3 Sons of Bitches I'd love to meet

[Penderic]

We have those loop controlled left turn traffic signals that car detect cars but not motorcycles.


How long do I have to wait for the dam lights to change?

[HardAspie]

Quote from Lannis


The worst cussing I ever do is when I'm faced with the result of some mindless "DOT" engineer who has done something really stupid and dangerous on a highway, starting with the list above but going on and on.

They must get the dregs of people who couldn't make it in any other kind of engineering so go to the government where there's no accountability for doing the job right ....

Watching an enormous number of workers "rebuilding" one lane of a bridge month after month when I was commuting ... I never saw 70% of them do ANYTHING except smoke and joke ....

Yeah, I have seen this sort of thing. In Flagstaff they spent several million dollars to take a bad intersection and make it several times more confusing. In Irvine California they spent millions to landscape one of those concrete overpasses with exposed dirt. They put millions of dollars of flowers on the dirt about eight months before the bridge was scheduled to be demolished to widen the freeway under it.

[rocker59]

Watching an enormous number of workers "rebuilding" one lane of a bridge month after month when I was commuting ... I never saw 70% of them do ANYTHING except smoke and joke ....

Lannis

But those hourly workers are getting paid by the contractor who bid the job.  The contractor is paying them to stand around.

The State is paying the contractor by the job, not by the hour.

[Lannis]

But those hourly workers are getting paid by the contractor who bid the job.  The contractor is paying them to stand around.

The State is paying the contractor by the job, not by the hour.

THAT'S no comfort!     

[rdbandkab]

I don't care for 3-way stops...

[Lannis]

I don't care for 3-way stops...

OR the three-lane highways like US11 used to be in the lower Shenandoah Valley.   Three lanes with white dotted lines on all three of them.   The middle one was a passing lane for BOTH sides.   I suppose if you wanted to pass a car that was already ahead of you in the middle lane, you could go to the far left lane to pass .....

Lannis

[charlie b]

Want to see how highway engineers learn their business?  Go to an engineering school and take a look at the end of year projects submitted by the students.  They look like art design projects. 

I think the traffic engineers, and the politicians who hire them, should be forced to drive through their efforts every day during rush hour.

[wymple]

There are still people out there, lots of them, who do not know you can turn right on red........don't get me started.

[HardAspie]

I've been an architect. A rare one who can do engineering too. Yhe number of plans that clients have brought to me to modify to meet code is amazing. My saying has been: "Not only were these plans drawn by  a high school class; it was the drama class."

[1Sourdough]

Yeah.  That describes a "delayed green".  Meaning the oncoming traffic would have a delayed green, allowing you to turn left before they got the green.  It used to be set to something like 5-seconds here.  But, there was always a sign on the light post that noted delayed green.  Funny that yours didn't have the sign.

Mason City, IA has one signal with that sort of delayed green, except it is Green for one direction of the side street for about 30 or 40 seconds, then that side goes red and the opposite side goes green.  It's just as though the left turn lane has a green arrow in function.  There is no sign indicating the unusual situation.  Maybe the plans included the green arrow but the electricians didn't notice it?  anyhow, it is common for the first car in the left turn lane to sit, waiting for the oncoming cars to go through so they can turn left without being run over, then they begin to edge out and sometimes only the one car gets through on the green.

[canuguzzi]

There are still people out there, lots of them, who do not know you can turn right on red........don't get me started.

And there are just as many who knowing they can make the turn on a red, do so without even bothering to slow down.

[screamday]

And there are just as many who knowing they can make the turn on a red, do so without even bothering to slow down.

Ya...the same ones who can't read the sign that says "No Turn On Red".

[racasey]

I use Google Maps all the time, every day.  Works fine.

The smart phone app is limited, but using Google Maps on a computer is no problem.

What problems are you having?

Hi Rocker59, thanks for your interest.

The top 5 complaints are:
Limited number of waypoints
Uncontrollable autozoom and re-centering after every waypoint entry
lack of waypoint editing and route 'clean-up' tools
sluggish screen pans and moving the map on the screen. 
no automatic re-centering when using 'right-click' + zoom

Without looking for nits to pick, I could name more, this product is no longer a good choice.

If all one wants to do is to select Seattle, WA as the start and Portland, OR as the destination, the new version is ok (use of lower case letters is intentional).  However, for an advancer user trying to put together complicated forest rides on small country roads, the earlier version was far superior.

Ciao,
Dick Casey

[Francis]

Try this

works well   http://app.eatsleepride.com/

[LowRyter]

Try this

works well   http://app.eatsleepride.com/

Looks like it's still being developed for Android

[Bill Hagan]

Hi Rocker59, thanks for your interest.

The top 5 complaints are:
Limited number of waypoints
Uncontrollable autozoom and re-centering after every waypoint entry
lack of waypoint editing and route 'clean-up' tools
sluggish screen pans and moving the map on the screen. 
no automatic re-centering when using 'right-click' + zoom

Without looking for nits to pick, I could name more, this product is no longer a good choice.

If all one wants to do is to select Seattle, WA as the start and Portland, OR as the destination, the new version is ok (use of lower case letters is intentional).  However, for an advancer user trying to put together complicated forest rides on small country roads, the earlier version was far superior.

Ciao,
Dick Casey

Will look into that eatsleepride thing (thanks, Francis), but -- in addition to those "improvements" that Dick lists -- my biggest beef with GMaps just now is that one cannot plan a route in "terrain."  At least I can't figure out how.   Really miss that. 

Bill

[donn]

I hadn't noticed the route point limit -- looks like it's about a dozen points?

My main objection was that each thing you do adds another browser history item, so when you go to look amongst your history for the day it's filled with a truckload of map actions.  I'm working around that by using a different browser (Chrome) for maps, so my history for ordinary browsing is unaffected.  Beyond that, it's just a more awkward UI with nothing of value added that I noticed.

[Larry]

Really disappointed in the New Google Maps.
The most annoying thing is the removal of the 'OPTIONS' menu. In unknown cities/countries etc I like to be able to miss 'Toll Roads' and 'Motorways' which the Options menu enabled me to do. NOW it routes me through Toll Roads every time.
Not Happy!

[homebrew]

Really disappointed in the New Google Maps.
The most annoying thing is the removal of the 'OPTIONS' menu. In unknown cities/countries etc I like to be able to miss 'Toll Roads' and 'Motorways' which the Options menu enabled me to do. NOW it routes me through Toll Roads every time.
Not Happy!

Mine is that Google doesn't have a sense of "on the way."  Like, you've got a route and you can't look for gas stations without backing out of navigation and even then it centers the map on where you are and gives you all the gas stations.  I don't care about the gas station a mile back the other direction!  I want a gas station/diner/campground/whatever which is "on the way" to where I'm going and I don't want to go in and out of navigation to do it.  I had a hand-held Garmin that did that in something like 2002?  Why can't Google do it a decade and change later?

[Wayne Orwig]

Will look into that eatsleepride thing (thanks, Francis), but -- in addition to those "improvements" that Dick lists -- my biggest beef with GMaps just now is that one cannot plan a route in "terrain."  At least I can't figure out how.   Really miss that. 

So that is how you found flat and boring roads.





 

Not sure what all of the whining is about. There are dozens of online route generators that are better than Google, and even a number of offline ones with the maps right on your PC. I never cared to use Google for my routing needs.

[Bill Hagan]

Will look into that eatsleepride thing (thanks, Francis), but -- in addition to those "improvements" that Dick lists -- my biggest beef with GMaps just now is that one cannot plan a route in "terrain."  At least I can't figure out how.   Really miss that. 

Bill

So that is how you found flat and boring roads.





 

Not sure what all of the whining is about. There are dozens of online route generators that are better than Google, and even a number of offline ones with the maps right on your PC. I never cared to use Google for my routing needs.

Noted.   

So, might you share a few of those with the great unwashed such as myself? 

BTW, my much-maligned -- even by me -- TT Rider really did a great job finding a stupendous route back from N.H.

To me, the ideal route planner would offer roads with topo in usable scale and permit uploading to a GPS.  Know if any of those you mention do that?

Bill

P.S. I saw that lawyer-mechanic crack in another thread, but was going to ignore it ... 'til this.    

[not-fishing]

The worst cussing I ever do is when I'm faced with the result of some mindless "DOT" engineer who has done something really stupid and dangerous on a highway, starting with the list above but going on and on.

They must get the dregs of people who couldn't make it in any other kind of engineering so go to the government where there's no accountability for doing the job right ....
Lannis

Now there are some smart DOT engineers though they are few and far between.   Here in California the big problem is the Affirmative Action hiring of Engineers with good school grades.  Heck they pass their PE tests even though they qualify as the village idiot when it comes to common sense.  Unfortunately the few good engineers spend all their time cleaning up the mistakes of the idiot horde.

Mark

[pehayes]

Change.org has a petition to call back the old, faster, easier, better Google Maps.  Google could give a rats ass.  The new one sucks.  The petition now has more than 12,000 signatures so I urge you to join in.

Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA

[Wayne Orwig]

So, might you share a few of those with the great unwashed such as myself? 

P.S. I saw that lawyer-mechanic crack in another thread, but was going to ignore it ... 'til this.    

One of my favorites is still Microsoft Streets and Trips. Though it is discontinued, most roads haven't moved, so it will still work for me for years.
Then of course there are the Garmin products. Mapsource and Basecamp. With care, you can use them with free Open Source Maps and not get any $$$ tied up in them.
For simple routing, I like to play with one called ITNconverter. It lets you generate routes using a number of online maps sources like Google, Bing, Here, and OSM. It also lets you try a number of routing engines. And of course the main function of converting data between numerous formats.
Online you have Furkot (so detailed it is almost too much), Harley has one (which reaches beyond the next bar  ), there is one called Tyre, TwistyRide, GPSies, and the usual like Google and Bing.

I wondered if you caught the lawyer reference. 

[pehayes]

Here is a traffic engineer on LSD!

Go to the ever-hated Google maps and drop in these coordinates:
37.046561, -94.478657
Joplin Missouri
Most efficient way to get people onto the freeway.  The crossovers put the traffic under the freeway bridge in the British or opposite directions.  Fun to drive through.

Patrick Hayes
Fremont CA

[Wayne Orwig]

Here is a traffic engineer on LSD!

Go to the ever-hated Google maps and drop in these coordinates:
37.046561, -94.478657
Joplin Missouri
Most efficient way to get people onto the freeway.  The crossovers put the traffic under the freeway bridge in the British or opposite directions.  Fun to drive through.

We have three of those near me in Atlanta now. I'm not sure I see how they are more efficient, but they say they are.
It is pretty funny to watch someone from outside the area get off of the interstate and try to figure out what side of the road they are driving on.

[Stormtruck2]

Exit 26 on I-70 in Grand Junction CO has one of those diamond traffic patterns.  Went through it last Saturday for the first time, real fun with a tanker!!!  Fricken igits!!

[rdbandkab]

Really disappointed in the New Google Maps.
The most annoying thing is the removal of the 'OPTIONS' menu. In unknown cities/countries etc I like to be able to miss 'Toll Roads' and 'Motorways' which the Options menu enabled me to do. NOW it routes me through Toll Roads every time.
Not Happy!

Looks like you have to enter 2 points for directions to get the options. Sort of looks like audio sliders.



Clicking the sliders gets you this: