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> You keep saying that. But a bandaid is easy to install and helpful. Putting lidar stuff around every intersection and all the other equipment needed is not a
by CuriousCosmic 2y ago
> You keep saying that. But a bandaid is easy to install and helpful. Putting lidar stuff around every intersection and all the other equipment needed is not a banded.
Not every intersection. The plan is for 85% of the signalised intersections in the top 75 metro areas. There are around 400k signalised intersections in the US out of the 15 million intersections total. That's around 2.5% of intersections if you assume every signalised intersection will be included. Realistically the number affected by this plan is closer to 2% (~320k). And that is over the course of 12 years.
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> Changing infrastructure doesn't take 50 years if you are actually serious about.
It actually does if you are trying to do it at the scale of a continent. And I don't mean this as a "oh but the US is different" kind of thing. You can do things at scale and all but things take time. The Netherlands did it in 20-30 years but they have 10 times the density of the US and they are a unitary state that can authoritatively just change things and everyone downstream has to listen. The US DOT can set standards, pull levers, and incentivize adoption but it's ultimately up to the states to do the work (outside of federal roads which make up a small fraction of the roads in the US).
So lets say it takes twice as long. That's around 40-50 years. And that depends on whoever runs the federal government or the DOT not saying "fuck this woke commie shit" and halting all progress (which Trump did with V2X after the Obama admin started a major push for it).
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> No my proposal is 'use the already incredibly limited fund as efficiently as possible'. Not sure why you are so determined to argue about this.
The US DOT currently has more cash than they really know what to do with. Biden & Congress allocated them 660 billion USD to spend over a 5 year window ending in 2026 and currently they've spent less than half of that despite tripling their spending. The main limiter isn't funding. It's capacity and political capital. The USDOT literally has states refusing unconditional, no strings attached funds for political reasons (see FL rejecting hurricane & flood hardening funds for transportation infrastructure).
This is something that some crews and departments can do that provides benefits without being inordinately expensive. Even if it costs several billion USD (which it won't) it'd be less than 1% of the sudden flush of funds that the USDOT literally cannot spend fast enough.
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> You know what is for sure easier? Dropping 10 concrete blocks in an intersection and turning it into a roundabout.
Good luck with that. Most intersections are not large enough for that without making the roads completely inaccessible to Class 8 vehicles (heavy construction vehicles and semi trucks).
I am pro roundabout. I am also pro separation of streets and roads as well as limiting traffic on streets however you need massive infrastructure redesigns to make that viable. I've sat through the meetings for this in my own community and I have family who work on permitting for this kind of thing very regularly so I know quite a bit about the struggles in making these improvements a reality. It's frustrating to see it take forever and for projects to get cancelled or delayed for reasons I personally think are unnecessary but I understand why it's done this way and that it's not just a matter of "the people in charge don't care". The people who spend every day working on this stuff care a lot and are doing as much as they can but this is really complex and there are a lot of moving parts and legal consideration.
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> With all cities all over the US implementing this plus all the changes to all the cars? You got to be joking.
It was a bit of hyperbole yes. But if you want to do the math on it, the USDOT estimates the cost of installation after labor, planning, etc is 5000-7000USD per signalized intersection on average. That number is from a few years ago so it may have changed a bit but it's a reasonable estimate. If they roll this out to every single signalised intersection in the US (which isn't part of the plan but likely will eventually happen some time after the plan has completed), that works out to less than 3 billion USD. Like I mentioned before that's less than 1% of the funding they have currently received but can't spend fast enough and doesn't factor in future funding (as this current wave must all be spent 10 years before this plan completes. So it is literally a drop in the bucket.
And car manufacturers are already working on rolling out V2X as it's a cheap addition (it's only estimated to be ~100-200usd for them to add it to modern vehicle models). So other than organizing consortiums or coordinating with manufactuers (i.e. overhead labor costs), the USDOT isn't really going to be spending anything on pushing this technology in vehicles, only the infrastructure side.
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> False. The actual fix saves you money compared to the status quo. The sooner and the more aggressive you do it the more money you save.
Sure the actual fix saves you money in the long run and I agree with you in concept but you only get those savings once you have made the fix. That takes time and/or political capital to bend/break rules. You can't make more time and there's only so much political capital and a lot of it is being spent as fast as possible.
Things are slow but they are moving way faster than they have in decades. Despite that it's still slow and will take decades. You march on towards progress but given the limits there's no reason to not pursue other opportunities at the same time.
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> If you want to use cameras for something useful, use it to give everybody a speeding ticket. That far more appropriate use of that kind of technology.
I don't know where you live or what your experience has been but speed cameras are already literally everywhere where I live. Also the USDOT has already allotted a massive amount of funding towards rolling out speed cameras to places that don't already have them.
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> Funny how when it comes to re-enforcing the status quo high tech solution are all the rage, when it comes to actually solving the problem of speeding, high tech solution aren't welcome.
Again the USDOT is already doing that. But V2X isn't re-enforcing the status quo either. It's something that's happening in concert with a thousand other things and all things considered it is a drop in the bucket and one of the smallest programs being pushed forwards.