for cars. A couple good examples from my country of this are: Jan Linzelviaduct in The Hague, Tegenbosch Bridge in Eindhoven, Ekkersrijt Tunnel in Eindhoven and the Ouverturepad in Harderwijk which runs parralel to a buslane.
Also really enjoyed the video👍
Yes exactly! Pedestrian space should be isolated from vehicle infrastructure, not directly interacting with it.
There is a separate bridge across the Interstate going in just south of that diverging diamond at Benderson Park. It's promoted as an extension of our local rail-trail to get to a big housing/shopping development on the other side, but well into the process we found out it will have 4 lanes of cars going over it also. At least there will be protected bike lanes and no ramps to the Interstate, but cyclists and pedestrians will still have to deal with car intersections on either side.
yooo just 25 subscribers and another amazing introductory video to urbanism!
Keep it up, this is really inspiring!
thanks!!
Amazing videos and quality. You are good and the editing and graphics are on par with the best channels here. Just wanted to congratulate you and wish you the best in this journey!
Glad to see that more and more attention is being paid to the issue of car dependency and how platforms like RUclips are helping to spread the message. "Less lanes, more trains." That's my new mantra.
What a well-produced and informed video. I love road design and I learned a lot from this. I am now subscribed and I wish you the best on your new channel.
What an amazing video! Thanks for giving me more information about these intersections than I ever thought I needed
As someone who works in the traffic control industry, this video amazing. Looking forward to seeing more of your videos.
This channel is incredible! So glad you got recommended to me as I love learning about how we can build better cities
I am really surprised you don't have more subs yet. Great urbanist content!
This video is so well made. Cannot believe you are new. The editing, writing, and shots are superb
I agree with you Streetcraft. I live in a Europe (Poland) and we don't need so many roads. We usually have shops, coffee places, bakeries, cloths shops like in 1-mile range max (usually 1 minute by foot in real examples). And it's not a BIG city thing - it's like that almost everywhere. Thanks to you and your videos I see the importance of people-designed city. Awesome!
I Live Here! In their attempt to FIX the situation , they have created a absolute Monster!!
This was a very interesting video to watch, good job!
Nice video! Production quality is really good, especially for the channel size. One small criticism I have is that the video felt slightly unfocused
I know it goes against the message of the video to think how the interchange could be improved for even more cars - but surely the capacity of this setup would be greatly increased if bridges were used in the two places the lanes cross over each other? In the scheme of the cost of building this, two more short bridges would seem like a really worthwhile investment (and also create more viable pedestrian routes).
As others have said, great production quality for a new channel.
I was born and raised in a car-centric environment, a town dominated by General Motors. Cars were more than just transportation; they were "bling," they were totems.
I'm older now. I moved from that city decades ago. The community that's now my home is still focused on cars, but we also have a dynamic bus system and plans for light rail. The city is adding traffic circles where practical and we have two inverted diamond interchanges like the one featured in this presentation.
I hope the nation can slowly divest itself from its total reluctance on cars, especially in city centers, and I hope we can move far, far away from our dependence on fossil fuels.
Great video and great editing, I was wondering how you got your ariel footage for the intersection?
When presented in this way, you realize just how extreme the USA has become in its dystopian-level devotion to the automobile. It really, really defies logic.
When reading comments like yours, you realize why voting should be IQ restricted. Having the most convenient, most comfortable form of travel, which is your private car that you can drive anywhere, anytime, in your own speed, on your own schedule, in your own private space - is dystopian, says the leftoid drone.
@@DesertStateNevada Ah yes being stuck in traffic is really comfortable
@@maas1208 Ah yes the 1% of driving a car vs the 99% of the time when I'm not stuck in traffic and instead getting exactly where I wanna go, in my own private space, in my own speed, on my own schedule, without having to sit next to psychotic anti-social weird people that are so deprived of human interaction due to their own mental illness that the only way they can feel any interaction at all is by bumping into other strangers on mass transit.
I have 2 degrees in transportation. One in planning, the other in engineering. Your videos successfully explain how these fields intersect. Great job
Thank you!
Just found your channel and I watched both videos. Keep up the good work. Love this type of content.
The interchange in itself takes an insane amount of space. Enough space to house at least hundreds of people in apartments
good job, interesting and high quality quite uncommon in small channels
Great to see a new urbanist channel, great work. Subbed to help the algorithm get your channel up and running.
I've driven and walked around that area many times since I worked in restaurant near the mall next to the interchange. The traffic there after about 7-8 am gets insane, especially if you need to go into the busier part of the mall lol. I didn't even drive anywhere when I was on a break, just walked because it was actually faster and less frustrating than driving
*Why didn't they just build 28 lanes? Why?!?!?!*
I think that would have fixed it! 😆
As a European (well, a Brit) the diverging diamond hurts my brain, since I know that roundabouts exist.
We also only have very few junctions that connect to the "fast lane" of a highway and we are removing them.
Roundabouts lose efficiency at 25000 vehicles per day per lane. That is why America DOTs are very specific where they can be installed. The traffic here is much greater than that, so a roundabout would fail. Roundabout interchanges are reserved for light suburban and rural settings.
@@traffic.engineer we tend to prioritize accident safety over efficiency
@@stevecarter8810 The queuing of the roundabout would spillback into the freeway, increasing crash risk. Hence, roundabout would not be safer in this case either.
You're not European. Have some pride for what your country once was.
What type of behemoth roundabout are you planning on building for such enormous traffic flows?
@@traffic.engineer does happen here in Britain, not gonna lie
I felt like that WWE meme watching this video, getting ‘happier’ with every frame!
great channel, glad i found it in its infancy :D im here to see how you evolve
There is another perhaps better option, than just bike lanes. While it is great when many people use bikes, it is not ideal for everyone or in any weather. But transit basically is - it is almost for everyone and when a few cars are still there (vans and people really carrying something) it is fine. And for a cost of just a single interchange you can build few miles of light rail.
Bike infrastucture is cheap and effective. There is absolutely no issue in diverting a tiny amount of road construction and maintenance budget for it while also taking a much larger cut to fund great public transit.
7:10 OMFG!?! They put a bike lane deathtrap in there as well?
As a Floridian I must say Sarasota is not alone in this, everywhere in Florida is built with car dependent infrastructure in mind. It is insane, it is costly, and it degrades our natural and human environments. As a kid I found it hard to go outside because there was almost no thought put into how pedestrians or cyclists would get around.
I couldn’t believe my eyes when this was only the second video you ever uploaded here. Great Work!
4:25 in many countries, including Australia, this is not a problem as you always have traffic signals on the departure side. These are known as secondary and tertiary signals which are in addition to those near the stop line called primary signals. Not only does it avoid the problem of not knowing the colour of the signals but you can also determine the end of the intersection and therefore if you should proceed or not.
Almost all the signals in the US are on the departure side as well. I'm not sure why they didn't do that for this interchange - perhaps since the departure side is so far away from the stop line. They could have included both though and I think that could have helped.
8:17 The best way across most highways as a pedestrian/bike is across a separate bridge.
You want to avoid bridges for pedestrians/bikes. Let cars go up/down or down/up. Keep pedestrians on their current level.
@@buddy1155 You'll waste an awful lot of fuel in the long run making tons of vehicles go up and down just so bikes and pedestrians don't have to. Also compare the strength required for a bridge that carries vehicles, versus the strength required to carry a few people.
Great video, keep it up.
This video made me think about something that's been happening in the city I live in. The thing is that I live pretty "far" in the scale of the city, but in reality it is only a 15min drive to the central area when there's no traffic. This whole mess of a city was made without any planning. Every work office, area, industry in the center. When everyone goes to work, that 15min drive gets up to 1h30m only because ABSOLUTELY everyone is moving in the same direction, through the same 5 avenues/highway. FYI, the whole country has 12M people and 5M live here.
I love how you show how to fix it compared to just saying it should change
4:25 Near-side traffic signals aren't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think they're better since they stop cars from stopping in the crosswalk to wait for red lights. But they are a downside when crazy stuff like this happens
That can be fixed with a "do not block the box" sign. Anyone in the box after the signal is red gets a ticket
Honestly, the near-side signals in Florida drive me absolutely bonkers. They are hard to see sitting in the drivers seat when you’re at the front of the line. At some intersections, it’s easier to look through the sunroof. Either add lower side signals or put them on the far side (or both, even) and you’d have a lot more visibility.
@@triphius I think eye level signals on either side of a nearside signal set up are a good solution
@@frafraplanner9277 I totally agree. It’s not that the signals are on the near-side, it’s that you’ve gotta hunch over and look up to see them when you’re at the line. Eye-level signals would fix this phenomenon.
I am hopeful that urbanism will get better in America. One problem that I see isn't money or demand, it's culture.
Core issue is zoning regulations placing residential and commercial zones so far apart you basically NEED a vehicle to get from one to the other. Tokyo is a city that fixed this, they got rid of zoning entirely. As a result, Tokyo is totally walkable, anything you need is in walking distance and housing is affordable. Politicians in the West know revoking zoning would solve these problems, but there's too much lobbyist money involved for them to actually do it.
Great video and I live near this interchange. You nailed the issues that now plague this and unfortunately they'll only get worse due to moving the aquarium to a new site just south of the large UTC mall on the south part of that interchange. One change at the entrance could alleviate the congestion and that's the combine the left-turn timings on the intersection just beyond that, which would alleviate the length of time people need to wait for that light cycle by another 30 or so seconds. This happens far too often in Florida that opposing left turn traffic is forced to wait until the opposing side turns. We're getting more of these constructed along that corridor, and they do a good job normally of moving traffic. Keep up the good and insightful work.
Looks like a great start to a new channel! Keep it up!
Amazing production quality. I'm excited to watch your channel lift off
I live on that road (only 10 min from that interchange) and it only really backs up around Christmas time when people are shopping at the UTC Mall shown in the video. Otherwise it is very efficient.
Dude you might be my favorite urban platform. You're very critical and realistic while also being very optimismic! Awesome video ❤
Brit here. I used to often go to the USA and in particular the outer Chicago suburb (I know you call them all their own city) of Downers Grove. I stayed in a hotel across the street from the Yorktown centre.
Now there was a light controlled crosswalk across Butterfield at this point but their was no path on the northern side to the Yorktown mall or the other way to the restaurants.
We Brits just crossed and then walked/hopped over barriers etc to get to where we wanted to be. The hotel was horrified and offered to take us in their shuttle bus. Drivers used to honk their horns at us thing we must be mad. But to us it was crazy that there were not ways to walk. It wasn't far at all. Just completely mad urban planning!
Great Video! In germany we learn in driving school to never drive on a congested intersection, so you don’t block the road for other directions if your light turns red. Maybe such a sign would be beneficial there
In America, about 10% drive without a license, and 33% without insurance. Also, you can pass your license exam without taking any classes in most states, just by learning from your parents or friends.
North-Americans learn to drive from there parents mostly, or other acquaintances. Almost no one drives properly.
Nevertheless it happens in Germany regularly.
It's almost unavoidable on a large intersection like this one, where you can't oversee whats happening between the two traffic lights.
Here in Tennessee you don't even need to parallel park or do a three point turn to pass the driving test. You literally just drive around the block and thats it lol
@@AdamSmith-gs2dvMy God, and you’re not surprised by the enormous amount of traffic death in the US compared to other western countries? And no one has the logical idea to change this handout driver’s license in America to a driver’s course of several weeks ending in a thorough driver’s exam? Traffic deaths will plummet almost immediately with skilled drivers. America amazes me by their stupidity sometimes.
Great message. I will add if the area can’t be made people friendly, at least pedestrians and bicyclists should be grade separated from the traffic.
I was just in Dallas TX for the eclipse, from rural, western Canada, and I loved the way the highways/streets/sidewalks worked, for the limited areas I visited. They also have the DART (Dallas area rapid transit) for moving around from outside towns/cities to the core, which was walkable.
The production quality is very impressive!
Keep up the good work.
As a slight thing to note, you can at times sound a bit robotic, but that isn’t something you should worry about and is likely something that will go away on its own in time.
If you do want to work on it learning a script to where you don’t need it usually help a ton.
Again, this is a super small thing and I absolutely think you have what’s needed to do great here!
Very nicely done. I think a lot of people are inured to the ugly landscapes and inconvenience we have created with car dependency. I appreciate the questions you ask.
If I want to go somewhere on transit it costs me $3.00. Depending on when I return, it may be another $3.00. If I take the car, use of the streets and parking are free.
We have the whole thing backwards.
Keep up the great work! With this level of quality, you will be right up with Not Just Bikes, CityNerd, Oh the Urbanity, etc.
While your points are all true and I agree that the system is backwards, you mustn't forget that your car is using energy, insurance, and maintenance. If it's gas powered and you live in an area where gas is currently a bit expensive. A 20 mile round trip might cost you five bucks in gas. At that point you're almost equal with public transit.
Too bad most of us can’t live without a car. I just calculated my total costs for 8 years of ownership and it came out to $1.34/mile. So a simple 3 mile trip each way actually cost me $8.07 and my 15 mile commute to work and back home is actually just over $20!
car-centric ppl often totally ignore the cost of the car (and fuel) in such examples.
@@schzean My commute is 15 miles. I do it by bicycle. Because it's in the Seattle area, it's often rainy and it includes over 1,000 feet of hill climbing. Keeps me in shape!
I just love your channel and there's only two videos. You are doing a great job. Definitely new sub ❤
fantastic video! nice narration, interesting and relevant visuals. keep it up!
I've been without a driver's license for the past 4 years, doing almost everything by foot or public transit. The biggest issue for me in the simple scale of what can and can not be done on foot as compared to a motor vehicle. I can only carry so many groceries in a rucksack, and my choice is limited as I can't pick anything too fragile to be carried on its side such as a cake. I can purchase a handful of books from a store yes, but the difficulty of transportation of anything too large demands a car.
This place, being a major shopping district, suffers from this very problem. More people would in fact walk or bike if it was practical to also walk and bike back home with their goods, but it rarely is. Public transportation needs to look not just into the movement of people, but of their goods as well. Otherwise the only option is to drive home, and if they're driving home, they need to drive to there.
Use a shopping trolley (looks like a caddie bag on wheels) and you'll be able to carry around a lot more.
If you bike, then use a dutch cargo bike (bakfiet).
if cities were built on human scale one could go on the bicycle each day and thus not needed huge amounts of groceries at 1 time. Just for the odd "oversized" purchases you need to bring a car.
That's a problem of city design. If you had all the shops near your local station (assuming you commute to seomewhere) you could easily pick up stuff everyday after work or school. That way you'd only spend a couple minutes additionally each day and only had to carry small amounts at once.
If you live in an urban area there should be no point where you live more than 10 minutes walk away from a supermarket, drugstore and other daily essentials.
Larger purchases, even in a downtown shopping district, can be delivered. In many good urban cities you can have shopping delivered for just a couple dollars and most of the time you wouldn't make large purchases since you're there so often.
If your city enables you to not need a car on a regular basis you can save massive amounts of money. Some of which you can then spend on the deliveries and car rentals for when there is really no good alternative.
Getting north american cities to that point will take decades though. And that is assuming there is a concerted effort. But even small steps can make a huge difference. Building bike lanes, road diet, signal priorities and allowing infill development is cheap, quick and even brings much greater tax revenue to cities.
Advocating for that is the first step to making your city more liveable.
@@lars7935 I do have shops near my local station, in fact my town is rather blessed in how walkable it is. My problem is that I still can't properly acquire all that I could with a car. No amount of sidewalks will allow a cake to be transported on its side. I've managed for 4 years without a car, so it isn't the biggest problem in the world, but a car is simply a requirement for certain purchases owning to the impracticality of transporting too large material. As for a Dutch cargo bike? I've considered it, but the land here is incredibly hilly and I'm not sure on how effective a bike would be in such a place, especially considering there is a genuine lack of infrastructure for bikes themselves even if there is a fair amount for pedestrians. I don't blame my town for this, limited amount of resources after all, and everybody walks while only some people bike, but it is a factor.
@@isodifbrakiul6387 Ok so why not just get a shopping basket? There are large enough ones for most cakes. There is always a solution
Like how you give actual suggestions to fix American suburbs and give a good human friendly design unlike another urban planner youtuber Not Just Bikes who just venerates Amsterdam. Not only that you also acknowledge that people have no choice but to use cars and addressed that as by just simply saying reduce the lanes, increase walkability, improve public transit, and change a few design choices on how Suburbs are in general designed.
Watching videos from the US makes me so glad that I live in a walkable neighbourhood in Toronto. I rarely need to walk more than a couple blocks for just about anything I need - groceries, restaurants, parks, etc... It's really lovely not needing a car.
Also, welcome to RUclips! Looks like you're coming out of the gate with decent production values. Looking forward to seeing more.
Suburban Toronto is the epitome of urban sprawl. Worse than most US cities.
www.google.com/maps/@27.3891032,-82.4520815,13309m/data=!3m1!1e3?entry=ttu
this is what the area sorta looks like there not in a city but kinda is?
there is kinda of a bus system, it's just east side of teh road i don't think there is since your more of the outskirts of the city
To Fix traffic, the solutions are often really unintuitive, and not what most people think. The congress of New Urbanism has discussed this about places that have dealt with their traffic problems effectively, and the ways to do it are 1. Put shops near where people live, so people can walk to the store if they want to. 2. Increase street network connectivity, Eliminating cul-de-sacs helps traffic distribute itself better, always remember that Traffic is not a flow problem it is a distribution problem. 3. Finally removing stop lights and replacing them with Stop signs or roundabouts is another helpful tool as they are more efficient types of intersection and do not have dead periods where everyone is completely stopped.
they need to make things for people not cars
Roundabouts, just want them to Deep State. 😗
Horrible idea!!! What about ealking, riding bikes or waiting for buses on the rain, snow, cold or heat? Which is most of the time.
Waiting for 3 buses? Forgetting things on the bus? Listening to other people's conversations? Listening to people cursing? Listening to other people's music? Carrying packages? Finding a nice private place to sit to eat lunch? Running errands on the way home from work? Crime? How far do you have to walk to the bus? Handicapped? Sitting next to people you don't know? Being squished on the bus? With everyone on buses they will be alot more crowded.
Great video! To you point, it seems that there is way too much commercial floor space in that area and likely too little in other areas. Meaning that this area is the destination for shopping and no where else. Resulting in a flood of traffic. This amount of commercial is fine in a downtown area or area intentionally designed with mixed uses and alternative modes of transportation specifically good transit. The likeness is that this area wasn't originally planned to be this commercial intensive, but developers piggy backed on each other and got what they wanted. The saddest part is of the landowner wanted to demolish some commercial buildings and replace them with new apartment buildings, ppl would oppose it due to traffic.😅 Meanwhile apartment uses create less traffic than equivalent commercial activities.
I was going to say the same thing as you. Unfortunately the creator of this video is an anti car zealot, so misses the real practical solutions to problems
@@hifivaliant8937 I'm an anticar zealot too
Dante would be proud of that shopping centre. The 10th circle of Hell.
Nice vid!
The best antidote for a diverging diamond is to make the intersection at each end an 'over-and-under' bridge/tunnel instead of an at-grade crossing. This would eliminate both issues of blocking lanes with stopped traffic as well as the two added traffic lights that manage those crossings.
Really enjoying these videos, I already subscribed! I hope you make more.
Awesome quality video, glad to have another great urbanism channel!
Really great video! Good work, and looking forward to more.