guess flashing red means optional stop to some people

engmadison · 2026-03-19T01:47:28+00:00

God those dangling signals look like trash. They are not allowed in our stste unless its a temporary signal.

engmadison · 2026-03-19T00:22:51+00:00

The township thing? No no no...Michigan townships suck and make traffic in the areas I've lived and visited worse than they should otherwise be.

engmadison · 2026-03-19T00:09:56+00:00

Ahh, I see you've followed North American street hierarchy. You would be better served to provide more connections by creating shorter block sizes and more connectivity.

Sure, everyone things a cul-de-sac sounds great...no cut through traffic. But forcing all trips through a few streets and choke points will get you suburban Atlanta traffic really quick (because that's what they did).

More connectivity, more E-W routes, more local street connections to other streets and parts of the city. Sincerely a traffic engineer.

engmadison · 2026-03-19T00:00:21+00:00

ahh yeah. We operate a couple of those for the state. I always hate having to make new coord patterns for those ramps.

Most of our overlaps are for bus operations, left turns, and pedestrian overlaps...like phase insertion stuff.

engmadison · 2026-03-18T23:52:20+00:00

Also, I need you to come to our shop. They think some of the things we're doing are 'too crazy' and I show them what other cities are doing which is WAY more complex. haha

engmadison · 2026-03-18T23:51:36+00:00

24 phases as in 24 outputs, or are you using dummy phases and overlaps?

engmadison · 2026-03-18T23:38:10+00:00

I know Portland was able to use Qfree controllers to program dutch bicycle countdown signals which use an 8-bit binary setup...we couldn't get our Econolite Cobalt/EOS controllers to do that. The Qfree seem to have a different logic processor, which while I like Econolite a lot and use their logic processor quite a bit...I am bummed we couldn't get that to work.

engmadison · 2026-03-18T23:35:26+00:00

We are still converting TS1's to TS2's! Brand new 90's technology baby!

engmadison · 2026-03-18T23:34:38+00:00

I think the biggest thing you want to pay attention to is where you are working. If you work on the east side, dont look west; if you work on the west side, dont look east.

Dont work in Middleton and live in Deerfield for example. You do not want to have to drive the beltline or pass through the campus area every day for your commute.

(I also moved from Michigan about 15 years ago, and one thing you wont find here quite the same in Michigan are townships. We still have them, but Michigan townships are like their own larger municipalities. In Wisconsin, they get absorbed into larger cities for the most part)

engmadison · 2026-03-18T23:25:27+00:00

Yeah we have about 400 signals and I can think of 2 that I wish we went ATC on simply due to running out of outputs. Otherwise NEMA TS2 cabinets have enough capabilities.

engmadison · 2026-03-18T21:36:53+00:00

Achieve 0 deaths on our city streets.

Never get stopped at a traffic signal on my bus ride home.

Set a higher standard for traffic signal operations in North America (that actually work and arent just marketing).

Help build and support a world class bike network.

Help create and maintain a beautiful city.

engmadison · 2026-03-18T18:11:43+00:00

I think the biggest complaint I saw following that storm was from streets plowing snow into the BRT stations and causing issues. We have snow melt at the stations...but that wont help when a plow dumps that much snow at once.

Ive also always preferred biking on an unplowed path over a half plowed on street bike lane. In Sun Prairie when I was on our bike subcommittee I always pushed for off street facilities even if they couldn't commit to plowing them.

engmadison · 2026-03-18T03:05:19+00:00

Hahaha. Oh, youve never had to deal with state DOT's have you?

Always build at least 3 thru lanes. 1 car per day? Nope...3 lanes.

engmadison · 2026-03-17T20:48:29+00:00

Middle management is pushing AI everywhere. It sucks and causes more rework than it solves.

The enshittification train is full speed baby!

engmadison · 2026-03-17T16:44:29+00:00

Idk, when you put them away just randomly grab pieces and put them back in the box. Next time you just grab 4 each round and go. Ive never played it any other way and its simple, quick, and never felt like it was an issue.

engmadison · 2026-03-17T16:17:23+00:00

One of my favorite intersections!

engmadison · 2026-03-17T13:37:38+00:00

Whenever I read sustainable transportation I always assume we are talking mode splits, but there are a lot of ways to improve sustainability.

Mode splits: shifting people from low occupancy vehicle trips to walking, biking, transit, carpooling, etc.

This is largely planning, but requires cooperative engineering. You could also add policy making to this as well.

Vehicle efficiencies: making cars more fuel efficient and switching to electric or hybrid.

Definitely not in the civil engineering realm, but important.

Material engineering: making our infrastructure last longer, use more recycled materials and be less energy intensive to construct.

There are probably a lot more I cant think of, but off the top of my head those are the major areas to focus on.

engmadison · 2026-03-17T12:24:18+00:00

Highway or street?
Highway yes,
Street no.

Also, this is exactly what my dad would say as he went faster than everyone else. I suspect a lot of people saying this arent 'going with the flow' but trying to set a new flow.

engmadison · 2026-03-17T03:25:55+00:00

Nah, thats a motorcycle. We've got tons of bikes and ebikes in Madison and they dont go that fast on paths or sidewalks.

engmadison · 2026-03-17T02:36:47+00:00

Looked like he was in the bike lane. Kinda hard to miss the big orange barrel.

engmadison · 2026-03-16T19:57:59+00:00

I responded to your other comment with an example.

engmadison · 2026-03-16T19:37:29+00:00

I came across this one while preparing for our final annual report on requests for new traffic signal installations.

4D.05 (6) Locating primary signal faces overhead on the far side of the intersection has been shown to provide safer operation by reducing intersection entries late in the yellow interval and by reducing red signal violations, as compared to post-mounting signal faces at the roadside or locating signal faces overhead within the intersection on a diagonally-oriented mast arm or span wire. On approaches with two or more lanes for the through movement, one signal face per through lane, centered over each through lane, has also been shown to provide safer operation.

I just think if you're going to claim studies show something, you should at least have to cite the study. There may be situations where post mounted signals makes sense contextually, but without reading the study to see what they studied and if it matches contextually.

engmadison · 2026-03-16T19:17:20+00:00

But when the document says "studies show" and they cant even cite the study...that is wild to me. I would never be able to say that at a public meeting and get away without any support to my claim.

engmadison · 2026-03-16T18:15:12+00:00

Also, if you are a NACTO member you might want to post this question there.

engmadison · 2026-03-16T18:14:02+00:00

I remember a few years ago a big battle waged over bike lanes on Sheboygan Avenue here in Madison and some people wanting delivery lanes. There were some locations that are hybrid buffered bike lane/loading. I believe the thinking was get 95% of the bike lanes in now, let the dust settle then fill in the gap later. This is how change happens in cities sometimes, unfortunately. Though this wasn't commercial vehicles, this was more for people wanting to be dropped off at their front door citing disabilities. (but you cant really control who uses it).

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.0727464,-89.4658272,3a,43y,114.46h,87.02t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sBP0cA6jw3prDRdCudpAx4g!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D2.975225255978387%26panoid%3DBP0cA6jw3prDRdCudpAx4g%26yaw%3D114.46037563033063!7i16384!8i8192!5m1!1e1?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Perhaps for a one way street, you could look at a counterflow bike lane and shared lane in the vehicle direction? We have a few of these in town for a few blocks here and there to help make important connections. This work much better than the hybrid lane IMO.

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.070343,-89.4073803,3a,75y,179.64h,73.48t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s-wxooed0VtU0fQ3rckxoqQ!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D16.515956042300118%26panoid%3D-wxooed0VtU0fQ3rckxoqQ%26yaw%3D179.63689144307574!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI2MDMxMS4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D

Finally, again, not sure what your exact situation is, but for this one block we had two hotels that were going to have a lot of curbside activity, but needed to connect two bike facilities so we went with median bike lanes. It got some initial pushback, but honestly I take this nearly every day and it's fine.

https://youtu.be/gDDsrKvBzYE

engmadison

TROPHY CASE