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If we elevated the road near stop lights cars would naturally slow down as they approached the light and speed up after they passed through. The gravity assisted accelleration would waste less gas and there-by decrease pollution. It would also save on brake pads.
(?) Elevated!
http://bz.pair.com/fun/elevated.html
[35Kb image] A momentum in time. [bristolz, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 21 2004]
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Every stop is on a hill? Oh great, my wife already has trouble pulling out on a hill with a manual transmission. I can't afford no more repair bills! Besides, gets really slick around here in the winter. Wouldn't want to deal with any more hills than I have to already. |
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Imagine being airborne across the entire intersection on a green, though. |
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I like bris's idea better. The cross traffic would never have to stop because you would just jump over it. |
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Until someone takes a left. |
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What a fantastic illustration! |
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This is used on the London Underground - those Victorian engineers were gooood. |
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Umm, why is this in terraforming? |
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Nice idea but expensive to implement. Lots of asphalt and manhole covers extensions to reach the new height, possibly even the overhead street lights and signs as they are probably set some standard distance from the road surface. The illustration is nice but shows a light in the middle, most lights (I think) are at the boundaries so the ramps would have to be pushed further back allowing cars to wander more easily onto sidewalks. Driving along a strip where the lights are timed and traffic is supposed to move smoothly will be interrupted by people who will slow at every ramp and those that get car sick. Also reduces visibility. Still I like the idea conceptually. |
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The elevated part should be as long as a typical queue of cars, otherwise the ones at the rear would have to start off by driving uphill. |
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What happens when a pedestrian falls of the meter high sidewalks? (You will see me laughing!) |
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Problem with this is at night time - cars' lamps are aimed at a slight downward angle. This means that coming at an intersection, you and your cohorts get each others' lights directly in your faces. |
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Until you get there. We have a few of these in St. Louis - waiting at these stoplights, especially as the first car, is murder. |
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nice [+] I think they use this technique in some southern states...Hazzard county if I recall correctly. |
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a. The illustration, althought beautiful, does not show decline toward the entrance to the intersection, so most of the point is lost. (I still second [xFarmerJ] on the fantastic Illustration). b. All thats needed is a "speed bump" hight upwards climb, except that it must with a much longer slope entering the intersection. If all intersections are built this way, you get an uneasy fall entering the intersection too fast, while at normal speeds you get two things: i. Easier ability to stop. ii. Easier ability to start (once over the head of the "hill"). [+] |
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Two buns for the illustration! [+][ ] |
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Dang, seems I can only give you one ... |
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While nicely slowing traffic on the "red" directions, it would also be busy impeding traffic that had a green light... [+] for the illustration though |
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Has potential... For complete energy recovery you would need a height of 14m for 60km/h, or 9.8m for 50km/h. |
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It would work fine (and be a good idea) for light-traffic'd 4-way stopsigns, but not for heavy traffic and especially not for stop*lights*: that would just have people parked on a hill, waiting their turn, as well as making pedestrian traffic more wearying. If you did "the full Monty" on it with a 50ft high come-to-almost-a-complete-stop hill with enough of an apron on top that nobody has to stop on the hill, then you could have pedestrian tunnels, or in rural areas, a "green spot" underneath, but that would probably take up too much visual real-estate in the city. |
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