Side effect of working mostly from home

[Exterous]

Drove through an intersection I've driven through somewhat regularly for the last 10 or so years and it had been completely redone with notably different traffic patterns. It felt weird and a little unsettling because the normal conditioning on what to expect over my life would have been to see the construction signs ahead of construction, deal with and get annoyed by the construction itself once it starts, see the progress and then finally see the completed work. Now its normal one time and then completely different the next.

 

[sdifox]

Wwait, you are complaining about getting less construction congestion?

 

[Exterous]

Wwait, you are complaining about getting less construction congestion?

Oh no the congestion is still there - I just don't see it myself as often

 

[Captante]

I barely drive now compared to pre-pandemic and I too am now working from home so this kind of thing happens.

 

[Red Squirrel]

There's a couple new 4 way stops in my city that are temporary because a chunk of the highway is closed so traffic has to detour through side roads and it helps to handle the increased traffic. It's crazy how many people miss the stop signs! When you are used to a certain area you kind of know when to stop without even noticing the signs anymore, which is kind of bad, because if there is a NEW one you might not even notice it. I have not actually missed it myself, but I can totally see how people do. They are also on a curve so you only really see the sign last minute as you're driving. On a straight away you tend to have more time to notice it as you are driving down the road. They do have a sign before hand to indicate there is a new stop sign though. City did everything they could to make it clear, but humans are creatures of habit and it's hard to change habits sometimes.

But yeah I don't drive much at all myself because of the hybrid WFH setup so I can easily go several weeks or even a month without going by a certain area and it's interesting to see stuff that is completely redone like a newly paved section and never even have noticed the construction. We also have a new LCBO now, I barely even saw it under construction, I just saw one day there was no building there and then the next time I pass there's a building. Have not been in there yet but from the pics I saw that place is huge. It's basically Walmart, but for booze.

 

[Captante]

There's a couple new 4 way stops in my city that are temporary because a chunk of the highway is closed so traffic has to detour through side roads and it helps to handle the increased traffic. It's crazy how many people miss the stop signs!

Fortunately technology has provided an effective and simple solution!

 

[Torn Mind]

Fortunately technology has provided an effective and simple solution!

Maybe Ontario doesn't want to spend money on Timmins.

 

[pmv]

Wwait, you are complaining about getting less construction congestion?

I thought the point was more about the disconcerting effect of not seeing the intermediate stages of change. Bit like when you haven't seen certain younger relatives since they were toddlers and now you meet them at a family event and find they have just graduated university.

Or going for a (nostalgic) walk past your old school and finding the buildings have been physically demolished in the last few years and there's no school there any more and a totally different new building on the site. (Admittedly, mainly I'm miffed I didn't get the chance to drive the bulldozer)

 

[brianmanahan]

Fortunately technology has provided an effective and simple solution!

ohio is taking a bunch of problematic 4-way stoplights and converting them to roundabouts. i like it since it usually speeds up my flow through those areas while reducing the annoyance of getting stuck by long red lights. and so far it has reduced accidents and injuries by quite a bit at a couple of intersections that used to kill someone just about every year.

but i drive so infrequently now that occasionally it happens to an intersection that i wasn't aware had changed

 

[Red Squirrel]

Fortunately technology has provided an effective and simple solution!

Actually considering the road paint they use here is crap and barely lasts, it would actually be a viable solution even if it's a temporary stop lol. By the time they remove the stop the paint will be mostly faded anyway.

Maybe Ontario doesn't want to spend money on Timmins.

We're surprisingly getting lot of money from the province, I think the highway job is partially funded by that money. Conservatives won for our riding as well as provincially so having a MP that is in party of power should be interesting as it's always been NDP here before. We're getting passenger rail back too, though that was planned before the election.

 

[nakedfrog]

I thought the point was more about the disconcerting effect of not seeing the intermediate stages of change. Bit like when you haven't seen certain younger relatives since they were toddlers and now you meet them at a family event and find they have just graduated university.

Or going for a (nostalgic) walk past your old school and finding the buildings have been physically demolished in the last few years and there's no school there any more and a totally different new building on the site. (Admittedly, mainly I'm miffed I didn't get the chance to drive the bulldozer)

I had something like that when I went back to Omaha for a wedding recently, I stopped at a music (instrument) store with my kid, and it's across the street from where there used to be a shopping mall. They just recently finished knocking it down and leveling out the terrain. It was really weird to see across the vacant lot to the houses on the other side.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

ohio is taking a bunch of problematic 4-way stoplights and converting them to roundabouts.

Those need to be outlawed and the engineers who propose them fired and banished from public employment.

 

[nakedfrog]

Those need to be outlawed and the engineers who propose them fired and banished from public employment.

Why?

 

[sdifox]

Why?

You would think a NASCAR lover would like roundabouts :awe:

 

[brianmanahan]

You would think a NASCAR lover would like roundabouts :awe:

sometimes i see how many times i can go around a roundabout before anyone else gets there

unfortunately i haven't made it to 500 laps yet

 

[Captante]

Why?

The simple among us often have a difficult time navigating them?

 

[pete6032]

Why?

I don't know what http weirdo's reasons are but I think roundabouts are more dangerous for pedestrians versus a 4 way stop light or sign.

 

[nakedfrog]

I don't know what http weirdo's reasons are but I think roundabouts are more dangerous for pedestrians versus a 4 way stop light or sign.

I guess that's plausible, but that doesn't seem like an insurmountable issue.

 

[pete6032]

I did a little research and it looks like there is conflicting evidence on the impact of roundabouts on pedestrian safety in the U.S.. In other parts of the world, roundabouts seem to improve pedestrian safety. But those findings can't necessarily be translated to the U.S. since U.S. roundabouts are much larger and often two lanes, cars and trucks are larger are larger here, and vehicles move through U.S. roundabouts at a much faster speed than in the U.K. or other European countries.

I have only had the joy of walking through a handful of roundabouts in the U.S. and I can assuredly say I felt less safe because the movement of vehicles through them is much less predictable than at an intersection. Is that car going straight or turning? Who the heck knows. Guess I'll just trust them with my life since I can't tell if they're going to stop or not, even though I have right of way as a pedestrian.

I wouldn't want to walk through this personally.

 

[nakedfrog]

I guess YMMV, probably 80-90% of the roundabouts I've encountered in the US are only 1 lane.

 

[Captante]

I've been through literally 100's of roundabouts and never had a problem.

 

[Lost_in_the_HTTP]

They did some kind of weird Euro-Road thing here a few years back. I used to go through that intersection a few times a year. You gotta go left somehow to go right. I haven't been through it once since. There are enough ways around it, even though it may be another mile or two, or go through a residential neighborhood.

If I wanted to drive a Euro-Road, I'd move to Europe.

 

[sdifox]

Two lane roundabout