Diverging Diamond Walking Tour

[piratef2004]

Washington, Pa will have a Diverging Diamond Interchange sometime after 2014. I believe it would be the first in the State of Pennsylvania to be completed.

[ebeighe]

ug. what a car-sewer

[nictamer]

This is so unintentionally hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.

[DrummerBoyJason]

I would be confused by the presence of a pedestrian too.

[samgoatfish]

i'd be totally ok with my blind kid walk around here. what could possibly go wrong?

[yesteray]

My favorite failure of this video occurs at 8:48 when the narrator say, 'having received a positive walk signal' and it shows the signal turning to the flashing red hand and then he begins to walk.

The narrator has never spent much time as a pedestrian.

[erfurt4]

This is the worst environment that has been built by man. This engineer needs to stop sucking on tail pipes and start walking. It is a shame that so much money was spent to accommodate the car.

[MatthewJohnLambert]

Traffic engineering has really lost any bearing with reality. First of all no person would ever walk in this location if they could possibly avoid it. Traffic engineering only ONLY ONLY cares about cars. Now on the subject of cars, the diverging diamond is an absolutely ridiculous solution. Only one lane can proceed at a time. They are simply trying to reduce stacking onto the freeway, but the freeway itself is what creates the stacking by having too few intersections.

[strongtowns]

I think engineers fail to understand that pedestrians are actually not in cars. It is difficult to fathom such a hostile place to be outside of one. It took me a long time to realize that the narrator was not being sarcastic but actually believed this to be a great thing. Can you imagine the terror of being vision-impaired and encountering this nightmare?

[cthrume]

First, credit for making the interchange safer for walkers. However...

This is little more than lipstick on a pig. They've taken an ugly, unwalkable place and made it slightly less inconvenient for pedestrians (and no less ugly).

So highway engineers and car drivers like it. Great.

[streettrip]

"Beautiful view of the interstate?" "Eloquently placed signal." Very nicely done to show why these places are incredibly hostile to the pedestrian and unpleasant for everyone.

[bobbie4]

What are you people going to do when gas hits $10.00 per gallon?

[PedAdvocate]

A few questions come to mind:

How well do drivers yield to pedestrians at the unsignalized ramp crossings when the pedestrian isn't holding a video camera?

Why does the Ped Button acknowledgement light only go on momenarily, and not stay on until the start of the Walk Signal like most places?

Wouldn't the huge islands be a lot cooler in the sun if they had grass or other vegetation? -- Something to think about after a record hot month.

Why no sidewalks at the start?

[lemonrind]

Enjoyable.

[p0rn0paycheck]

This could have been less detailed and better edited...

[TheMissourimike]

Living within a few miles of here, I use this intersection quite often. I LOVE IT! Before, my having to go West and make a left turn was often quite frustrating. The single lane left would be backed up for a block or more, spilling over into the Northbound lanes, blocking their flow. Now, no blockage, easy access, few stops.

[Myrtone]

I think the left hand section might be more like Australia than the UK. In the UK, roundabout interchanges are common, but here we have a lot more diamond interchanges.