Mobility Networks via Drone

Article Table of Contents

• Introduction
  • Most recent, most interestingly
  • Timelapse of cars on colefax and park
  • parking lots, not just street segments and junctons
• other footage

Introduction #

Most recent, most interestingly #

Here’s me placing some cones - this is a thing I do, I wish more people would do, read more/see more on /on-coning

I’ll post some videos, and a little description for each.

This is my first time using chatGPT to help me edit some images - I gave it stills from the video I took, and asked it to modify the intersection with some given parameters. I think it did great!

The above video pairs well with this piece I wrote on traffic beans, and patterns of repair for roads and junctions.

Basically, using nearly-free materials, one could convert any junction into a poynton-style traffic bean, doing a first pass in just a few hours out of temporary materials, without needing to close the intersection. One the bean-shaped traffic circle was placed, and the necessary ‘necking down’ of all the inbound lanes accomplished, the traffic light could be covered, and no longer would the junction be dependent upon a light cycle!

One would start the interventon with traffic cones, and then as quickly as possible, upgrade the cones to more permanent placements as one feels comfortable with the placement. Temporary and less-temporary interventions would be at least partially inspired by the standard local urbanism suite of conceptual tools.

I would want to see upgrades include boulders, bell bollards, and regular bollards. Not a single plastic flex post will be involved.

Here’s bell bollards:

A bell bollard is uniquely effective at protecting spaces by preventing vehicle intrusion - a tire gets pushed off the tire, placing the vehicle “back” to where it ought to be, or the vehicle is lifted up off a tire and thus immobilized. If one is going to make a space ‘pedestrian friendly’ in America, it seems disrespectful and rude to also make the space “structurally unavailable” to vehicles. Please see my piece on bollards for more

intersection utilization rate goes up, the amount of time the intersection is empty while there are waiting vehicles would be completely eliminated, and it would become instantly more habitable to everyone else living nearby or passing through the intersection, be it in a car or not.

I just found this cool video showing how/why bell bollards work so well. They’re particularly important for the inside loop of a traffic bean/traffic curve.

but josh, the manual of uniform traffic control devices says…

I know, I know. This is all quite coherent with MUTCD, no big deal.

Timelapse of cars on colefax and park #

timelapses are the only way to view footage and not find it boring, sometimes. But can you see how cars sometimes are forced to wait, for a loooooong time, before proceeding through signalized intersections?

Intersections as creators of:

• waiting time, in vehicles. (5 vehicles, waiting for one minute each, is a total of five waiting-minutes. An intersection like park/colefax/franklin could be generating dozens of waiting-minutes per light cycle.)
• because the first one who doesn’t make it through an intersection, that person has to wait a full (long) light cycle, this intersection induces lots of racing behavior. (a traffic bean would support first-in-first-out junction operation, eliminating racing behaviors)
• brake dust (lots of brake use at a light like this)
• tailpipe emmissions (lots of accellerating, obv)
• tire rubber microplastics (increased tire wear under all braking and accellerating)
• noise (the noise from this intersection is incredible)
• danger for cars
• danger for people not in cars

parking lots, not just street segments and junctons #

Here’s the parking lot of the Trader Joe’s on Colorado Avenue:

here’s a bit more footage from trader joe’s

other footage #

There’s lots of video I’ve got of intersections, of many kind.

Here’s a timelapse from my scooter riding across denver: https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7502690216558284063

here’s more drone footage

here’s why scooters are time saving tools, and I know most of you have no idea what I am talking about, and do not know that you do not know this!

I encounter intersections when there is zero other traffic at it, in any direction, sometimes. Sometimes there are other vehicles, and I move responsively to all conditions. So, here’s a video that shows how I can treat an intersection as a traffic circle, even if it’s a regular traffic-light-mediated junction:

https://www.tiktok.com/@josh_exists/video/7381569250302889246

drone footage of a few people riding bikes/e-scooters across city park and an adjacent neighborhood