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BigBrunyon
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PostTue Feb 26, 2019 10:10 pm 
Round'bouts are unamerican!

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Vertec
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PostTue Feb 26, 2019 11:39 pm 
skiorkayak wrote:
He's not saying they are 4 way stops, he is saying they are treated like 4 way stops. He is absolutely correct, I see it almost every time I approach a round a bout.
Thanks, that's exactly what I was trying to convey. Except technically it's four two-way stops because each feeder lane only intersects with a single lane within the roundabout... see below... The other frustrating thing I see is when the person ahead of me refuses to enter the roundabout if they observe ANY car within the roundabout AND any car about to enter the roundabout - even cars that do not require yielding of right of way... So in Washington, a 4 way stop intersection replaced by a roundabout becomes an eight-way stop intersection. Now we all get to play "no, you go" with eight players! mad.gif

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joker
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 12:49 am 
People have mostly learned how to use the roundabouts near where I live, down in the "Hollywood" section of Woodinville. Except for Friday and Saturday evenings/nights when the wine tasters are feeling especially frisky - then pretty much anything seems to go. But on net they are WAY WAY better than the light that was at the Redmond-Woodinville Rd and 145th intersection before the roundabouts were built. I get through there SO much quicker at rush hour now even though traffic volume has increased a fair bit since the roundabouts were built. Despite my usual disdain for native WA drivers I think most of them can actually at least sort of learn how to use a roundabout (albeit with somewhat delayed reaction times wink.gif ). I haven't seen a traffic analysis so I can't say for sure but my strong sense is that the really problematic intersection is the light just west of the bridge over the river in Sultan, by the gas station. That seems to really badly back up westbound traffic - once past there it's usually a quick ride to Monroe even when traffic is backed up all the way past Index. That seems like a prime candidate for a roundabout but I imagine it would be expensive to move or close the gas station, including dealing with the gas tanks which I think would be in the way of construction of a roundabout.

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Sky Hiker
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 4:50 am 
Yes the last east light and to some degree the other light in sultan are the issue. They have even experimented with making the arterials wait longer.

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Randito
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 8:31 am 
BigBrunyon wrote:
Round'bouts are unamerican!
Drivers in New York and other east coast states seem to have them figured out. But drivers there know how to "zipper merge" already. Perhaps Washingtonians really are committed to provincialism. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/31/automobiles/wheels/as-americans-figure-out-the-roundabout-it-spreads-across-the-us.html

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treeswarper
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 8:58 am 
New York isn't in America. It is its own world. There is a good place for a roundabout in my neighborhood, but that won't happen. I think the seasonal double trailer semis that haul apples might not be happy. The snowplowers might not like it either. A roundabout would make it a safer intersection. Whilst stuck at one of the four traffic lights yesterday, I wondered if a roundabout might work better. Just for a bit.

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neek
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 9:08 am 
Drivers should be trained to think of themselves as components of a larger system, where the shared goal is to maximize flow. Following too closely is among the primary impediments to traffic flow (and, I'd wager, cause of accidents). Won't matter in a few years when a sufficient number of cars implement automatic bilateral control, but for now it'd be nice if more drivers would follow the no-tailgating rule of thumb (which is actually a law in many places). Roundabouts are nice and people will learn how to navigate them over time, although it's too bad they take up so much space.

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joker
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 10:57 am 
RandyHiker wrote:
But drivers there know how to "zipper merge" already.
Do you bring this up because you think that we're supposed to "zipper merge" into the roundabouts? Or as a more general indicator of "driver savvy?" Because at least based on my understanding of what a "zipper merge" is, it's not how to handle entering or driving in a roundabout. The entering cars yield to the ones already circulating. Period. Yes, if you have time to get in w/o blocking one of the already circulating cars by all means go for it (and yes, many drivers hereabouts sure to like to have a HUGE margin of error so often let many potential "gaps" go by in the roundabouts... whereas of course others just charge in even when they shouldn't...) but that's not the same as the "turn taking yield-then-go" that happens in a zipper merge i.e. when two highway lanes go down to one.

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joker
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 11:07 am 
neek I love your optimism but having grown up driving in MA where "the tragedy of the commons" is on vivid display during every commute period, I'm not sure that even knowing how things like tailgating and lane weaving f up overall system flow will curtail the behaviors when there are too many rats in the maze and "every driver for themselves" lizard brain behavior takes over. But sure, why not at least try teaching it - this sort of stuff certainly wasn't part of 1970's era drivers ed... I'm also a bit pessimistic about autonomous vehicles - I think it's going to be super hard to have a "crossover period" where they're cohabiting the roads along with meat-driven vehicles - complex human behaviors are one of the hardest things for AI/machine learning to reliably predict, and even a 10% error rate in predicting what those other cars are about to do will have pretty bad results on many roads I think. Perhaps I'm wrong but that's my bet in any case. I think we'll see them first in crowded city cores where human-driven cars will simply be banned, thus vastly simplifying the problem (though there will still be pedestrians and likely bicycles to content with...).
Schroder wrote:
thunderhead wrote:
Overnight accommodations is debatable, but stevens DEFINITELY needs more parking. And a 2 lane US2 for that matter.
I don't agree. When the parking is full there are already too many people at the resort. I suspect they will ultimately try to expand the resort area in the direction of Yodelin across Big Chief Mtn. That's been discussed for years.
I'm not convinced that Vail sees it quite the same. I can imagine that they'd be OK with longer lift lines and more crowded lodges etc. Sure, I imagine they'll also be lobbying the FS to expand their permit so as to spread northeastward along the ridge. But I'm on a FB group called "Ski the East" on which people post photos of WILDLY crowded base areas at other resorts that have been assimilated by the borg, um, I mean Vail. I suspect they have a pretty good economic analysis showing that more crowds means more revenue even if it also means some increase in frustration among a percent of their customer base.

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joker
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 1:35 pm 
Jeff wrote:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BsY4oDulqHy/?utm_source=ig_web_button_native_share
Yup. I'm betting that's right after the lifts opened which often the best time to get heinous lift line shots. But even once at the day's steady state they have issues - I'm due for another email to Stevens and Vail customer service asking them why the lift line attendants are so fully focused on scanning passes instead of packing chairs once they have a decent line forming. Summit at Snoqualmie took a month or so to figure this out after they switched to scanner guns (and yes I emailed them at that point too :-) ) so I'm sure Vail/Stevens can work this out. But when talking to the lift attendants there it's quite clear they've not been given clear instruction. The result is that at least when I've been there lifts like Hogsback have been at somewhere between 60% and 75% capacity at best. LOTS of 2s and 3s on the 4 seater, and even 1s even when there's a line. The fact that they don't have a decent length set of "chutes" in the line, including a singles line, with an attendant stationed right at the freaking merge to direct merging/alternating certainly doesn't help matters at all. My take thus far, including from the rather perfunctory replies I received from my polite but clear email suggest to me that Vail prioritizes scanning passes (and getting that trove of customer data back) WAY over the actual quality of skier experience. And they probably have been getting away with this at all their other areas so they know they'll get away with it here too. yeah I'm grumpy about this!!

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Schenk
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 2:19 pm 
Hey Joker, Don't feel too bad, Stevens doesn't have a monopoly on partially filled chair lifts. Because of poor lift operator training at the 4 areas I go to, they frequently allow singles to load when there is a line. And empty chairs while the Liftie messes with his scanner... Meanwhile, the ski school shows up and cuts in front of you when you should have been on the lift already! waah.gif confused.gif bawl.gif rant.gif mad.gif

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Randito
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 2:57 pm 
joker wrote:
Do you bring this up because you think that we're supposed to "zipper merge" into the roundabouts? Or as a more general indicator of "driver savvy?"
I view the ability to efficiently negotiate a roundabout to be an application of merging skills. Which requires one to accurately judge the speed and spacing with other vehicles and adjust speed subtly. This applies to both vehicles entering the roundabout and vehicles in the roundabout. A vehicle that slams on the brakes in a roundabout because another vehicle is approaching disrupts the flow as much as the people that wait endlessly for the roundabout to be completely empty before entering.

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joker
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 4:13 pm 
OK sure. But "yielding" is a subset of "merging" to be fully clear. And this subset does not overlap with the subset of "zipper merging." Schenk - I get it, but fwiw I definitely saw an improvement at Summit at Snoqualmie after their first month or two with those infernal scanning guns. Someone had actually taught them to stop scanning and focus on chair loading like they used to do just fine. I view this as a pretty clear expression of management priorities - in the case of Stevens they are prioritizing gathering a data hoard on customer behavior well over the actual quality of experience, at least in terms of lift loading.

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mb
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mb
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 7:55 pm 
Weird. Most Vail resorts have overhead scanners so they can get all the data they need. It may miss some small # of runs but enough for stats. Sure Stevens may not have that yet but if they add it that problem goes away entirely. Then again Vail certainly focuses more on revenue maximization without concern about customer experience. Several times last year they'd have ambiguous reports in some resorts like "a few key lifts are gonna run in this storm with all the fresh snow" without saying what... and it'd turn out nothing was running because of the storm, and they'd planned for that the day before...

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joker
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PostWed Feb 27, 2019 10:38 pm 
Yeah I'm guessing that the guns are a lot cheaper than the fixed scanners, at least up front. Though they do need to pay the employees who currently seem to do nothing but aim the guns and pull the triggers. Stevens previously had fixed scanners that triggered a gate that allowed you to proceed. I presume it wouldn't work with the tech in the Epic Pass cards.

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