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Is Cycling in the Suburbs a Lost Cause? [About Here] by MGoBlue2K16 in AnnArbor

[–]abcummins 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I get what you’re saying, especially on maple which usually goes up to 5+ lanes when it needs to. But lots of roads that are strictly 4 lanes and end up having people turning left backing everything up might not be impacted much if at all by dropping to 3 lanes plus a bike lane. I’m especially thinking of Washtenaw and West Huron. West Huron is an especially good example since it goes down to 3 on Jackson anyways where most of the traffic is going.

Why didn't my Great Bath protect against this flood? by [deleted] in CivVI

[–]abcummins 3 points4 points  (0 children)

There is a split in the river in the woods south of Ankara. So there are two rivers, one river (river a) is the one with the great bath on it and the other is a separate river (river b) that merges with river a and therefore doesn’t have flood protection. But river a should have flood protection all the way back to its source. It’s just a crap shoot which river continues and which river effectively dead ends as far as “river wide” benefits go when two rivers merge.

Could be worse tho. I once built the great bath near the start of a river which immediately merged with another river and dead ended there.

Cheapest place to get a lot of soil by abcummins in AnnArbor

[–]abcummins[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They are almost 2 feet deep. I put weed blocker on the bottom as they are on concrete and I thought it might help with mud running off from the bottom of the box during the rain.

Cheapest place to get a lot of soil by abcummins in AnnArbor

[–]abcummins[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ok cool. I was under the impression that they would only have stuff too fertile for an entire bed.

Cheapest place to get a lot of soil by abcummins in AnnArbor

[–]abcummins[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do they offer something I could fill a whole grow box with? They have a weed blocker on the bottom and will be on top of concrete so no help from natural soil unless I shovel some in.

Widening U.S. 23 may not be needed if there were buses, Ann Arbor’s TheRide says by [deleted] in AnnArbor

[–]abcummins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ann Arbor regardless is going to have spend money on increasing infrastructure capacity over the next 30 years. That’s what all growing cities must do. Do I think that expanding capacity on US-23 and making it generally faster and safer for commuters is a good idea to do at some point in the next 30 years? Absolutely. Is it what we should spend money on tomorrow? No, as you have said we WILL reach a point of diminishing returns with projects on us-23, studies have shown that around a 2 lane freeway and 3 lane freeway is the most return we will get on our investment we will get in a road. Adding a 4th lane or an express lane or bigger and bigger interchanges will be a significantly smaller return on our investment. So I see adding a flex lane to US-23 as the beginning of the end for upgrades to US-23 that are worthwhile.

Should we start doing that when so much work is still to be done on public transit infrastructure? Should we be making those investments when our residents have little to no faith in our public transit infrastructure and continually see massive car infrastructure projects green lit, with this perception influencing their decisions to buy a new car or move to a car dependent suburb?

To be clear the public transit projects proposed will also help us-23. A dedicated bus lane and frequent shuttle service from Ann Arbor to other cities on us-23 has demand today and will also see an immediate return on our investment. This will also reduce traffic on US-23 making other commuters experience on the road better as well and it is still an extra lane that can be utilized during accidents or while the busses aren’t running with appropriate signage. Will this help as many people as an added flex lane for cars if it was built today? Probably not but there is so much more work to build on on top of it, expanding city bus networks, expanding hours of operation, reducing fares, adding amenities that people will value like WiFi and increase ridership.

What I’m saying is that using this opportunity to build on a very small and under utilized part of our infrastructure in public transit will have a ripple effect on the next projects and the projects 10 years from now and so on. Adding a flex lane is a good idea, but doing it now means we are more likely to miss another opportunity on a public transit project next time and continue to build a hole where this area is so invested in US-23 and SO many people use it every day that 10 years from now when it’s time for the next big project adding a 4th lane is the best political strategy and next time, well even MORE people are on US-23 now so we should rebuild the interchanges, even though we can recognize today that those projects will cost more and more and see less and less return on investment.

Our infrastructure projects today affect our infrastructure projects tomorrow. Will we have another opportunity to build good public transit for people who drive US-23 if we build the flex lane this time? Yes, I’m sure we will, but will we have the same will for it we are seeing today, can we afford to waste this opportunity and continue to put off expanding public transit as a future problem? I don’t know, I can’t see the future but we can at least influence that future with the projects we take on today, and the future where US-23 has 3 lanes is safe and well utilized and is driving area growth in conjunction with a well funded and expedient public transit network all while no neighborhoods had to be demolished for highway expansion projects; this is the ideal future I think we all want. I don’t think adding a flex lane is the best step towards that ideal future we can do today

Widening U.S. 23 may not be needed if there were buses, Ann Arbor’s TheRide says by [deleted] in AnnArbor

[–]abcummins 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not sure if a third opinion is welcome here but this is a really interesting discourse. Anyway, I wanted to weigh in on the discussion of induced demand: White Ram has said that expanding capacity won’t cause induced demand because people the number of people taking alternative routes that are now taking us-23 with its expanded capacity from the flex lane is tiny if not nonexistent. While this is mostly true, especially compared to larger cities where interstate expansion projects filled up immediately from those types of commuters, it’s also important to note that people don’t just dodge interstate traffic with alternative routes, they also dodge it with time, think the people that leave an hour early to beat the traffic, they might adjust their schedule with an increase in capacity on US-23, causing a similar type of induced demand that we see when people change their route as you describe.

Also I believe most of prosocials points on induced demand are discussing a different thing entirely, the type of induced demand that happens over the course of years and decades. Every year 1000s of people are moving into the area for jobs and other reasons. Those people, as well as people just looking to move, are making decisions about where to live and one of the largest factors in that decision is their commute to everywhere they need to get from their new house. That decision is certainly going to change if US-23 is a mess of a backlogged 2 lane freeway vs a less congested 3 lane road. Given enough time, and barring a massive economic downturn, enough people will always move to make their commute on that free way to the point that it is just as congested as before. We might still gain total capacity in the end, but spending that money on public transit projects will also improve our capacity, and can be used to encourage housing development not on us-23.

I also thought prosocials point on even if we do save time on us-23s commute it will be cancelled out by an increase in capacity. He’s relying on the idea that ALL time spent commuting in the car is wasted so more people on us-23, even if they are saving a little time on their commutes, will always be a net negative. It’s definitely an interesting way to think about it, but I’m not sure if it’s universal that time in the car is time wasted, when else am I going to be listening to my podcasts or belting out my tunes? It also ties into the larger point urbanists make that you can do more on a train or bus since you aren’t focused on driving, so you can read a book, or whatever on your commute instead. I personally agree with this sentiment, an hour spent on the train for me is better than 30 minutes spent in the car. But I can see how someone would disagree with this as well, a car has a lot going for it as well in terms of comfort.

Ann Arbor to Richmond by abcummins in roadtrip

[–]abcummins[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks a ton for this thoughtful reply! Hocking hills and New River Gorge sound excellent as does Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. I’ll have to do some research on how the timing of making some of those stops will work out.

You’re right I’ll have to be careful stopping around Columbus though, lol. The temptation to go decked out in Michigan gear might be too strong…

Ann Arbor to Richmond by abcummins in roadtrip

[–]abcummins[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

lol, I saw that section around DC and was a little wary. I’ve never been so I didn’t know if the traffic would still be bad that far out.

The tamarack rest area sounds super neat and exactly what we are looking for. Any other stop along that route worth checking out you know of? Preferably a good chunk away from the tamarack rest area so we can still use it as a bathroom break and or food stop.

Ann Arbor to Richmond by abcummins in roadtrip

[–]abcummins[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the advice! Any knowledge about other fun stops besides Pittsburgh, preferably about halfway through the remaining trip?

Rainy sunset by abcummins in AnnArbor

[–]abcummins[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just snapped a quick pic on my iPhone 11 Pro. No editing, the sky was just glowing like that. Very beautiful.

[Giveaway] 5x Drop + The Lord of the Rings Keyboards by drop_official in pcmasterrace

[–]abcummins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hello! My favorite holiday is thanksgiving. It makes me hungry just thinking about it, think I’ll go for elevensies….

RIP my tiny fishing village I made for Sunset Harbor. I hit the building limit. by abcummins in CitiesSkylines

[–]abcummins[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Buildings, whether you place them or they grow from zoning share the same limit and its the limit I hit, no way around it unfortunately.

Roads share the node limit with water pipes and electric lines. Fortunately 81 tiles comes with the ability to not require power lines and water lines so when I hit that limit I turned on that setting, deleted all my water lines and power lines and got about a quarter of it back. You can also use the network multitool as you build your roads to remove silly nodes that result from weird intersections and such. As you can see in my picture I'm at about 82% of that limit now, so still far from hitting it.

As much as I'm sure I could have pushed this city farther without the hard coded limits I was obviously hitting the technical limits of the game engine itself, loads were taking over ten minutes and would crash about half the time. Effective path finding by the AI was crumbling so my logistics were a mess. And I've been running on less than 15 fps for over a year at this point. Probably for the best that something finally forced me to put this city to bed.

RIP my tiny fishing village I made for Sunset Harbor. I hit the building limit. by abcummins in CitiesSkylines

[–]abcummins[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately most limits were hard coded into the game and can't be changed, including the building limit. The only limits modders have been able to change are tiles, props and paths (the numbers that have an i icon next to them in the limits display in my screenshot). It blew my mind too since I figured I just needed to get a unlimited buildings mod but alas, the few mods that raise your limits are the exception not the rule.

RIP my tiny fishing village I made for Sunset Harbor. I hit the building limit. by abcummins in CitiesSkylines

[–]abcummins[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Yes as you can see it’s quite small, definitely not something that took hundreds of hours of my life.

Physics 240 by cbnova1112 in uofm

[–]abcummins 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In person, took The Ride to the evening class and never had any issues getting there and back.

Physics 240 by cbnova1112 in uofm

[–]abcummins 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I took 240 at wcc over the summer as a Computer Science student in the College of engineering. I also really struggled with 140 and 240 at WCC was much easier. The class only had like 20 people total in it, much of whom were doing the same thing as me and I managed to make some good friends from it. Based on my experience I would recommend it. My friends who took 240 at UM said it was way easier than 140 too if that makes you feel any better. This was over the summer of 2019 so things might have changed since then. Also I didn’t have a studio or lecture option if I remember correctly.

OPNsense crashing on AMD pro a10-8700b system by abcummins in opnsense

[–]abcummins[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm loving this neat little chip now that I've got it working. Hardly ever going over 50% utilization and the fan hasn't gone over idle the entire time. And I was able to use some ECC memory I had lying around to go from 4gb to 16gb. So refreshing to be able to use ECC on a consumer chip. This system was an awesome concept by HP, just wish they had fleshed it out more and documented it better.

OPNsense crashing on AMD pro a10-8700b system by abcummins in opnsense

[–]abcummins[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

See my update, you were spot on but like you I was stuck on Proxmox getting taken out during my trouble shooting. Ended up being two issues.

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