I-95 Bridge Collapse In Philadelphia

[Rasputin_Vol]

There's nowhere for additional lanes to go.

Yep, Eastgate to Tiftonia is limited by geographical barriers (Ridge Cut and Tennessee River). And a Bypass from Dalton to Wildwood would face the same challenges with geography (Lookout Mountain) unless they decided to do tunnels. That would cost a bunch of $$$ and probably take a decade or more.

 

[LouderVol]

Are you talking about that abomination of "improvement" where 75N and 24 meet coming up from Georgia?

It went from bad to worse.

yes. its the same thing 75/85N do in Atlanta. If you want to go to Chattanooga up 75 that is generally to the "left" west, of Atlanta, you have to get into the right lanes. opposite if you want to go up 85 on the right going "east".

My parents also say the 75/24 split that there is a lot more hard breaking now in the actual turn than there was before, so even that part isn't right.

 

[McDad]

yes. its the same thing 75/85N do in Atlanta. If you want to go to Chattanooga up 75 that is generally to the "left" west, of Atlanta, you have to get into the right lanes. opposite if you want to go up 85 on the right going "east".

My parents also say the 75/24 split that there is a lot more hard breaking now in the actual turn than there was before, so even that part isn't right.

It makes no sense to me, either. Why would you want to cross the traffic pattern to the left for the people going right and vice versa is beyond me. And that stupid right ramp to go west on 24 backs up for a good half mile because they STILL squeeze it down to one lane, which I thought was the only issue with the design of the previous bridge. The only difference is the merge to one lane on the bridge is further (closer to 24W).

 

[LouderVol]

It makes no sense to me, either. Why would you want to cross the traffic pattern to the left for the people going right and vice versa is beyond me. And that stupid right ramp to go west on 24 backs up for a good half mile because they STILL squeeze it down to one lane, which I thought was the only issue with the design of the previous bridge. The only difference is the merge to one lane on the bridge is further (closer to 24W).

yeah, even when they redid the first local bridge that goes over 24W they couldn't have maintained the width for very long. The bridge is wide enough for 2 lanes I think, its just striped for 1. So maybe after these other phases they can expand it, and extend the 2 lanes. But I doubt they are touching the ridge cut, right before you go over the hill to see Chattanooga and make that big left turn down into the city.

same issue on the opposite side, you are either going to have to expand into the river, cut into the mountain, or stack the travel lanes to get around Moccasin bend. but even beyond that a little further before you get to Nickajack you are also going through some canyons and there is usually some traffic there if you are going E/W.

 

[McDad]

yeah, even when they redid the first local bridge that goes over 24W they couldn't have maintained the width for very long. The bridge is wide enough for 2 lanes I think, its just striped for 1. So maybe after these other phases they can expand it, and extend the 2 lanes. But I doubt they are touching the ridge cut, right before you go over the hill to see Chattanooga and make that big left turn down into the city.

same issue on the opposite side, you are either going to have to expand into the river, cut into the mountain, or stack the travel lanes to get around Moccasin bend. but even beyond that a little further before you get to Nickajack you are also going through some canyons and there is usually some traffic there if you are going E/W.

I try to avoid Chattanooga interstates, now. I've gone around via the exit between Dalton and Rossville over to 59 then go north to 24W.

 

[AM64]

I swear traffic engineers are like Meteorologists. they get to keep their jobs no matter how bad they are at it.

and I have had it explained to me, but I still don't buy that the crossover splits are more efficient. Every traffic engineer I have ever asked swears its more efficient for travel gong to the right to have to be in the left hand lanes, and they have to introduce a series of new bridges to make it work.

The low bid is suspicious, the other 3 bids fall in a 22 million dollar range, approximately 10% of budget, which is a pretty good spread. That's what I would expect from qualified bidders. The winning bid being 42 million below the next raises all types of red flags. That 20% savings will show up very quickly.

I don't know if you are familiar with the particular intersection, but a few on here probably know it. The Chattanooga "traffic engineer" actually wanted to put in a traffic circle on E Brainerd Rd near the top of the hill at the intersection of E Brainerd, Hickory Valley, and the I-75 ramp (going toward Chattanooga and Atlanta). I told him he was an idiot and it went downhill from there (this was the Van Winkle guy ... he has apparently retired since you don't hear anything of him now). The call didn't start well because he actually called me back to hear my comments about using photo radar, so you can bet it was pretty contentious from the start. I also let him know what I thought about two left turn lanes feeding to a single on lane when the ramp was too short for that kind of thing - that's when he said the light failed all their requirements for moving traffic and was thinking about a traffic circle. I told him "no shiff" ... maybe they should have left the cloverleaf on ramp from E Brainerd alone instead of plowing it up - there's no longer an off ramp to make entering/exiting traffic a problem.

I also pointed out their traffic lights were sequenced all wrong in a lot of places, and you could watch it happen ... if he ever got his azz out on the road to take a look. Perfect example was on Wilcox after coming out of the tunnel and headed toward the river - not even that much traffic on that stretch of road. You got a red light at every intersection because the controls detected no traffic since the previous light stacked everybody up and the herd got to the next intersection just as the traffic control had decided nobody was coming. Absolutely absurd; random sequencing would have gotten it right more often. There's almost never a time I'm not civil with someone - especially someone I don't know; that phone call was one of those times. As an engineer, I'm outraged that "engineer" is ever used in conjunction with the mess these fools make of traffic.

 

[Orangeburst]

I don't know if you are familiar with the particular intersection, but a few on here probably know it. The Chattanooga "traffic engineer" actually wanted to put in a traffic circle on E Brainerd Rd near the top of the hill at the intersection of E Brainerd, Hickory Valley, and the I-75 ramp (going toward Chattanooga and Atlanta). I told him he was an idiot and it went downhill from there (this was the Van Winkle guy ... he has apparently retired since you don't hear anything of him now). The call didn't start well because he actually called me back to hear my comments about using photo radar, so you can bet it was pretty contentious from the start. I also let him know what I thought about two left turn lanes feeding to a single on lane when the ramp was too short for that kind of thing - that's when he said the light failed all their requirements for moving traffic and was thinking about a traffic circle. I told him "no shiff" ... maybe they should have left the cloverleaf on ramp from E Brainerd alone instead of plowing it up - there's no longer an off ramp to make entering/exiting traffic a problem.

I also pointed out their traffic lights were sequenced all wrong in a lot of places, and you could watch it happen ... if he ever got his azz out on the road to take a look. Perfect example was on Wilcox after coming out of the tunnel and headed toward the river - not even that much traffic on that stretch of road. You got a red light at every intersection because the controls detected no traffic since the previous light stacked everybody up and the herd got to the next intersection just as the traffic control had decided nobody was coming. Absolutely absurd; random sequencing would have gotten it right more often. There's almost never a time I'm not civil with someone - especially someone I don't know; that phone call was one of those times. As an engineer, I'm outraged that "engineer" is ever used in conjunction with the mess these fools make of traffic.

AM64 for Chattanooga Road Commissioner Hip Hip Horray!
and btw widen some of these freaking roads or at least add shoulders..aka Igou Gap etc. You have the choice of hitting someone head on or sending Trash cans 40 yards or ending in a ditch
dont they have sewers?

 

[AM64]

AM64 for Chattanooga Road Commissioner Hip Hip Horray!
and btw widen some of these freaking roads or at least add shoulders..aka Igou Gap etc. You have the choice of hitting someone head on or sending Trash cans 40 yards or ending in a ditch
dont they have sewers?

Igou Gap is awful, and I try to remember to avoid Morris Hill on Thursdays, too (garbage day). Igou Gap and Jarnigan (parallel to Igou Gap) going up hill from Gunbarrel are two of the most dangerous roads in town. Always thought it was a cruel joke that SE Eye Surgery is on Jarnigan. Terrible pavement, no shoulder at all, and deep ditches. I think all of Igou Gap has sewers ... it was torn up long enough, but that may have just been for traffic circles. I'm not sure that every place in the city has sewers. When Chattanooga was on the annexation binge, they grabbed a lot of Hamilton Co and had no funding and no way to add them at the time; in fact, a lot of previously annexed parts lacked sewers. They missed me by less than a mile, and then Hamilton Co ran a sewer line that goes by the house next door but missed me; I'm happy with my septic tank ... once the hydrangea that killed it got moved. That hydrangea has never been the same; apparently having roots directly in a septic tank made it Super Plant.

 

[Orangeburst]

Igou Gap is awful, and I try to remember to avoid Morris Hill on Thursdays, too (garbage day). Igou Gap and Jarnigan (parallel to Igou Gap) going up hill from Gunbarrel are two of the most dangerous roads in town. Always thought it was a cruel joke that SE Eye Surgery is on Jarnigan. Terrible pavement, no shoulder at all, and deep ditches. I think all of Igou Gap has sewers ... it was torn up long enough, but that may have just been for traffic circles. I'm not sure that every place in the city has sewers. When Chattanooga was on the annexation binge, they grabbed a lot of Hamilton Co and had no funding and no way to add them at the time; in fact, a lot of previously annexed parts lacked sewers. They missed me by less than a mile, and then Hamilton Co ran a sewer line that goes by the house next door but missed me; I'm happy with my septic tank ... once the hydrangea that killed it got moved. That hydrangea has never been the same; apparently having roots directly in a septic tank made it Super Plant.

Then why not fill in the ditches at least?
When I lived in Red Bank all my neighbors had sewer but I did not and was exempted for some reason. It was weird but fine by me.

 

[AM64]

Then why not fill in the ditches at least?
When I lived in Red Bank all my neighbors had sewer but I did not and was exempted for some reason. It was weird but fine by me.

I'd guess it's for storm water runoff. Gunbarrel near the mall has flooded a few times. If you could condemn roads as being dangerous and unfit, Igou Gap would meet the criteria. I think it's criminal that a jurisdiction like a city can seize land, collect taxes, and not provide services ... and worse that the state allows cities to annex without the agreement of those to be annexed. If you've got something valid to offer at a reasonable cost, then you should be able to sell annexation. In my case my water bill is mid to low $20/mo (no sewer), I pay $150/year for fire protection (have a fire hydrant in the front yard), $60/quarter for garbage collection, and there's absolutely no way paying Chattanooga City taxes would give me more for the money ... not even close.

 

[Orangeburst]

yes. its the same thing 75/85N do in Atlanta. If you want to go to Chattanooga up 75 that is generally to the "left" west, of Atlanta, you have to get into the right lanes. opposite if you want to go up 85 on the right going "east".

My parents also say the 75/24 split that there is a lot more hard breaking now in the actual turn than there was before, so even that part isn't right.

Although I was not in that area of town often, That split so wrong I missed it a couple of times

 

[LouderVol]

I don't know if you are familiar with the particular intersection, but a few on here probably know it. The Chattanooga "traffic engineer" actually wanted to put in a traffic circle on E Brainerd Rd near the top of the hill at the intersection of E Brainerd, Hickory Valley, and the I-75 ramp (going toward Chattanooga and Atlanta). I told him he was an idiot and it went downhill from there (this was the Van Winkle guy ... he has apparently retired since you don't hear anything of him now). The call didn't start well because he actually called me back to hear my comments about using photo radar, so you can bet it was pretty contentious from the start. I also let him know what I thought about two left turn lanes feeding to a single on lane when the ramp was too short for that kind of thing - that's when he said the light failed all their requirements for moving traffic and was thinking about a traffic circle. I told him "no shiff" ... maybe they should have left the cloverleaf on ramp from E Brainerd alone instead of plowing it up - there's no longer an off ramp to make entering/exiting traffic a problem.

I also pointed out their traffic lights were sequenced all wrong in a lot of places, and you could watch it happen ... if he ever got his azz out on the road to take a look. Perfect example was on Wilcox after coming out of the tunnel and headed toward the river - not even that much traffic on that stretch of road. You got a red light at every intersection because the controls detected no traffic since the previous light stacked everybody up and the herd got to the next intersection just as the traffic control had decided nobody was coming. Absolutely absurd; random sequencing would have gotten it right more often. There's almost never a time I'm not civil with someone - especially someone I don't know; that phone call was one of those times. As an engineer, I'm outraged that "engineer" is ever used in conjunction with the mess these fools make of traffic.

Yeah very familiar with that E. Brainerd 75 connection. I remember them tearing that up and I have always thought it looks unfinished.

I will say getting of 75N at E. Brainerd going east, is better now. But that is probably the only actual improvement. 1/4 efficiency is pretty good for a government job.

 

[Rasputin_Vol]

Yep, Eastgate to Tiftonia is limited by geographical barriers (Ridge Cut and Tennessee River. And a Bypass from Dalton to Wildwood would face the same challenges with geography (Lookout Mountain) unless they decided to do tunnels. That would cost a bunch of $$$ and probably take a decade or more.

Also, a Dalton to Cleveland or Ringgold to Cleveland bypass would free up a bunch of congestion at the 24/75 junction. At least all of the 75 northbound traffic wouldn't be bottled up in that spot.

 

[AM64]

Also, a Dalton to Cleveland or Ringgold to Cleveland bypass would free up a bunch of congestion at the 24/75 junction. At least all of the 75 northbound traffic wouldn't be bottled up in that spot.

Since I live in the E Brainerd area, I always get off on US-41 before Ringgold and just past the weigh station when heading north on 75; then I take Cherokee Valley to E Brainerd Rd. You can take the same exit and go on toward Ringgold and take GA-151 (Ooltewah-Ringgold Rd) and go straight to 75N at Ooltewah. You hit a lot of congestion at the TN line all the way through Ooltewah, so unless 75 is basically shut down, it's not worth it, but it is a work around if things are really screwed up. There's also GA-71/TN-60 that runs from Cleveland to Dalton; don't think I've ever driven it into Dalton, but the TN part has very little traffic at all until you are almost to the Cleveland Bypass that connects to I-75. Looks like the best way to it in Dalton is get off on US-41 (the outlet malls) and drive 41 until you hit GA-71.

If they could manage not to screw up the connections near Dalton and Cleveland, the rest of the road between Cleveland and Dalton would make a great I-75 Bypass.