Dense in the future?

[chris08876]

Originally Posted by JManc

The GWB does have EZ-Pass. I used it every time I drive into the city. It's just a cluster because the crush of traffic.

Yeah but they have the ez-pass/cash tolls as well, all into one. It causes folks to stop. They all have the sensors, even the cash only lanes, but the slow down with folks not having ez-pass is an issue along with trucks that slow down. Likewise with those multiple merges that come back-to-back within 10 ft once your past the booths.

They make it toll-by-mail and toll booth free on the Staten Island Expressway once you cross the Verrazano and that has done wonders for that bottleneck area... well, at least until you go further in where folks that don't understand what "yield" means cause a ton of issues. The HOV lane I'd argue cases more issues than its worth. Essentially eliminates an extra lane but folks still abuse it, and so with the HOV, it forces more folks in the middle which causes issues when feeder lanes bring extra volume onto the far right lane, which everyone is trying to get out of. Its a cluster F of a design.

Volume is an issue, but I think the design adds to it. How its oriented, how the roads were designed adds into the mess.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

and at least in chicagoland, there are some places where thin lines of forest are planted along the expressways to shield residential areas from the noise.

No sound walls?

Are freeway sound walls just a California thing?

Decades ago, when I first drove in New Jersey, I remember seeing what you just described, where it looks like I'm driving on a freeway through a forest, but when you look through the trees, you see houses. I thought 'man, that must be exceptionally noisy.' Not that freeway sound walls really block any noise, but it does muffle it somewhat... if you use your imagination, it sounds like you're right near the beach---you're hearing ocean waves on the shore!

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by JManc

The GWB does have EZ-Pass. I used it every time I drive into the city. It's just a cluster because the crush of traffic.

On the approach to the GWB, a lot of the bottleneck is the actual toll booth. The cash lines can easily become unwieldy and block the lanes to EZ Pass, which mostly defeats the purpose. Making the Hudson River crossings cashless like they've already done with the MTA controlled bridges would probably eliminate a lot of congestion.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

No sound walls?

you also see sound walls along some stretches of expressway in chicagoland as well, but they are hideously ugly, so you'll typically only see them when housing butts directly up to an expressway (although not in the city itself, for some reason).

if there is room for it, a linear tree buffer is the much preferred option. or as TUP pointed out, the land is zoned for commercial, warehouse, light industry, etc. - uses that don't give nearly as much of a shit about expressway noise as homeowners do.

[jtown,man]

Sound barriers are everywhere.

Here in southern Virginia, most of our interstates are like Chicago's in the burbs. It looks like you are in the middle of the forest. Not a popular opinion on here, but I much prefer how Texas has feeder roads and everything fronting the interstate. Not in cities, mind you, but out in the burbs.

[Buckeye Native 001]

I-471 in Northern Kentucky outside of Cincinnati had yellow sound walls for a while (for what it's worth, the freeway was constructed in the 1970s...). They might still be there (it's been a while since I've been back) but I'm not sure if they're still the same ugly yellow color?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

On the approach to the GWB, a lot of the bottleneck is the actual toll booth. The cash lines can easily become unwieldy and block the lanes to EZ Pass, which mostly defeats the purpose. Making the Hudson River crossings cashless like they've already done with the MTA controlled bridges would probably eliminate a lot of congestion.

Yeah, i do recall that. People scrambling and changing lanes last second to find cash lanes.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Sound barriers are everywhere.

Here in southern Virginia, most of our interstates are like Chicago's in the burbs. It looks like you are in the middle of the forest. Not a popular opinion on here, but I much prefer how Texas has feeder roads and everything fronting the interstate. Not in cities, mind you, but out in the burbs.

Except the frontage roads are incredibly ugly and usually double the size of the ROW, which makes for a huge disruption of the urban and suburban fabric.

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

The homes in the Bay Area are propped up on "stilts" (ie hills) for everyone to see, so naturally you just assume that the Bay area is flooded with people while in suburban Chicago you're just driving through forests. But for the latter case it's a misconception--the homes are there, you just can't see them from the expressways.

The suburbs of western metros are objectively denser though. Urban area density per sqkm:

Los Angeles: 2,702.5
San Francisco: 2,419.5
Chicago: 1,360.6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...es_urban_areas

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

you also see sound walls along some stretches of expressway in chicagoland as well, but they are hideously ugly, so you'll typically only see them when housing butts directly up to an expressway (although not in the city itself, for some reason).

Same here in Houston; usually only seen when housing is directly adjacent to freeway. They are graffiti magnets.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

The suburbs of western metros are objectively denser though. Urban area density per sqkm:

Los Angeles: 2,702.5
San Francisco: 2,419.5
Chicago: 1,360.6

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...es_urban_areas

^ I think my point was not exactly clear. I'm talking about contrasts. Here is what I said:

Originally Posted by the urban politician

Cities like Chicago started at their core and were built up densely for well over a century until the car took over, and almost overnight some very low density suburbs were built. That explains why there is a stark difference.

Most California cities saw a majority of their growth after car ownership was already prevalent, so it's obvious that their towns and cities tend to be more spread out as far as density goes--you just won't see the contrast between city and burbs like you will with older cities;.

So I'm not suggesting that Chicago's burbs have the same population density as LA or SF's. It's obviously less due to Chicago's historic development patterns which have a relatively tightly built up prewar city and a very low density postwar suburbia pattern.

I'm simply trying to explain why people who visit Chicago feel as if they are suddenly in a sparsely developed or, as some have put it, "rural" environment once they leave the city. It's not remotely as "rural" as people think it is--there is still lots of development, but factors such as land uses around the expressways, the flat topography, etc play a role in giving visitors that impression.

[Chisouthside]

I definitely noticed alot of residential lots in the Bay are tiny, even smaller than some Chicago inner ring suburb lots. Lots in Dupage county suburbs IL can probably fit like typical 5 houses from what you in places like Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, or the Penninsula in the Bay. Obviously you see huge lots as well in the bay but to me the proportion of smaller lots is higher in the bay than in Chicago burbs.

[jd3189]

^^^ Yeah, those small lots in the parts of the Greater Bay Area I was in made everything seem like a dense collection of cities in the forest, at least near Santa Cruz/Capitola area.

Originally Posted by sopas ej

No sound walls?

Are freeway sound walls just a California thing?

Nah, they are in a lot of other places. I know Florida and Georgia have them, but not sure about Tennessee. NYC has them in certain parts of the parkways.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Chisouthside

I definitely noticed alot of residential lots in the Bay are tiny, even smaller than some Chicago inner ring suburb lots. Lots in Dupage county suburbs IL can probably fit like typical 5 houses from what you in places like Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, or the Penninsula in the Bay. Obviously you see huge lots as well in the bay but to me the proportion of smaller lots is higher in the bay than in Chicago burbs.

Yeah you'll only see lot sizes that large in affluent suburbs like Hillsborough or Atherton. Even if you go out to far flung suburbs like Tracy, Gilroy, Santa Rosa, etc, the lot sizes are relatively small.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The barrier north of L.A. is a mountain range. If you go north of L.A. on I-5 you quickly reach the mountains, some of which are in L.A. County itself, and on the other side of the mountains is the desert.

It's also not just mountains, but a totally different climate zone as well. It's 110 degrees daily, north of L.A. and is some of the least desirable places to live in California. Flat, agricultural and super hot.

These extreme transitions of climate zones are not found in cities east of Denver for the most part, [and yeah I know Lake Michigan influences the weather, but Chicago doesn't go from Mediterranean to Desert in 50 miles.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by jd3189

^^^ Yeah, those small lots in the parts of the Greater Bay Area I was in made everything seem like a dense collection of cities in the forest, at least near Santa Cruz/Capitola area.




Nah, they are in a lot of other places. I know Florida and Georgia have them, but not sure about Tennessee. NYC has them in certain parts of the parkways.

Sound walls are present if decibels reach a level that is recordable in residential districts [60?]. Sound wall construction has been ongoing and added in many urban freeways that are retrofitted.

You probably don't need a sound wall if traffic crawls at all hours of the day.

[RavioliAficionado]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

LA is nothing at all like that. It never gets rural until you get REALLY REALLY the hell far away

It's not some big secret why. LA is surrounded by mountains and desert. There's not really any sensible way for it to just slowly transition into rural areas because you can't have that low of density in the middle of the desert they way you can in the plains. That's why you get much more well-defined edges.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by austlar1

Except the frontage roads are incredibly ugly and usually double the size of the ROW, which makes for a huge disruption of the urban and suburban fabric.

Ugly? Yes. But when I am in the burbs I like to look at something other than trees. I like to know I am somewhere semi-important.

[dc_denizen]

La county (excluding the 2/3 of which is uninhabited desert and mountains) and cook county IL (continuously built up) are about equally dense , 2100/sq km.

Most eastern metros have very low density, low population fringes which skew the numbers

[JManc]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

La county (excluding the 2/3 of which is uninhabited desert and mountains) and cook county IL (continuously built up) are about equally dense , 2100/sq km.

Most eastern metros have very low density, low population fringes which skew the numbers

LA is actually pretty dense and for a long way out. Eastern cities drop off pretty quickly into low density. I think I read somewhere that LA is the densest metro area. Interesting considering New York, Boston, DC, SF and even Chicago.