It's not about the number of lanes, it's about how you use them. Better road design would not funnel so many sources of traffic through a single choke point, but would instead direct each of them outward toward different intersections.
As a European, I've never seen such an interchange in real life, really fascinating. I've built them in Cities Skylines 1&2, but there they seem more like a gameplay concept, because nobody would be so crazy to built a five lane per direction highway. The collector road next to my apartment has two lanes in total, and that's a major traffic hotspot in the area.
We do have in Europe something that looks like it, but without the intersections. Instead we have "fly overs" these replaces intersections if clover leaf intersections haven't enough capacity;
Those bike lanes are perhaps the most ridiculous part of the whole interchange. Yeah, does anyone really want to ride in a painted bicycle gutter with 5 lanes of 45mph traffic whizzing past them? Great video, I liked and subbed.
its insane the department of transportation doesnt get sued over those painted bike lanes. Literally telling people to put themselves in most dangerous situation
We have a relatively new diverging diamond intersection not too far from us. For pedestrians most of the crossing has a physical barrier protecting them from cars, but they literally painted a bike lane in the gutter. I didn't realize there even was a bike lane there until about a year and a half after it was completed. It's probably about two feet wide and some of the grates take up about three quarters of it at points. It's horrible and I'm convinced it's safer to take up a car lane instead. Thankfully it's legal here to bike on sidewalks so I just take the protected pedestrian pathway when crossing there by bike and it's not the worst experience crossing a freeway that way. Most crossings of that freeway in this area don't currently have any pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure so I'll take what I can get.
There is one more improvement that could be done to these diamonds during construction - in areas where water tables allow - put lit tunnels under the road for pedestrians, rather than crosswalks. We have one near where I live, which connects "downtown" to a big park, and it is rare not to cross paths with someone walking through that tunnel.
We have a diverging diamond here in Denmark 🇩🇰 as well, near Odense. Here pedestrians are completely prohibited from going near it, all sidewalks are removed. The highway itself is sunken into the ground, and there are instead pedestrian and bicycle bridges at ground level nearby that you can use.
I agree. Pedestrians and cyclists should be at least completely grade separated from the car traffic. Grade separate the transit while you're at it too!
This was well explained. It didn't feel like it 'hated' cars, but it just showed what the environment looks like if its built around cars and then just kind of says, "Is this what you want?"
@@JackLeeTheFirst Absolutely agree, I stopped watching videos from not just bikes because of the terrible attitude of that guy. This video on the other hand is very well explained and nice to watch
Definitely why I like this video more. It acknowledges the usefulness of cars, HOW the situation happened, why etc without just saying "ban cars put rhe people in commie blocks and execute dissidents" like some of the channels are like lmao. I don't hate cars, I have one. I hate needlessly big roads, and the thought process of "oh traffic is backed up? Well, clearly, we need to keep adding more roads instead of designing the intersection and surrounding area better!" I'm also not a weak willed coward and can actually be outside in weather and not need to run to my car.
Agreed. I love NJB, and I know his approach is what made him become popular where more conventional (and very often boring) new urbanist channels failed, but now that he's more mainstream, I'm starting to find his angry outbursts jarring. Especially when they come out of nowhere in the middle of an otherwise calm episode. I think it's time he dialed it back a little.
@@dankmemes8619 "without just saying "ban cars put rhe people in commie blocks and execute dissidents" like some of the channels are like lmao." I don't know if I've seen a single channel say that. I've seen it put forward as a strawman countless times, though.
26 lanes clearly isn’t enough. You need at least 53. Honestly why have anything other than lanes in the city. Make it all lanes. Then traffic shall finally be solved!
@@marwanfakhradin2543 In Paris they created long time ago à périphérique of 9 lines to unclog the iner city trafic. And what happend the first day of oppening? Surprise Trafic jam. And today, in Paris they are puting à lot of bike lanes evry where. So automobilist are force to take the bike. other wise there are stuck in there cars.
@@john-ic9vj London and NYC are bad examples because cars are still a dominant force in both cities. Mass transit is undoubtedly the solution, and is not to blame for poor development choices that the aforementioned cities, among others, have made.
There's a book called "The Bottleneck Rules" which talks about how the only place you can improve the throughput of a system is at the bottleneck, but if you do that, the bottleneck just moves somewhere else. This applies to all kinds of processes (it came from the manufacturing field).
I play city skylines and I’ve noticed that adding one lane doesn’t fix traffic, eventually everyone on that specific road needs to make turns. Most drivers drive in the lane they’re planning to turn in. Public transport and making areas walkable is the only solution to traffic.
@@Flint-g4hcity skylines traffic ai Is also insanely stupid. No matter how much lanes you add for example 3 lane right turn they will always use one lane to turn right. If they have to turn left after they can use any lane and switchable after the turn but they don’t
I drive a bus that goes to a mall and one day, I timed how long it takes to get from the entrance to the bus stop. It took 5 minutes. And another 5 minutes to exit. During the Christmas season, it takes 3 times as long. The parking lot is several times larger than the mall itself. Personally, I think a better idea would be to place the main entrance to the mall on the sidewalk and place the bus stop there. Make the car drivers go all the way around back to enter the parking lot. It would save a lot of time.
That's how it's done where I'm from. The buses/jeeps get their own bay to load/unload passengers at the entrance of the mall (which is beside the road).
The back parking lots for UTC mall ACTUALLY EXIST ALREADY and they work really well compared to the front side. It's too bad they didn't just build more of those where the mall is, build the little commercial strip with the book shop and bento-box place further south where the new aquarium is currently going, and put the mall up against Cattlemen proper.
This seems like one of many simple steps that just need to happen. Its hard to suddenly flip car-centric system to a pedestrian in one go, but small things like this are certainly possible to implement straightaway.
We need people to keep realizing that car-dominated infrastructure is *also bad* for people in cars, as mentioned in this video. It's insane that we keep building like this! It doesn't work for anyone!
Not true. It works for industry. It works VERY WELL for the extraction industry. For them, your concern is an irrelevant externality. The problem here is not engineering, but control of resources and the system by which those resources are distributed.
If it didn't work for anyone they wouldn't spend tens if thousands of dollars for cars every few years and thousands of dollars annually on operating costs. People are willing to pay large sums of money to be able to go anywhere they want and transport goods on their own schedule without having to be dependent on anyone else. As the video pointed out, you'd have to turn the city infrastructure back into the medieval village format for walkable 15 minutes cities or NOME like megacities. Not everyone wants to live that way.
@@umaikakudo "these people with no alternative keep choosing the one choice they have. they must love it!" "they're not dependent on anyone as long as the government keeps spending billions on roads and mandating free parking!"
Maybe people genuinely don't want the urban planners' vision of utopia from a hundred years ago. Work is shifting from labor to information, where physical presence is less relevant. Shopping is moving online with delivery, instead of in person. Entertainment and social interaction are less centralized than ever. The more we connect electronically, the less we need to connect geographically. Urban planners are as biased about how people should live as car and oil companies.
So you think everyone should just stay at home and never go to the shops to buy anything because you can get it delivered... Sounds like a boring and stupid lifestyle to me@@timewave02012
This interchange is literal hell on earth for cyclists and pedestrians. Just look at the crazy zig-zag for pedestrians, when they want to cross that thing. I-n-s-a-n-e!
It's actually pretty good, Road Guy Rob did a video on pedestrian crossing for DDIs and the sidewalk in the middle worked the best because you only had to cross two ramps without a signal instead of four when the side walk is on the outside
At least you only have to consider threats from one direction at a time unless somebody thinks they can back up. Beats looking at stopped traffic from one side and glancing to the other side to be sure they're not moving right before you get there!
I agree with you Streetcraft. I live in a Europe (Poland) and we don't need so many roads. We usually have shops, coffee places, bakeries, cloths shops like in 1-mile range max (usually 1 minute by foot in real examples). And it's not a BIG city thing - it's like that almost everywhere. Thanks to you and your videos I see the importance of people-designed city. Awesome!
It is pretty much how Road Guy Rob explains. The interchange is so efficient that the downstream facilities cannot handle it. The backups are because of the other intersections that cannot handle the ability for the interchange to move so much volume.
The perception in America is that you don’t want to walk because you run into crazy street people. That’s true, because they’ve created a system where anyone who’s not crazy can afford to drive, so the streets are ONLY full of crazy street people. As a European visiting the US, I arrived with the idea of walking everywhere. After the first harrowing evening being harassed on the street or people yelling shit, I took cabs everywhere.
On thing to keep in mind is that the transportation industry evolved in America the way it did in large part do to the size of America as a whole just the us alone is about the same size as all of Europe and has half as many people leaving lots of empty space between people and place to start with
@@baconbliss4796 America is the same size & population as Europe, but Europe doesn't have any of the traffic, transit or dead city centers that the US has. There was nothing mandatory about how America designed their cities / development, it was a CHOICE. America could have protected her valuable farmland and required cities to densify rather than sprawl. She could have required every new suburban development be designed around a bus line or a regional rail station, but she didn't. She could have made surface parking illegal in her downtown cores and protected that area for commerce, recreation, and entertainment but she didn't - in fact she did the opposite she FORCED businesses to demolish productive commercial/residential buildings and replace them with the dead space of parking lots.
what positive change? like destroying 2 car lines in a major chokepoint on a highway just to give it for a bike line that will be used by like 100 people per day instead of tens of thousands of cars? 11:00 "smort" "urbanism" like this is a major cause of traffic in all the eu cities that went with the "smort" urbanism changes....
@@faustinpippin9208 You're criticizing poorly implemented urban design, which I agree is a problem. It would be like me saying "Look how useless roads are! They built that road the other day that leads nowhere and no one uses it. Why do people keep building roads if they wont be used?" Was that road poorly designed? Yes. Does that mean roads as a whole are garbage? No.
@@odachikun lol the big difference here that road are build first abowe anything else because a road for a car is the foundation of your current civilization nothing nowadays gets build without a road so your example is pretty weird meanwhile something like bike lines are typically useless because you can just get a e-bike and drive with car traffic i drive a e-bike in car traffic all the time without any problems and i actually hate bike lines because they force me to drive slow (like 30km/h) meanwhile in the car traffic i can go even 90km/h
In the 4 years I went to New College in Sarasota ('16-'20), I saw traffic get much much worse, even after the diamond was built. Good to see some coverage of this in my feed!
It's just confusing af. They're starting to build a couple of these here in Vegas and the slowing vehicles that are puzzled by this system creates more chaos. Nothing wrong with the SPUI in my opinion. I would rather wait on a full stop and green arrow than to deal with yield arrow or yellow blinking lights. That's one reason why NV is always in the top 5 most expensive car insurance in the nation.🙄
@@jakemaranzatto6514 if you did more of the math stuff you probably didn’t lolll. he taught classes on religious studies and stuff of that type. still cool that you could’ve crossed paths!
"See? It is definitely unsafe to bike in America! Buy a car, a big car, and make the entire planet pay for it!" - local politician bought out by big car
Wow my most memorable Halo 3 era montage uploader leaving positive feedback on urban planning style videos like 13 years later?! Makes me happy to see!
The production values on this are jaw-dropping. I can't imagine how much time it took to plan and execute all these aerial shots, then layer all the animated graphics on top, plus all the other things. Really appreciate the work you do.
Great video! Sarasota is a really unique platform to study traffic. It's heavy dependence on one freeway (75), massive sprawl, and the endless lights and widening of lanes. Zero density and zero public transport. I visit family there often and no words describe how frustrating driving is there. I hope vids like this influence our cities for the better in the future.
driving in sarasota is MISERABLE. when all the snowbirds come down, it take 45 min to get home from work, even though it normally takes 20. sarasota’s traffic is no joke.
Something that a lot of car brained people don't seem to understand is that reducing the number of people that HAVE to drive will significantly improve the efficiency for those that still need to. Less cars on the road = more space for your car.
typical misconception you really think that removing roads and lines for cars is better for cars? or you think that someone will start biking 15km to their work because there is a new bike line that removed a car line? there is less cars on the road only when the gov makes driving artificially more expensive then the other options look at all the countries with very little cars on the road and check the cost of driving there compared to their salaries and then do it for the US...
@@faustinpippin9208 My ~1 million European city doesn't even have 15km worth of commute... 15km from any point to another would end up just in fields. And you think everyone driving a car within that 15km radius circle is good for traffic? All 706 km^2 needs to drive because the dude at 15km radius would have a bike commute too long? Wanna walk somewhere 500m away? Wanna bike somewhere that's 10 minutes away? Tough luck, a dude 15 km away wouldn't drive his bike here so there's so sidewalk/bike path. Like, what? Typical misconception that the very particular layout of current American cities is all there is in the whole universe. Y'all sound like "people would weight less than 200 lbs. only if you artificially make eating more expensive". or "do you know that someone would need to bike 15 km in order to burn off that cheeseburger?" Just like... don't eat that cheeseburger in the first place... It is most likely true that the US government subsidizes driving FAR more than the Polish government does. So indeed we're not artificially making car travel cheaper to such an extend as the US does it. Not even counting the crazy expensive road infrastructure. And that's besides the point that in order to physically fit that many more cars into Kraków, as an average US city, we would probably need to bulldoze like a quarter of our city. Like the US did in the 20th century. Indianapolis seems to have the same pop as Kraków. Yet its area is 3x larger. Seriously. I don't know how to describe it. Like, so much of an American city looks like that area next to a shopping center. Just with the parking lot that's 4x as large. www.google.pl/maps/@50.0667307,19.9268326,15827m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en www.google.pl/maps/@39.7722751,-86.1701537,15922m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en Just as an afterthought because I can't. "there is less cars on the road only when the gov makes driving artificially more expensive then the other options". Who do you think builds and maintains the road infrastructure? Trump? Jesus? Mother nature? Manifest destiny was about going west and putting road signs on roads where no one has ever painted a lane before?
watched both of your videos and im blown away by how enjoyable and reasonable they are, have shared with friends i hope this channel grows this is refreshing content
This is the best video I’ve seen in a long while. I study infrastructure and mobility in the Netherlands and this is definitely something I’ll be sharing with others. Keep up the good work. 💪
I hope you do not share this as a good idea. for large intersections fly overs are way better, no conflicts.. just very expensive. for medium intersections are clover leaf are better. for small intersections two roundabouts on each side are better (what Germans do at off and onramps, and the Dutch sometimes as well) Signalised crossings are slow, dangerous and stupid and are always the poor choice.
I've driven over the temporary DDI in Leusden (A44 /Rijnlandroute) and was impressed with the efficiency and feel of it. My past addiction to building them in Cities Skylines might have helped me understanding what I was doing when I first drove on to it. I think fly overs are better if you have the space, but this one seemed to work very well when I used it. I think the nearest DDI is now in Belgium (Waregem).
@@buddy1155 it’s not meant as in to share this intersection type. It’s about sharing the idea of “when will it ever be enough”. You see this interaction and it’s massive, a insane amount of lanes. What I find good about this video is that he shows that it’s overkill. And he shows that the urban planning is the result of all this. He brings a solution to the problem, and that’s to fix the broken urban planning practices happening over there.
@@DobberD Ah okay, I see the real value in this video for a Dutch audience that it makes you realise how good our infrastructure is. We don't have to fix major issues, in the Netherlands it is more a matter of fine tuning an already good infrastructure.
When I visited the USA, it seemed to me as if everything there was set up just for cars. highways with 7 lanes each way, huge intersections and so on. in the EU most of the highways are 2-4 lanes in each way. it was so fascinating to see that in the USA.
It doesn't seem that way, it IS that way. There are videos of cops stopping pedestrians because it's suspicious behavior to walk in the US and not drive.
Nice vid! The best antidote for a diverging diamond is to make the intersection at each end an 'over-and-under' bridge/tunnel instead of an at-grade crossing. This would eliminate both issues of blocking lanes with stopped traffic as well as the two added traffic lights that manage those crossings.
Very well done. I drive through this interchange fairly often and said “why am I crossing to the wrong side of the road?” You explained it so well. I’ve never had problems there, but the crossing you mentioned that is way too close to the highway interchange. And don’t get me started on the UTC mall area. That could be its own video. Thanks for this it’s very well done. There’s a lot of civil engineering urban planning stuff on yt that hit the same notes about decentralization and “stroads”
Wowowow this is honestly an A+ tier explainer. Got an instant sub from me! My only nitpick is that I wish you had not added music over the part where you walked across the intersection. The music takes away from just how loud and unpleasant it feels to be there outside of a car.
Glad to see that more and more attention is being paid to the issue of car dependency and how platforms like TH-cam are helping to spread the message. "Less lanes, more trains." That's my new mantra.
I was born and raised in a car-centric environment, a town dominated by General Motors. Cars were more than just transportation; they were "bling," they were totems. I'm older now. I moved from that city decades ago. The community that's now my home is still focused on cars, but we also have a dynamic bus system and plans for light rail. The city is adding traffic circles where practical and we have two inverted diamond interchanges like the one featured in this presentation. I hope the nation can slowly divest itself from its total reluctance on cars, especially in city centers, and I hope we can move far, far away from our dependence on fossil fuels.
That's a fantastic overview of diverging diamonds! Thank you for putting together such a well produced and concise video. My wife and I have ridden the University diverging diamond on our tandem bicycle to get from Sarasota to Lakewood Ranch and found as you pointed out, that the diamond itself is pretty simple and straightforward. Like when you were walking, we found the roadway to be not pleasant, but not threatening either. That was not the case at the huge intersections on either side of the diamond. But good news! We have 2 more diverging diamonds coming to that stretch of I-75: Clark Road is being constructed now and should be done about the time Fruitville will gets started in mid 2024. Keep up the good work, looking forward to your future efforts!
Wow, that shopping center at 11:21 is just obscene. It seems the sun-belt cities (Florida, Texas, Arizona and Vegas) are all doubling down on car-dependent infrastructure with stroads and parking lots for days. It really is sad because this is the part of the country where walking and biking is pleasant most of the year. I'd assume the lack of walkable and bikeable areas contribute to the high obesity levels in these states. I also don't see politicians here advocating for light rail or car alternatives, as that would seem to be too "un-American" to acknowledge that our freedom-mobiles are causing massive problems and that induced demand is an unsustainable cycle of wasted tax revenue and traffic misery.
yep that’s UTC. the biggest mall in the city, and EVERYONE goes there. the traffic is absolutely insane and during the holidays it’s wayyyy worse. i honestly avoid going there due to the fact the traffic is so bad and it’s impossible to find a parking spot.
When presented in this way, you realize just how extreme the USA has become in its dystopian-level devotion to the automobile. It really, really defies logic.
When reading comments like yours, you realize why voting should be IQ restricted. Having the most convenient, most comfortable form of travel, which is your private car that you can drive anywhere, anytime, in your own speed, on your own schedule, in your own private space - is dystopian, says the leftoid drone.
@@maas1208 Ah yes the 1% of driving a car vs the 99% of the time when I'm not stuck in traffic and instead getting exactly where I wanna go, in my own private space, in my own speed, on my own schedule, without having to sit next to psychotic anti-social weird people that are so deprived of human interaction due to their own mental illness that the only way they can feel any interaction at all is by bumping into other strangers on mass transit.
Brit here. I used to often go to the USA and in particular the outer Chicago suburb (I know you call them all their own city) of Downers Grove. I stayed in a hotel across the street from the Yorktown centre. Now there was a light controlled crosswalk across Butterfield at this point but their was no path on the northern side to the Yorktown mall or the other way to the restaurants. We Brits just crossed and then walked/hopped over barriers etc to get to where we wanted to be. The hotel was horrified and offered to take us in their shuttle bus. Drivers used to honk their horns at us thing we must be mad. But to us it was crazy that there were not ways to walk. It wasn't far at all. Just completely mad urban planning!
Beyond the traffic issue of “just get in a car and drive”, what do you say to those who can’t drive, like my mom? She has epilepsy and has been forced for 20 years to depend on my dad for transportation, and although he retired recently, for most of that 20 years, there was no ability for her to go anywhere outside our small increasingly suburban town aside from the evenings. And our town doesn’t even have sidewalks for 90% of the roads.
In my state of New York they have local short buses for the elderly, handicapped, and other groups of people. It’s insanely cheap and they’ll drive you almost anywhere. My grandma takes it with her friends to see broadway plays, just have operate on their schedule.
As a European (well, a Brit) the diverging diamond hurts my brain, since I know that roundabouts exist. We also only have very few junctions that connect to the "fast lane" of a highway and we are removing them.
Roundabouts lose efficiency at 25000 vehicles per day per lane. That is why America DOTs are very specific where they can be installed. The traffic here is much greater than that, so a roundabout would fail. Roundabout interchanges are reserved for light suburban and rural settings.
@@stevecarter8810 The queuing of the roundabout would spillback into the freeway, increasing crash risk. Hence, roundabout would not be safer in this case either.
You're not European. Have some pride for what your country once was. What type of behemoth roundabout are you planning on building for such enormous traffic flows?
As a Floridian I must say Sarasota is not alone in this, everywhere in Florida is built with car dependent infrastructure in mind. It is insane, it is costly, and it degrades our natural and human environments. As a kid I found it hard to go outside because there was almost no thought put into how pedestrians or cyclists would get around.
@@MrSGL21 maybe don't make a system where only the "strong" (cough cough) can have the confidence to walk or bike outside without the fear of getting hit by your uncle's Ford F-350?
I'm from NYC living in Florida and I love how much easier it is for me to get around in my car down here... Until I started going back to school and realized my only option was to drive at rush hour daily. I took being able to study on my train or express bus commute in NYC for granted. I still love it here though and am happy to see projects like Brightline coming together.
don't drive at rush hour. thats what i do. today I work 3:15 to 8:45 so i'll miss all the rush hour traffic. tomorrow its 10-4. 4 pm puts me into rush hour traffic. i simply go do errands in the area i work. go do my banking, some shopping, i have a couple of returns to do, etc. by the time i finish those errands it will be after 6 and i won't sit in traffic and yet i won't be wasting my time and not making special trips with my car. too many people simply DON'T think.
Used to live in Sarasota, didn't travel around too much bc of this car centric design, pretty much stayed in the core downtown area where I lived, which was honestly pretty nice comparatively.
What a well-produced and informed video. I love road design and I learned a lot from this. I am now subscribed and I wish you the best on your new channel.
The people I know retiring to Florida are the exact kind of ignoramuses that don't want to learn anything other than what they think they want They want to drive their giant pickup trucks everywhere, hate traffic, want designers to build more and bigger parking spots, yet make all traffic flow cleanly
Thanks! The area in the center of the Divergent diamond is so Stark that if they even used some paint and lined out pedestrian paths and bike pads, put a few benches and maybe even a few planters out there. Just to break up the sight lines and make it less apocalyptic, it might be. A bit less intimidating than standing out. Like you're in the middle of a battle zone. Akin to akin to no man's land during world war one
4:25 in many countries, including Australia, this is not a problem as you always have traffic signals on the departure side. These are known as secondary and tertiary signals which are in addition to those near the stop line called primary signals. Not only does it avoid the problem of not knowing the colour of the signals but you can also determine the end of the intersection and therefore if you should proceed or not.
Almost all the signals in the US are on the departure side as well. I'm not sure why they didn't do that for this interchange - perhaps since the departure side is so far away from the stop line. They could have included both though and I think that could have helped.
that place is a crime against humanity. And there is a really good way to have people cross an interchange. And that is to not have them cross it. There should be a completely different path crossing the highway that fits well in a larger network of cyclingroutes away for cars. A couple good examples from my country of this are: Jan Linzelviaduct in The Hague, Tegenbosch Bridge in Eindhoven, Ekkersrijt Tunnel in Eindhoven and the Ouverturepad in Harderwijk which runs parralel to a buslane. Also really enjoyed the video👍
There is a separate bridge across the Interstate going in just south of that diverging diamond at Benderson Park. It's promoted as an extension of our local rail-trail to get to a big housing/shopping development on the other side, but well into the process we found out it will have 4 lanes of cars going over it also. At least there will be protected bike lanes and no ramps to the Interstate, but cyclists and pedestrians will still have to deal with car intersections on either side.
I live in FL and have driven on this road several times. The layout is great. The biggest problem is that when traffic backs up, people try to "beat the light" and enter the intersection on yellow. Then when the oncoming traffic needs to go, multiple lanes are blocked. The video had some great aerial shots of this problem.
4:00 In the UK, we have a solution to this. If the road is painted with a yellow box (with hatching markings), you aren't allowed to proceed unless the exit to the box is clear.
There is another perhaps better option, than just bike lanes. While it is great when many people use bikes, it is not ideal for everyone or in any weather. But transit basically is - it is almost for everyone and when a few cars are still there (vans and people really carrying something) it is fine. And for a cost of just a single interchange you can build few miles of light rail.
Bike infrastucture is cheap and effective. There is absolutely no issue in diverting a tiny amount of road construction and maintenance budget for it while also taking a much larger cut to fund great public transit.
Core issue is zoning regulations placing residential and commercial zones so far apart you basically NEED a vehicle to get from one to the other. Tokyo is a city that fixed this, they got rid of zoning entirely. As a result, Tokyo is totally walkable, anything you need is in walking distance and housing is affordable. Politicians in the West know revoking zoning would solve these problems, but there's too much lobbyist money involved for them to actually do it.
4:02 I do not agree that its the drivers fault here. On small intersections, yes, blocking it would be probably your fault. But here you'd either have to have a gap in the size of the whole intersection area to the car in front of you (which means a LOT fewer cars are going through), or judge a lot of traffic that you simply cannot see from your car. This is an issue with the design.
I was thinking the same, but it also seems to be a matter of space around this intersection. Look at the upper left corner. You need a sufficiently long stretched section for switching lanes to both sides.
@@frankyboy1131 That's true. Looking at how close the mall is to I-75, a better option might have been dedicated exit ramps from both NB and SB 75 that dumped traffic right into the mega-mall's parking lot, avoiding surface streets altogether. And a dedicated SB 75 entrance ramp from the mall parking lot would have been fairly simple to build as well. That would keep a huge amount of traffic off the surface streets entirely.
4:25 Near-side traffic signals aren't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think they're better since they stop cars from stopping in the crosswalk to wait for red lights. But they are a downside when crazy stuff like this happens
Honestly, the near-side signals in Florida drive me absolutely bonkers. They are hard to see sitting in the drivers seat when you’re at the front of the line. At some intersections, it’s easier to look through the sunroof. Either add lower side signals or put them on the far side (or both, even) and you’d have a lot more visibility.
@@frafraplanner9277 I totally agree. It’s not that the signals are on the near-side, it’s that you’ve gotta hunch over and look up to see them when you’re at the line. Eye-level signals would fix this phenomenon.
Pedestrians & Cyclists are pretty much becoming a real life version of the frog in the Frogger arcade game... Trying to cross these multi-lane highways without getting squashed.
Great Video! In germany we learn in driving school to never drive on a congested intersection, so you don’t block the road for other directions if your light turns red. Maybe such a sign would be beneficial there
In America, about 10% drive without a license, and 33% without insurance. Also, you can pass your license exam without taking any classes in most states, just by learning from your parents or friends.
Nevertheless it happens in Germany regularly. It's almost unavoidable on a large intersection like this one, where you can't oversee whats happening between the two traffic lights.
Here in Tennessee you don't even need to parallel park or do a three point turn to pass the driving test. You literally just drive around the block and thats it lol
@@AdamSmith-gs2dvMy God, and you’re not surprised by the enormous amount of traffic death in the US compared to other western countries? And no one has the logical idea to change this handout driver’s license in America to a driver’s course of several weeks ending in a thorough driver’s exam? Traffic deaths will plummet almost immediately with skilled drivers. America amazes me by their stupidity sometimes.
@@buddy1155 You'll waste an awful lot of fuel in the long run making tons of vehicles go up and down just so bikes and pedestrians don't have to. Also compare the strength required for a bridge that carries vehicles, versus the strength required to carry a few people.
I've driven and walked around that area many times since I worked in restaurant near the mall next to the interchange. The traffic there after about 7-8 am gets insane, especially if you need to go into the busier part of the mall lol. I didn't even drive anywhere when I was on a break, just walked because it was actually faster and less frustrating than driving
The sheer size of this thing is truly mind blowing, it’s hard to think of these as real things since I usually only see them in Cities; Skylines. It’s honestly just ridiculous to think that so kind space is dedicated to a single junction.
I live on that road (only 10 min from that interchange) and it only really backs up around Christmas time when people are shopping at the UTC Mall shown in the video. Otherwise it is very efficient.
As someone who is British, watching this gives me nightmares. How on earth have architects and traffic engineers been allowed to create this monstrosity? You guys are crazy. Do your planners not have 30-50 year plans? Do you not have plans that put the people first so it creates a place where people, walking, cycling and community are put before the car?
The planners generally know what they're doing, but they've got significant problems getting their ideas past city councils. Especially when the population is so car-centric they think any change is a diabolical plot to take away their cars.
Very nicely done. I think a lot of people are inured to the ugly landscapes and inconvenience we have created with car dependency. I appreciate the questions you ask.
As a child, I was fascinated by the Cloverleaf design I saw featured in a Walt Disney Sunday Special. That is until I learned about the displacement & depreciating home/land values that these roads caused. Now, over 1/2 a century later, you're saying that we've only succeeded in exasperating the situation. We deserve what we built & create!!! D (New Subscriber)
If you ever saw the movie "Who Framed Rogers Rabbit" Cloverleaf was the company that was bought the streetcar so they could dismantle it to build a new freeway.. to force people into driving. The only problem is that they had to destroy Toontown to build it. it was indicative of US transport policy back then, instead of Cloverleaf, substitute General Motors, Standard Oil and Firestone
@@paulsherwood8364 And speaking of Dismantling, lets not forget GM"s first EV's (1996) that were repossessed and subsequently Crushed by 2000. Indicative of the Global Greed from Chevron, BP, Shell, ExxonMobile & ConocoPhillips.
I live in the Netherlands, where bikes are used a lot, I even use my bike to go to work. We have an infrastructure for bikes itself. That run along side the main roads. the city i live in has 150k inhabitants, and the widest road we have are the main road leading into the city, and are 2 lane. If you focus your city's infrastructure on bikes and pedestrians (city centre are cars not allowed) you also have healthier air within the city
The issue with american civil engineers is that they are not paid to solve traffic, they are paid to justify more spending on highway expansion projects.
5:48 This is what I hate about modern suburb design. Making just one thing that encourages driving in an area that was previously designed for walking makes more people want (or need) to drive, which makes more new areas designed with cars in mind, which makes less people want to walk, etc. It’s just a vicious cycle. And then people wonder how it got this way…
I was just in Dallas TX for the eclipse, from rural, western Canada, and I loved the way the highways/streets/sidewalks worked, for the limited areas I visited. They also have the DART (Dallas area rapid transit) for moving around from outside towns/cities to the core, which was walkable.
Remember, compulsive traffic engineers always quit 1 lane before successfully fixing traffic
If CS1 has taught me anything it's that more lanes fixes nothing
Induce demand exist
@@XGD5layer it was a joke
@@XGD5layer Exactly. More lanes actually make traffic worse and increase the odds of a collision.
It's not about the number of lanes, it's about how you use them. Better road design would not funnel so many sources of traffic through a single choke point, but would instead direct each of them outward toward different intersections.
As a European, I've never seen such an interchange in real life, really fascinating. I've built them in Cities Skylines 1&2, but there they seem more like a gameplay concept, because nobody would be so crazy to built a five lane per direction highway. The collector road next to my apartment has two lanes in total, and that's a major traffic hotspot in the area.
Interchanges on this side of the pond are scary
Even in normal parts of America (i.e. not Florida) our diverging diamonds don't have five lanes in each direction
We do have in Europe something that looks like it, but without the intersections. Instead we have "fly overs" these replaces intersections if clover leaf intersections haven't enough capacity;
the arterial road in my neighborhood is 4 lanes wide in total and the train line on it has a daily ridership near 1 million
@@buddy1155 I think I've seen that before. The interchange of I-405 and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles has those
Those bike lanes are perhaps the most ridiculous part of the whole interchange. Yeah, does anyone really want to ride in a painted bicycle gutter with 5 lanes of 45mph traffic whizzing past them?
Great video, I liked and subbed.
its insane the department of transportation doesnt get sued over those painted bike lanes. Literally telling people to put themselves in most dangerous situation
We have a relatively new diverging diamond intersection not too far from us. For pedestrians most of the crossing has a physical barrier protecting them from cars, but they literally painted a bike lane in the gutter. I didn't realize there even was a bike lane there until about a year and a half after it was completed. It's probably about two feet wide and some of the grates take up about three quarters of it at points. It's horrible and I'm convinced it's safer to take up a car lane instead. Thankfully it's legal here to bike on sidewalks so I just take the protected pedestrian pathway when crossing there by bike and it's not the worst experience crossing a freeway that way. Most crossings of that freeway in this area don't currently have any pedestrian or bicycle infrastructure so I'll take what I can get.
given how bad American drivers are i wouldn't cycle there even if the limit was 20
There is one more improvement that could be done to these diamonds during construction - in areas where water tables allow - put lit tunnels under the road for pedestrians, rather than crosswalks. We have one near where I live, which connects "downtown" to a big park, and it is rare not to cross paths with someone walking through that tunnel.
Bold of you to assume it's only 45...
We have a diverging diamond here in Denmark 🇩🇰 as well, near Odense. Here pedestrians are completely prohibited from going near it, all sidewalks are removed. The highway itself is sunken into the ground, and there are instead pedestrian and bicycle bridges at ground level nearby that you can use.
That makes much more sense!
I agree. Pedestrians and cyclists should be at least completely grade separated from the car traffic. Grade separate the transit while you're at it too!
had me in the first half not gonna lie
Consideration to pedestrians and cyclists is not an option in North America.🤦♂️
Same here in Alaska accept the pedestrians have tunnels that go beneath the interchange.
This was well explained. It didn't feel like it 'hated' cars, but it just showed what the environment looks like if its built around cars and then just kind of says, "Is this what you want?"
This is a good way to put it. I like not just bikes but he is a little overbearing sometimes lol
@@JackLeeTheFirst Absolutely agree, I stopped watching videos from not just bikes because of the terrible attitude of that guy. This video on the other hand is very well explained and nice to watch
Definitely why I like this video more. It acknowledges the usefulness of cars, HOW the situation happened, why etc without just saying "ban cars put rhe people in commie blocks and execute dissidents" like some of the channels are like lmao.
I don't hate cars, I have one. I hate needlessly big roads, and the thought process of "oh traffic is backed up? Well, clearly, we need to keep adding more roads instead of designing the intersection and surrounding area better!"
I'm also not a weak willed coward and can actually be outside in weather and not need to run to my car.
Agreed. I love NJB, and I know his approach is what made him become popular where more conventional (and very often boring) new urbanist channels failed, but now that he's more mainstream, I'm starting to find his angry outbursts jarring. Especially when they come out of nowhere in the middle of an otherwise calm episode. I think it's time he dialed it back a little.
@@dankmemes8619 "without just saying "ban cars put rhe people in commie blocks and execute dissidents" like some of the channels are like lmao."
I don't know if I've seen a single channel say that. I've seen it put forward as a strawman countless times, though.
26 lanes clearly isn’t enough. You need at least 53. Honestly why have anything other than lanes in the city. Make it all lanes. Then traffic shall finally be solved!
More lanes = more cars
More cars = more traffic
Less lanes = less cars
Less cars = less traffic
I think it needs just one more lane
just pave the planet already and be done with it
It's simple really. Evolve into cars
@@marwanfakhradin2543 In Paris they created long time ago à périphérique of 9 lines to unclog the iner city trafic. And what happend the first day of oppening? Surprise Trafic jam. And today, in Paris they are puting à lot of bike lanes evry where. So automobilist are force to take the bike. other wise there are stuck in there cars.
This will never fix traffic because the only solution to traffic is mass transit.
And walkability
Mass transit doesn't fix traffic either. Look a london and nyc. But it gives everyone options and that is most important
@@john-ic9vj London and NYC are bad examples because cars are still a dominant force in both cities. Mass transit is undoubtedly the solution, and is not to blame for poor development choices that the aforementioned cities, among others, have made.
London and NYC just need more transit! Look the lack of congestion in Tokyo
GO MASS TRANSIT!
Keep it up, fact that I didn't realize you were new means you will continue succeeding in keeping people entertained on this platform.
omfg i just realised through this comment that this isnt an "established" content creator.
Same! The vibe is as if I had been watching this channel for years. Great start, best of luck
oh yes! very well and professionally made! Thought I was watching an episode of practical engineering until I saw a face I've never seen before :D
Yeah, the production quality, animations, and clarity of explanations are top notch for having
I swear this guy sounds exactly like william osman
There's a book called "The Bottleneck Rules" which talks about how the only place you can improve the throughput of a system is at the bottleneck, but if you do that, the bottleneck just moves somewhere else. This applies to all kinds of processes (it came from the manufacturing field).
Very true, the city should of planned everything at once and did the DDI plus upgrade the adjacent intersections to keep traffic flowing.
I play city skylines and I’ve noticed that adding one lane doesn’t fix traffic, eventually everyone on that specific road needs to make turns.
Most drivers drive in the lane they’re planning to turn in. Public transport and making areas walkable is the only solution to traffic.
Cityskylines is crappy depsite being made in Finland :/
@@Flint-g4hI cry for Finland :(
@@Flint-g4h mods can make it work better and as expected
@@Nova32x
I want the thing by default
@@Flint-g4hcity skylines traffic ai Is also insanely stupid. No matter how much lanes you add for example 3 lane right turn they will always use one lane to turn right.
If they have to turn left after they can use any lane and switchable after the turn but they don’t
I drive a bus that goes to a mall and one day, I timed how long it takes to get from the entrance to the bus stop. It took 5 minutes. And another 5 minutes to exit.
During the Christmas season, it takes 3 times as long. The parking lot is several times larger than the mall itself.
Personally, I think a better idea would be to place the main entrance to the mall on the sidewalk and place the bus stop there. Make the car drivers go all the way around back to enter the parking lot. It would save a lot of time.
That's how it's done where I'm from. The buses/jeeps get their own bay to load/unload passengers at the entrance of the mall (which is beside the road).
@@masterezekie1613It's the same in my country. Full culture.
@@masterezekie1613in my country too, I’ve never seen such huge parking lots in my life as in the us
The back parking lots for UTC mall ACTUALLY EXIST ALREADY and they work really well compared to the front side. It's too bad they didn't just build more of those where the mall is, build the little commercial strip with the book shop and bento-box place further south where the new aquarium is currently going, and put the mall up against Cattlemen proper.
This seems like one of many simple steps that just need to happen.
Its hard to suddenly flip car-centric system to a pedestrian in one go, but small things like this are certainly possible to implement straightaway.
We need people to keep realizing that car-dominated infrastructure is *also bad* for people in cars, as mentioned in this video. It's insane that we keep building like this! It doesn't work for anyone!
Not true. It works for industry. It works VERY WELL for the extraction industry. For them, your concern is an irrelevant externality.
The problem here is not engineering, but control of resources and the system by which those resources are distributed.
If it didn't work for anyone they wouldn't spend tens if thousands of dollars for cars every few years and thousands of dollars annually on operating costs.
People are willing to pay large sums of money to be able to go anywhere they want and transport goods on their own schedule without having to be dependent on anyone else.
As the video pointed out, you'd have to turn the city infrastructure back into the medieval village format for walkable 15 minutes cities or NOME like megacities.
Not everyone wants to live that way.
@@umaikakudo
"these people with no alternative keep choosing the one choice they have. they must love it!"
"they're not dependent on anyone as long as the government keeps spending billions on roads and mandating free parking!"
Maybe people genuinely don't want the urban planners' vision of utopia from a hundred years ago. Work is shifting from labor to information, where physical presence is less relevant. Shopping is moving online with delivery, instead of in person. Entertainment and social interaction are less centralized than ever. The more we connect electronically, the less we need to connect geographically. Urban planners are as biased about how people should live as car and oil companies.
So you think everyone should just stay at home and never go to the shops to buy anything because you can get it delivered...
Sounds like a boring and stupid lifestyle to me@@timewave02012
This interchange is literal hell on earth for cyclists and pedestrians. Just look at the crazy zig-zag for pedestrians, when they want to cross that thing. I-n-s-a-n-e!
It's actually pretty good, Road Guy Rob did a video on pedestrian crossing for DDIs and the sidewalk in the middle worked the best because you only had to cross two ramps without a signal instead of four when the side walk is on the outside
still very long ways to walk across, far from a straight line @@AdamSmith-gs2dv
At least you only have to consider threats from one direction at a time unless somebody thinks they can back up. Beats looking at stopped traffic from one side and glancing to the other side to be sure they're not moving right before you get there!
Bold of you to assume they give one shred of care for pedestrians and bikers!
And if you want to get to frontage roads or streets near the DDI, you can't. See University Blvd over I-35 in Round Rock, TX.
I have 2 degrees in transportation. One in planning, the other in engineering. Your videos successfully explain how these fields intersect. Great job
Thank you!
I agree with you Streetcraft. I live in a Europe (Poland) and we don't need so many roads. We usually have shops, coffee places, bakeries, cloths shops like in 1-mile range max (usually 1 minute by foot in real examples). And it's not a BIG city thing - it's like that almost everywhere. Thanks to you and your videos I see the importance of people-designed city. Awesome!
It is pretty much how Road Guy Rob explains. The interchange is so efficient that the downstream facilities cannot handle it. The backups are because of the other intersections that cannot handle the ability for the interchange to move so much volume.
Exactly. If you look carefully at the video you can see the problem light: a 4 phase signal for a shopping center
@@AdamSmith-gs2dv 6, 7, or 8 phase, dependent on the left-turn phasing sequence.
The perception in America is that you don’t want to walk because you run into crazy street people. That’s true, because they’ve created a system where anyone who’s not crazy can afford to drive, so the streets are ONLY full of crazy street people. As a European visiting the US, I arrived with the idea of walking everywhere. After the first harrowing evening being harassed on the street or people yelling shit, I took cabs everywhere.
Interesting. In which cities did that happen to you?
On thing to keep in mind is that the transportation industry evolved in America the way it did in large part do to the size of America as a whole just the us alone is about the same size as all of Europe and has half as many people leaving lots of empty space between people and place to start with
Have you never seen south east asia?
not only that, giant cities create large uncontrolled areas causing more "crazy people" to roam free without fear of punishment or judgement
@@baconbliss4796 America is the same size & population as Europe, but Europe doesn't have any of the traffic, transit or dead city centers that the US has. There was nothing mandatory about how America designed their cities / development, it was a CHOICE. America could have protected her valuable farmland and required cities to densify rather than sprawl. She could have required every new suburban development be designed around a bus line or a regional rail station, but she didn't. She could have made surface parking illegal in her downtown cores and protected that area for commerce, recreation, and entertainment but she didn't - in fact she did the opposite she FORCED businesses to demolish productive commercial/residential buildings and replace them with the dead space of parking lots.
I have loved seeing new channels such as this one pop up in the urbanism space recently. I really hope that positive change is on the horizon!
what positive change? like destroying 2 car lines in a major chokepoint on a highway just to give it for a bike line that will be used by like 100 people per day instead of tens of thousands of cars?
11:00
"smort" "urbanism" like this is a major cause of traffic in all the eu cities that went with the "smort" urbanism changes....
@@faustinpippin9208 You're criticizing poorly implemented urban design, which I agree is a problem. It would be like me saying "Look how useless roads are! They built that road the other day that leads nowhere and no one uses it. Why do people keep building roads if they wont be used?" Was that road poorly designed? Yes. Does that mean roads as a whole are garbage? No.
@@odachikun lol
the big difference here that road are build first abowe anything else because a road for a car is the foundation of your current civilization
nothing nowadays gets build without a road so your example is pretty weird
meanwhile something like bike lines are typically useless because you can just get a e-bike and drive with car traffic
i drive a e-bike in car traffic all the time without any problems and i actually hate bike lines because they force me to drive slow (like 30km/h) meanwhile in the car traffic i can go even 90km/h
In the 4 years I went to New College in Sarasota ('16-'20), I saw traffic get much much worse, even after the diamond was built. Good to see some coverage of this in my feed!
It's just confusing af. They're starting to build a couple of these here in Vegas and the slowing vehicles that are puzzled by this system creates more chaos. Nothing wrong with the SPUI in my opinion. I would rather wait on a full stop and green arrow than to deal with yield arrow or yellow blinking lights. That's one reason why NV is always in the top 5 most expensive car insurance in the nation.🙄
hey my dad worked at new college as a professor at that time!
i was in math and cs - maybe I took some classes with him!
@@jakemaranzatto6514 if you did more of the math stuff you probably didn’t lolll. he taught classes on religious studies and stuff of that type. still cool that you could’ve crossed paths!
7:10 OMFG!?! They put a bike lane deathtrap in there as well?
Gotta check the "bike friendly" checkbox 😁
"See? It is definitely unsafe to bike in America! Buy a car, a big car, and make the entire planet pay for it!" - local politician bought out by big car
But it’s literally one of the safest intersections out there
i don’t believe many ppl bike on it anyway 💀 at least i never see rhat
Very interesting video! Surprisingly high quality compared to the sub count, the editing is superb, keep up the great work!
If you bash cars the cult will watch. A hack like Not Just Bikes read the Induced Demand report wrong and everyone believed him. From his basement.
This is such an awesome video for someone with less than 200 subscribers - Well done!
Congrats on not dying crossing that monstrosity as well. 🙏
Wow my most memorable Halo 3 era montage uploader leaving positive feedback on urban planning style videos like 13 years later?! Makes me happy to see!
Over 600 now, that was fast :)
And now 800 :)
And now 2.7k :)
I did not expect to see Walshy on the urbanism side of YT haha
The production values on this are jaw-dropping. I can't imagine how much time it took to plan and execute all these aerial shots, then layer all the animated graphics on top, plus all the other things. Really appreciate the work you do.
Great video! Sarasota is a really unique platform to study traffic. It's heavy dependence on one freeway (75), massive sprawl, and the endless lights and widening of lanes. Zero density and zero public transport. I visit family there often and no words describe how frustrating driving is there. I hope vids like this influence our cities for the better in the future.
Go with mass transit for the next hurricane evacuation. Ask New Orleans how that worked out.
driving in sarasota is MISERABLE. when all the snowbirds come down, it take 45 min to get home from work, even though it normally takes 20. sarasota’s traffic is no joke.
Dante would be proud of that shopping centre. The 10th circle of Hell.
Something that a lot of car brained people don't seem to understand is that reducing the number of people that HAVE to drive will significantly improve the efficiency for those that still need to. Less cars on the road = more space for your car.
typical misconception
you really think that removing roads and lines for cars is better for cars?
or you think that someone will start biking 15km to their work because there is a new bike line that removed a car line?
there is less cars on the road only when the gov makes driving artificially more expensive then the other options
look at all the countries with very little cars on the road and check the cost of driving there compared to their salaries and then do it for the US...
@@faustinpippin9208 My ~1 million European city doesn't even have 15km worth of commute... 15km from any point to another would end up just in fields. And you think everyone driving a car within that 15km radius circle is good for traffic? All 706 km^2 needs to drive because the dude at 15km radius would have a bike commute too long? Wanna walk somewhere 500m away? Wanna bike somewhere that's 10 minutes away? Tough luck, a dude 15 km away wouldn't drive his bike here so there's so sidewalk/bike path. Like, what?
Typical misconception that the very particular layout of current American cities is all there is in the whole universe.
Y'all sound like "people would weight less than 200 lbs. only if you artificially make eating more expensive".
or
"do you know that someone would need to bike 15 km in order to burn off that cheeseburger?"
Just like... don't eat that cheeseburger in the first place...
It is most likely true that the US government subsidizes driving FAR more than the Polish government does. So indeed we're not artificially making car travel cheaper to such an extend as the US does it. Not even counting the crazy expensive road infrastructure. And that's besides the point that in order to physically fit that many more cars into Kraków, as an average US city, we would probably need to bulldoze like a quarter of our city. Like the US did in the 20th century.
Indianapolis seems to have the same pop as Kraków. Yet its area is 3x larger. Seriously.
I don't know how to describe it. Like, so much of an American city looks like that area next to a shopping center. Just with the parking lot that's 4x as large.
www.google.pl/maps/@50.0667307,19.9268326,15827m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
www.google.pl/maps/@39.7722751,-86.1701537,15922m/data=!3m1!1e3?hl=en
Just as an afterthought because I can't. "there is less cars on the road only when the gov makes driving artificially more expensive then the other options". Who do you think builds and maintains the road infrastructure?
Trump?
Jesus?
Mother nature?
Manifest destiny was about going west and putting road signs on roads where no one has ever painted a lane before?
watched both of your videos and im blown away by how enjoyable and reasonable they are, have shared with friends i hope this channel grows this is refreshing content
This is the best video I’ve seen in a long while.
I study infrastructure and mobility in the Netherlands and this is definitely something I’ll be sharing with others.
Keep up the good work. 💪
Thank you!
I hope you do not share this as a good idea.
for large intersections fly overs are way better, no conflicts.. just very expensive.
for medium intersections are clover leaf are better.
for small intersections two roundabouts on each side are better (what Germans do at off and onramps, and the Dutch sometimes as well)
Signalised crossings are slow, dangerous and stupid and are always the poor choice.
I've driven over the temporary DDI in Leusden (A44 /Rijnlandroute) and was impressed with the efficiency and feel of it. My past addiction to building them in Cities Skylines might have helped me understanding what I was doing when I first drove on to it. I think fly overs are better if you have the space, but this one seemed to work very well when I used it.
I think the nearest DDI is now in Belgium (Waregem).
@@buddy1155 it’s not meant as in to share this intersection type.
It’s about sharing the idea of “when will it ever be enough”.
You see this interaction and it’s massive, a insane amount of lanes.
What I find good about this video is that he shows that it’s overkill. And he shows that the urban planning is the result of all this.
He brings a solution to the problem, and that’s to fix the broken urban planning practices happening over there.
@@DobberD Ah okay, I see the real value in this video for a Dutch audience that it makes you realise how good our infrastructure is.
We don't have to fix major issues, in the Netherlands it is more a matter of fine tuning an already good infrastructure.
When I visited the USA, it seemed to me as if everything there was set up just for cars. highways with 7 lanes each way, huge intersections and so on.
in the EU most of the highways are 2-4 lanes in each way. it was so fascinating to see that in the USA.
It doesn't seem that way, it IS that way.
There are videos of cops stopping pedestrians because it's suspicious behavior to walk in the US and not drive.
Nice vid!
The best antidote for a diverging diamond is to make the intersection at each end an 'over-and-under' bridge/tunnel instead of an at-grade crossing. This would eliminate both issues of blocking lanes with stopped traffic as well as the two added traffic lights that manage those crossings.
Very well done. I drive through this interchange fairly often and said “why am I crossing to the wrong side of the road?” You explained it so well. I’ve never had problems there, but the crossing you mentioned that is way too close to the highway interchange. And don’t get me started on the UTC mall area. That could be its own video. Thanks for this it’s very well done. There’s a lot of civil engineering urban planning stuff on yt that hit the same notes about decentralization and “stroads”
Wowowow this is honestly an A+ tier explainer. Got an instant sub from me!
My only nitpick is that I wish you had not added music over the part where you walked across the intersection. The music takes away from just how loud and unpleasant it feels to be there outside of a car.
Well, at least CS2 traffic AI makes sense now. They based it on Floridian drivers.
😂
😂 Exactly! 💯👍👍
Glad to see that more and more attention is being paid to the issue of car dependency and how platforms like TH-cam are helping to spread the message. "Less lanes, more trains." That's my new mantra.
you can just reword that to say "less lanes, more taxes".
I was born and raised in a car-centric environment, a town dominated by General Motors. Cars were more than just transportation; they were "bling," they were totems.
I'm older now. I moved from that city decades ago. The community that's now my home is still focused on cars, but we also have a dynamic bus system and plans for light rail. The city is adding traffic circles where practical and we have two inverted diamond interchanges like the one featured in this presentation.
I hope the nation can slowly divest itself from its total reluctance on cars, especially in city centers, and I hope we can move far, far away from our dependence on fossil fuels.
You probably meant "reliance," but your point is well taken.
Extremely well presented. I love seeing the modern urbanism movement grow.
You've earned yourself a subscriber. Keep it up!
Damm this might be the best edited video of it's genre, looking forward to what your channel will be able to do
That's a fantastic overview of diverging diamonds! Thank you for putting together such a well produced and concise video. My wife and I have ridden the University diverging diamond on our tandem bicycle to get from Sarasota to Lakewood Ranch and found as you pointed out, that the diamond itself is pretty simple and straightforward. Like when you were walking, we found the roadway to be not pleasant, but not threatening either. That was not the case at the huge intersections on either side of the diamond. But good news! We have 2 more diverging diamonds coming to that stretch of I-75: Clark Road is being constructed now and should be done about the time Fruitville will gets started in mid 2024. Keep up the good work, looking forward to your future efforts!
As a non American the wide shot at 3:04 looks something out of a dystopian nightmare
Wow, that shopping center at 11:21 is just obscene. It seems the sun-belt cities (Florida, Texas, Arizona and Vegas) are all doubling down on car-dependent infrastructure with stroads and parking lots for days. It really is sad because this is the part of the country where walking and biking is pleasant most of the year. I'd assume the lack of walkable and bikeable areas contribute to the high obesity levels in these states. I also don't see politicians here advocating for light rail or car alternatives, as that would seem to be too "un-American" to acknowledge that our freedom-mobiles are causing massive problems and that induced demand is an unsustainable cycle of wasted tax revenue and traffic misery.
yep that’s UTC. the biggest mall in the city, and EVERYONE goes there. the traffic is absolutely insane and during the holidays it’s wayyyy worse. i honestly avoid going there due to the fact the traffic is so bad and it’s impossible to find a parking spot.
When presented in this way, you realize just how extreme the USA has become in its dystopian-level devotion to the automobile. It really, really defies logic.
When reading comments like yours, you realize why voting should be IQ restricted. Having the most convenient, most comfortable form of travel, which is your private car that you can drive anywhere, anytime, in your own speed, on your own schedule, in your own private space - is dystopian, says the leftoid drone.
@@DesertStateInEU Ah yes being stuck in traffic is really comfortable
@@maas1208 Ah yes the 1% of driving a car vs the 99% of the time when I'm not stuck in traffic and instead getting exactly where I wanna go, in my own private space, in my own speed, on my own schedule, without having to sit next to psychotic anti-social weird people that are so deprived of human interaction due to their own mental illness that the only way they can feel any interaction at all is by bumping into other strangers on mass transit.
yooo just 25 subscribers and another amazing introductory video to urbanism!
Keep it up, this is really inspiring!
thanks!!
Keep it up man, you’re doing a great job. Went to your channel and was amazed to see you’ve only made two videos. Your content quality is great!
Brit here. I used to often go to the USA and in particular the outer Chicago suburb (I know you call them all their own city) of Downers Grove. I stayed in a hotel across the street from the Yorktown centre.
Now there was a light controlled crosswalk across Butterfield at this point but their was no path on the northern side to the Yorktown mall or the other way to the restaurants.
We Brits just crossed and then walked/hopped over barriers etc to get to where we wanted to be. The hotel was horrified and offered to take us in their shuttle bus. Drivers used to honk their horns at us thing we must be mad. But to us it was crazy that there were not ways to walk. It wasn't far at all. Just completely mad urban planning!
Beyond the traffic issue of “just get in a car and drive”, what do you say to those who can’t drive, like my mom? She has epilepsy and has been forced for 20 years to depend on my dad for transportation, and although he retired recently, for most of that 20 years, there was no ability for her to go anywhere outside our small increasingly suburban town aside from the evenings. And our town doesn’t even have sidewalks for 90% of the roads.
In my state of New York they have local short buses for the elderly, handicapped, and other groups of people. It’s insanely cheap and they’ll drive you almost anywhere. My grandma takes it with her friends to see broadway plays, just have operate on their schedule.
This video is so well made. Cannot believe you are new. The editing, writing, and shots are superb
As a European (well, a Brit) the diverging diamond hurts my brain, since I know that roundabouts exist.
We also only have very few junctions that connect to the "fast lane" of a highway and we are removing them.
Roundabouts lose efficiency at 25000 vehicles per day per lane. That is why America DOTs are very specific where they can be installed. The traffic here is much greater than that, so a roundabout would fail. Roundabout interchanges are reserved for light suburban and rural settings.
@@traffic.engineer we tend to prioritize accident safety over efficiency
@@stevecarter8810 The queuing of the roundabout would spillback into the freeway, increasing crash risk. Hence, roundabout would not be safer in this case either.
You're not European. Have some pride for what your country once was.
What type of behemoth roundabout are you planning on building for such enormous traffic flows?
@@traffic.engineer does happen here in Britain, not gonna lie
Awesome video and the quality of production here is incredible for a channel of this size!! Amazing work, will stick around!!
A pedestrian bridge to the median on both sides would be an amazing addition for pedestrians
As a Floridian I must say Sarasota is not alone in this, everywhere in Florida is built with car dependent infrastructure in mind. It is insane, it is costly, and it degrades our natural and human environments. As a kid I found it hard to go outside because there was almost no thought put into how pedestrians or cyclists would get around.
I'm a Floridian and grew up down here. I biked everywhere in Cape Coral. It wasn't hard to go outside, you're just weak.
@@MrSGL21 maybe don't make a system where only the "strong" (cough cough) can have the confidence to walk or bike outside without the fear of getting hit by your uncle's Ford F-350?
I'm from NYC living in Florida and I love how much easier it is for me to get around in my car down here...
Until I started going back to school and realized my only option was to drive at rush hour daily. I took being able to study on my train or express bus commute in NYC for granted. I still love it here though and am happy to see projects like Brightline coming together.
don't drive at rush hour. thats what i do. today I work 3:15 to 8:45 so i'll miss all the rush hour traffic. tomorrow its 10-4. 4 pm puts me into rush hour traffic. i simply go do errands in the area i work. go do my banking, some shopping, i have a couple of returns to do, etc. by the time i finish those errands it will be after 6 and i won't sit in traffic and yet i won't be wasting my time and not making special trips with my car. too many people simply DON'T think.
Used to live in Sarasota, didn't travel around too much bc of this car centric design, pretty much stayed in the core downtown area where I lived, which was honestly pretty nice comparatively.
What a well-produced and informed video. I love road design and I learned a lot from this. I am now subscribed and I wish you the best on your new channel.
This channel is incredible! So glad you got recommended to me as I love learning about how we can build better cities
I Live Here! In their attempt to FIX the situation , they have created a absolute Monster!!
*Why didn't they just build 28 lanes? Why?!?!?!*
I think that would have fixed it! 😆
I am really surprised you don't have more subs yet. Great urbanist content!
The first mistake was thinking that Floridians would be smart enough to figure out this intersection.
1 word: overpass viaduct.
@paulofelipebbraga9634 actually that's two words 🤓🤓🤓
The people I know retiring to Florida are the exact kind of ignoramuses that don't want to learn anything other than what they think they want
They want to drive their giant pickup trucks everywhere, hate traffic, want designers to build more and bigger parking spots, yet make all traffic flow cleanly
Thanks! The area in the center of the Divergent diamond is so Stark that if they even used some paint and lined out pedestrian paths and bike pads, put a few benches and maybe even a few planters out there. Just to break up the sight lines and make it less apocalyptic, it might be. A bit less intimidating than standing out. Like you're in the middle of a battle zone.
Akin to akin to no man's land during world war one
Dude you might be my favorite urban platform. You're very critical and realistic while also being very optimismic! Awesome video ❤
4:25 in many countries, including Australia, this is not a problem as you always have traffic signals on the departure side. These are known as secondary and tertiary signals which are in addition to those near the stop line called primary signals. Not only does it avoid the problem of not knowing the colour of the signals but you can also determine the end of the intersection and therefore if you should proceed or not.
Almost all the signals in the US are on the departure side as well. I'm not sure why they didn't do that for this interchange - perhaps since the departure side is so far away from the stop line. They could have included both though and I think that could have helped.
that place is a crime against humanity. And there is a really good way to have people cross an interchange. And that is to not have them cross it. There should be a completely different path crossing the highway that fits well in a larger network of cyclingroutes away for cars. A couple good examples from my country of this are: Jan Linzelviaduct in The Hague, Tegenbosch Bridge in Eindhoven, Ekkersrijt Tunnel in Eindhoven and the Ouverturepad in Harderwijk which runs parralel to a buslane.
Also really enjoyed the video👍
Yes exactly! Pedestrian space should be isolated from vehicle infrastructure, not directly interacting with it.
There is a separate bridge across the Interstate going in just south of that diverging diamond at Benderson Park. It's promoted as an extension of our local rail-trail to get to a big housing/shopping development on the other side, but well into the process we found out it will have 4 lanes of cars going over it also. At least there will be protected bike lanes and no ramps to the Interstate, but cyclists and pedestrians will still have to deal with car intersections on either side.
This was a very interesting video to watch, good job!
I’ve never seen so many parking lots so full before. That’s crazy
I live in FL and have driven on this road several times. The layout is great. The biggest problem is that when traffic backs up, people try to "beat the light" and enter the intersection on yellow. Then when the oncoming traffic needs to go, multiple lanes are blocked. The video had some great aerial shots of this problem.
Why not have a pack of motorcycle cops patrol there for a month. I bet you it will get better when that happens
good job, interesting and high quality quite uncommon in small channels
Great video and great editing, I was wondering how you got your ariel footage for the intersection?
Amazing production quality. I'm excited to watch your channel lift off
the fact that I live here and didn't realize how complex it is shows how easy it is to understand. It's actually very efficient in my experience.
4:00 In the UK, we have a solution to this. If the road is painted with a yellow box (with hatching markings), you aren't allowed to proceed unless the exit to the box is clear.
America uses white boxes. But this would also be counterproductive here as it would mask the lane lines within the intersection.
Nice video! Production quality is really good, especially for the channel size. One small criticism I have is that the video felt slightly unfocused
There is another perhaps better option, than just bike lanes. While it is great when many people use bikes, it is not ideal for everyone or in any weather. But transit basically is - it is almost for everyone and when a few cars are still there (vans and people really carrying something) it is fine. And for a cost of just a single interchange you can build few miles of light rail.
Bike infrastucture is cheap and effective. There is absolutely no issue in diverting a tiny amount of road construction and maintenance budget for it while also taking a much larger cut to fund great public transit.
I am hopeful that urbanism will get better in America. One problem that I see isn't money or demand, it's culture.
Core issue is zoning regulations placing residential and commercial zones so far apart you basically NEED a vehicle to get from one to the other. Tokyo is a city that fixed this, they got rid of zoning entirely. As a result, Tokyo is totally walkable, anything you need is in walking distance and housing is affordable. Politicians in the West know revoking zoning would solve these problems, but there's too much lobbyist money involved for them to actually do it.
4:02 I do not agree that its the drivers fault here. On small intersections, yes, blocking it would be probably your fault. But here you'd either have to have a gap in the size of the whole intersection area to the car in front of you (which means a LOT fewer cars are going through), or judge a lot of traffic that you simply cannot see from your car. This is an issue with the design.
1:45 Didn’t expect you to use my local Diverging Diamond, the Grand Prairie one in this video! lol
Great message. I will add if the area can’t be made people friendly, at least pedestrians and bicyclists should be grade separated from the traffic.
At this point, just put in a cloverleaf or full highway interchange with flyovers.
I was thinking the same, but it also seems to be a matter of space around this intersection. Look at the upper left corner. You need a sufficiently long stretched section for switching lanes to both sides.
@@frankyboy1131 That's true. Looking at how close the mall is to I-75, a better option might have been dedicated exit ramps from both NB and SB 75 that dumped traffic right into the mega-mall's parking lot, avoiding surface streets altogether. And a dedicated SB 75 entrance ramp from the mall parking lot would have been fairly simple to build as well. That would keep a huge amount of traffic off the surface streets entirely.
4:25 Near-side traffic signals aren't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think they're better since they stop cars from stopping in the crosswalk to wait for red lights. But they are a downside when crazy stuff like this happens
That can be fixed with a "do not block the box" sign. Anyone in the box after the signal is red gets a ticket
Honestly, the near-side signals in Florida drive me absolutely bonkers. They are hard to see sitting in the drivers seat when you’re at the front of the line. At some intersections, it’s easier to look through the sunroof. Either add lower side signals or put them on the far side (or both, even) and you’d have a lot more visibility.
@@triphius I think eye level signals on either side of a nearside signal set up are a good solution
@@frafraplanner9277 I totally agree. It’s not that the signals are on the near-side, it’s that you’ve gotta hunch over and look up to see them when you’re at the line. Eye-level signals would fix this phenomenon.
Awesome video man. Keep up the quality work
Pedestrians & Cyclists are pretty much becoming a real life version of the frog in the Frogger arcade game... Trying to cross these multi-lane highways without getting squashed.
The interchange in itself takes an insane amount of space. Enough space to house at least hundreds of people in apartments
Great Video! In germany we learn in driving school to never drive on a congested intersection, so you don’t block the road for other directions if your light turns red. Maybe such a sign would be beneficial there
In America, about 10% drive without a license, and 33% without insurance. Also, you can pass your license exam without taking any classes in most states, just by learning from your parents or friends.
North-Americans learn to drive from there parents mostly, or other acquaintances. Almost no one drives properly.
Nevertheless it happens in Germany regularly.
It's almost unavoidable on a large intersection like this one, where you can't oversee whats happening between the two traffic lights.
Here in Tennessee you don't even need to parallel park or do a three point turn to pass the driving test. You literally just drive around the block and thats it lol
@@AdamSmith-gs2dvMy God, and you’re not surprised by the enormous amount of traffic death in the US compared to other western countries? And no one has the logical idea to change this handout driver’s license in America to a driver’s course of several weeks ending in a thorough driver’s exam? Traffic deaths will plummet almost immediately with skilled drivers. America amazes me by their stupidity sometimes.
8:17 The best way across most highways as a pedestrian/bike is across a separate bridge.
You want to avoid bridges for pedestrians/bikes. Let cars go up/down or down/up. Keep pedestrians on their current level.
@@buddy1155 You'll waste an awful lot of fuel in the long run making tons of vehicles go up and down just so bikes and pedestrians don't have to. Also compare the strength required for a bridge that carries vehicles, versus the strength required to carry a few people.
@@takatamiyagawa5688both solutions are awful
I've driven and walked around that area many times since I worked in restaurant near the mall next to the interchange. The traffic there after about 7-8 am gets insane, especially if you need to go into the busier part of the mall lol. I didn't even drive anywhere when I was on a break, just walked because it was actually faster and less frustrating than driving
The sheer size of this thing is truly mind blowing, it’s hard to think of these as real things since I usually only see them in Cities; Skylines. It’s honestly just ridiculous to think that so kind space is dedicated to a single junction.
I live on that road (only 10 min from that interchange) and it only really backs up around Christmas time when people are shopping at the UTC Mall shown in the video. Otherwise it is very efficient.
I figured by the video date she shot this in Dec or Janurary.
3:03 Holy Jesus, im pretty sure that where i end up when i go to hell i am not kidding
American city planning has always seemed insane to me as a European. I would NEVER want to live somewhere where I couldn't walk to the shops.
Being someone that lives in Spain just seeing so many cars made me nervous. 😂
As someone who is British, watching this gives me nightmares. How on earth have architects and traffic engineers been allowed to create this monstrosity? You guys are crazy. Do your planners not have 30-50 year plans? Do you not have plans that put the people first so it creates a place where people, walking, cycling and community are put before the car?
The planners generally know what they're doing, but they've got significant problems getting their ideas past city councils. Especially when the population is so car-centric they think any change is a diabolical plot to take away their cars.
Very nicely done. I think a lot of people are inured to the ugly landscapes and inconvenience we have created with car dependency. I appreciate the questions you ask.
Just one more lane bro
I think the brief clip at 0:13 is from Europe.
As a child, I was fascinated by the Cloverleaf design I saw featured in a Walt Disney Sunday Special. That is until I learned about the displacement & depreciating home/land values that these roads caused. Now, over 1/2 a century later, you're saying that we've only succeeded in exasperating the situation. We deserve what we built & create!!! D (New Subscriber)
If you ever saw the movie "Who Framed Rogers Rabbit" Cloverleaf was the company that was bought the streetcar so they could dismantle it to build a new freeway.. to force people into driving. The only problem is that they had to destroy Toontown to build it. it was indicative of US transport policy back then, instead of Cloverleaf, substitute General Motors, Standard Oil and Firestone
@@paulsherwood8364 And speaking of Dismantling, lets not forget GM"s first EV's (1996) that were repossessed and subsequently Crushed by 2000. Indicative of the Global Greed from Chevron, BP, Shell, ExxonMobile & ConocoPhillips.
I live in the Netherlands, where bikes are used a lot, I even use my bike to go to work. We have an infrastructure for bikes itself. That run along side the main roads.
the city i live in has 150k inhabitants, and the widest road we have are the main road leading into the city, and are 2 lane.
If you focus your city's infrastructure on bikes and pedestrians (city centre are cars not allowed) you also have healthier air within the city
The issue with american civil engineers is that they are not paid to solve traffic, they are paid to justify more spending on highway expansion projects.
Americans solving traffic: build more roads to make room for even more traffic
I gota admit your content is impressive, specially considering how new of a channel it is. I’ll looking forward to watch your upcoming videos!
5:48 This is what I hate about modern suburb design. Making just one thing that encourages driving in an area that was previously designed for walking makes more people want (or need) to drive, which makes more new areas designed with cars in mind, which makes less people want to walk, etc. It’s just a vicious cycle. And then people wonder how it got this way…
I was just in Dallas TX for the eclipse, from rural, western Canada, and I loved the way the highways/streets/sidewalks worked, for the limited areas I visited. They also have the DART (Dallas area rapid transit) for moving around from outside towns/cities to the core, which was walkable.