Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site hou5e.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!whuxlb!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!houca!orion!hou5f!hou5e!mat From: mat@hou5e.UUCP Newsgroups: net.flame Subject: Re: Flaming at highway designers Message-ID: <757@hou5e.UUCP> Date: Mon, 29-Aug-83 17:31:18 EDT Article-I.D.: hou5e.757 Posted: Mon Aug 29 17:31:18 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 30-Aug-83 13:30:24 EDT References: <434@ssc-vax.UUCP>, <327@ihuxn.UUCP>, <524@ihuxl.UUCP> Organization: American Bell ED&D, Holmdel, NJ Lines: 41 The practice of having entrance and exit ramps sharing an acceleration lane is very common arount NYC. Of couse, having some of the oldest limited- access highways in the nation we are often glad to have acceleration lanes at all. Too many roads (the Saw Mill River Parkway, the Harlem River and FDR Drives, The Interborough Parkway, etc) have no acceleration/deceleration lanes at all. On the more modern roads, the situation you describe is common, and sometimes is complicated further. BTW, I call these things ``hell-merges'' because, well, that's what they are. On I278 (the Gowanus Expy) in Brooklyn, there are a couple of hell-merged on/off ramp pairs that are so close together that the exit ramp of the first one CROSSES the entrance ramp of the second, creating a double-hell- merge. In Westchester, I287 splits off from I87 and as it splits, there is an interchange with the Saw Mill River Parkway. Coming East off the Tappan Zee Bridge on I87/287 you take a two-lane exit through a deep rock cut and under a bridge (through a not-so-deep cut in the same rock) while on a 35-mph turn. You go up a hill for a merge with another ramp on your right. Traffic at 45-60 mph is coming DOWNHILL while you are climbing up for the merge. Typically, you are behind some jackass who doesn't realize that the road ahead is a high-speed EXPRESSWAY and is still doing 30 mph. Well, you have to cross the faster lane on your right, with about 100 yards or so of room, to get on the ramp for the SMRP. That leaves you travelling up a steep hill, practically over the peak of the local rock hills. You suddenly drop downward, and are informed by a sign that you are recommended to slow to 25 mph. You can go right around a sharp turn on the edge of a cliff to pick up NY 119, or left on a curving bridge and ramp that recommends you speed up to 35 mph. The ramp leads uphill to a merge, with an 80-foot accelleration lane with the 50 mph parkway (which was built for 25-30 mph traffic and often travelled at 60mph+). The merge is almost blind, thanks to a full set of Jersey barriers, and the hill is so steep that you have almost NO reserve to accelerate with. I want to be up to 45 before I try it, so on that last 35mph zigzag I have my foot almost to the floor to pick up speed, knowing that I may have to burn some of it off with the brakes to slip into dense traffic. A pox on hell-merges! Mark Terribile Duke of deNet