Petoskey Trolley

[Saturnalia]

Three-landing roads reduces accidents and improves operational efficiency. This is no different than goobs trying to stop a roundabout.

Wrong! Three laneing a four lane road cuts it's carrying capacity by 50%! What part of that do you "smart folks with four year degrees" not understand?

Ahh that's the common thinking, conventional wisdom that says 2/4 = 50% of the original capacity. But in reality, that's not the case. Add in some illogical human sociology, the practicalities of left-hand and right-hand turns, and you end up arriving at a much different conclusion.

From: http://nacto.org/docs/usdg/conversion_o ... adways.pdf

DISADVANTAGES
Increased Travel Delay
Increased travel delay along the corridor is the primary concern many have with converting a four-lane
roadway to a three-lane facility. Many assume there will be a 50% reduction in corridor capacity because the
number of “through lanes” are reduced by half. In reality the capacity of a three-lane facility is very near that of a
four-lane undivided roadway. Envision a four-lane undivided roadway in a commercial area during the peak hour of
the day. Drivers who want to travel through the corridor generally stay in the outside curb lane to avoid getting
caught behind mid-block left-turning vehicles. During these peak hours the inside lanes are generally used by leftturning
vehicles and very few through trips are made in those lanes. As such, only one lane in each direction is
accommodating most of the through trips – which is similar to a three-lane facility.

The Statistics Block shows, for an example roadway, signalized traffic control has a much greater impact on delays, but in general, delay time for 4-lanes is 21 sec, 3 lanes is 29, and five lanes is about 16 (being relative and generalized).

So according to the "50%" logic, going from four lanes to three would result in a doubling of delay time, which would be 42 seconds. But that simply isn't the case.

Now five-lanes does even better, but in most cases that requires a complete rebuild, and roads are often boxed in by other things such as buildings, signs, etc, which makes them unfeasible, before you even get to cost.

-----

Now, if you still think a 4-way intersection is better than a roundabout in terms of traffic capacity, here's a nice video clip from Mythbusters of them totally debunking that theory. And, not only does capacity increase, but the average delay time drops. Real scientific studies bear this out, too. Anecdotally, they recently installed a roundabout on US41 in Negaunee, and even through it isn't yet finished - only one lane open where there will be two - I can already tell you that I've never stopped, whereas the light would likely catch US41 often to let the side street go. By eliminating hard stops, traffic collisions drop.

http://www.wimp.com/mythbusters-test-a- ... oundabout/


So, in summary: conventional wisdom is usually trumped by science...which is rightfully carried about by a bunch of fine people who went to school to learn some things instead of going right to 2/4 = 50%.

Sorry to derail the thread, but hopefully this ends the tangent.

[CSX_CO]

Traffic circles are fine for eliminating delays at that intersection, but traffic just backs up somewhere else. Plenty of roundabouts around here, and the major east-west corridor is still a disaster. Traffic flows fine now north south, but all you do is get to US 36 faster and traffic just sit there longer.

[MiddleMI]

Sorry to derail the thread, but hopefully this ends the tangent.

It won't because he's a political ideologue who has already decided on an answer and is arguing backwards from that. You can't present folks like that with facts as evidence and hope they come around. They are conspiracy theorists.

But, really, this whole tangent is neither here nor there. Does anyone familiar with rail movements up in Petoskey know how far they propose this trolley will go south, and where they are talking about putting up the rail to seperate it from the freight network? Who is the northern-most customer?

[Super Chief]

Petoskey Plastics is the northern most customer. Covered hoppers are unloaded next to the Salvation Army store and trucked to the plant. 13 were there Saturday. Rail is pulled just north before the trestle crossing the Bear River. Gives them about a mile of trolley running.

[MiddleMI]

Petoskey Plastics is the northern most customer. Covered hoppers are unloaded next to the Salvation Army store and trucked to the plant. 13 were there Saturday. Rail is pulled just north before the trestle crossing the Bear River. Gives them about a mile of trolley running.

EDIT: Found this story from March of this year that kind of explains it better, I guess:

The Great Lakes Central Railroad, which leases the rail corridor leading to Petoskey from the state of Michigan, recently notified Petoskey officials that it plans to cut off train access to the stretch of track north of Emmet Street. The railroad company said it has determined that this stretch no longer meets safety standards, and that the repairs and future inspections needed for train travel would not be warranted because of a lack of railroad business along that stretch. Access will be cut off by removing two sticks of rail from the east and west sides of the track.

In recent years, only occasional excursion trains have used the portion of track running through downtown. City staff believe it still might be possible for the tracks to handle lighter use such as a passenger trolley, but that a full inspection of the tracks would be needed to determine this.

And then a photo from another story that same month:


Ryan Bentley | Petoskey News Review

This is Mitchell and Howard streets downtown.

[hoborich]

Anecdotally, they recently installed a roundabout on US41 in Negaunee,

Aaah yes. Negaunee, bustling, conjested metropolis of the midwest.

[Jetlink]

Three-landing roads reduces accidents and improves operational efficiency. This is no different than goobs trying to stop a roundabout.

Wrong! Three laneing a four lane road cuts it's carrying capacity by 50%! What part of that do you "smart folks with four year degrees" not understand?

I'm not so sure that's correct. I think simply saying three lane-ing a road cuts it's capacity by 50 % is just a made up statistic. You know a certain percentage of statistics are simply made up on the spot to support the speakers claims. True you go from 2 lanes each way to one, but there is a huge element of efficiency gained from not having left turners blocking the center 2 lanes. Now they only block one. You also get the added margins of wider lanes and shoulders (which people will cheat their right turns out of) making the remaining two lanes flow contiuosly and smoothly. I'm not saying there isn't still a net loss of cars per hour but safety certainly increases and efficiency can be measured differently than pure numbers of cars flowing. If there are half as many accidents that's a lot more hours the traffic is flowing rather than stopped or reduced from accident response. Now if only I could find some research to back up my opinion.

[Jetlink]

So I did some not so light reading on the subject. Generally speaking a 3 lane road carries the same amount of traffic as a 4 lane road. The accident rates are nearly cut in half and the travel speeds are about 3-4 % lower with the largest contributing variable being the # of driveways or other access points per mile. The researcher is quick to point out though that it should be on a case by case basis and one size may not fit all given variable external factors. For most installations however the above was true. This is a very quick synopsis of a very long paper.


http://www.ctre.iastate.edu/pubs/confer ... _paper.pdf

[Raildudes dad]

Anywheres from 25-75% reduction in crashes, primarily rearend and sideswipes. This is real life data from an urban county to your west:)

[Standard Railfan]

Greetings,

I spoke with a Petoskey DPW supervisor about the trolley a couple of years ago. The city wants a trolley to ease parking congestion downtown. The idea being that people won't ride a bus from a remote parking area but will ride on rails. The rail line also allows a straight line no stops route from existing and planned parking on the south side of downtown.

The city and MDOT have been "discussing" the project for years. Concern was expressed about a train vs. trolley accident. Resulting liability insurance costs were too high for the city's budget.

The trolley does have rubber tires for traction and fusion.

[hoborich]

A lot of things look good on paper. MDOT has been three laneing roads through towns all over Michigan. It has been my experience that traffic on a three lane road moves at the speed of the slowest vehicle, with no legal way to pass. I have lost count how many times I have been stuck behind some local goober, or farm truck, or tractor pulling a hay wagon, or logging truck, going 20 to 25 mph in a 35 or 40 mph zone, for several miles, with long lines of frustrated drivers plodding along behind, with no legal way to pass. And the area that MDOT wanted to three lane through Houghton Lake carries heavy traffic on weekends entering and exiting US-127 in and out of town. Left turns are not the problem. Traffic gets around them in the right lane. However the problem is the right turns into several gas stations, Big Boys, Holiday Inn, Super 8 Inn, Comfort Inn, and numerous businesses, by the Friday traffic exiting US-127 on their way into town. People are driving Large motor homes, or hauling boats, travel trailers, quads, jet skis, and other stuff. And all that traffic exiting the freeway would have found themselves funneled into one lane, and backed up onto the freeway, as one vehicle after another slowly turned into the various restaurants and gas stations and other businesses. The Houghton Lake Ambulance people said the traffic jams would prevent them from exiting their garage in an emergency. The sheriff said he would not enforce it. The Roscommon County Road Commission said it was a bad idea, and went on record opposeing it. Last time I looked, the road commission had several "traffic engineers". The entire business community opposed it.
When 8th street in Traverse City was three laned, local businesses reported lost business and customers, due to the backed up traffic. Traffic increased dramatically on side streets, as motorists used side streets to cut through town and avoid the traffic gridlock on 8th street. They are now considering putting 8th street back to four lanes!

This is what the "smart people with four year degrees" came up with!
http://www.oldmission.net/2016/01/8th-s ... re-photos/

[MiddleMI]

Can you stop derailing this thread, hobo? Thanks. Like, take the hint.

[Jetlink]

This is what the "smart people with four year degrees" came up with!
http://www.oldmission.net/2016/01/8th-s ... re-photos/

Wow! That was written with really cynical overtone. Not really journalism so much as an opinion piece. Lots of bias. Anyway there are answers to most of her questions but she doesn't really try to look for truth. What I really saw was someone who wasn't happy with a change that was made and that's not surprising at all. Most people don't embrace change. Even when there are benefits. Especially when the change appears not to benefit one directly. I'm not saying whether any of those changes make sense or not since I'm not familiar with the subject; but the authors professionalism made me chuckle none the less.

[Raildudes dad]

The article was labeled an editorial. Most 3 lanes don't have dedicated bike lanes. As everything, the 3 lane configuration has it's place in the traffic management tool box. And some people are just anti government including a few on this board

[MQT1223]

Does anyone remember the Trolley that was originally brought up in this thread? Cause if we want to talk about the brilliant minds at MDOT and all the traffic circles and road widening projects I'm sure a separate thread in a separate category can be worked out.

[R.E.A.P.E.R.]

City plans to sell rail trolley
Proceeds will help operate road-based model

PETOSKEY — Officials plan to sell a rail trolley the the city purchased in 1999 and to use the sale proceeds to help support maintenance of the current road trolley operating within downtown Petoskey.

On Monday, the city council voted unanimously to have staff pursue a sale of the rail vehicle, and for proceeds from that sale to be used toward the road-based model’s operation.

The city purchased the rail trolley for...................

http://www.petoskeynews.com/featured-pn ... 1f007.html

[j32885]

NOW that they have scrap their little rail trolley circuit, think they might want to reconnect tracks or leave it cutoff and redevelop their little patch of Grassing Running RR ROW? SRI & GLC are planning another trip this fall up there. It was a real disservice to them by not bringing the train all the way into town. I think they had bus over all the passengers from the train.

[chapmaja]

I'm going to add my two cents on roundabouts, 3 vs 4 vs 5 lanes, and then comment on the trolley issue.

First, Roundabouts generally do work well at reducing delays to traffic going through an intersection. That is not the only benefit. Accident rates may be similar in a roundabout vs traditional intersections (see Ellsworth and State St. south of Ann Arbor), but the serious injury nature of those accidents is significantly reduced as almost all accidents are one car rear ending or side swiping another rather than a head on or T-bone style accident more common at a traditional style intersections. Roundabouts are also impacted by the roads leading into and out of a roundabout. Too often MDOT and the local road commissions fail to consider the exit traffic from a roundabout successfully as it relates to the traffic leaving the roundabout. The previous mentioned roundabout is 2 lanes through the roundabout where both lanes can be used as exit lanes from the roundabout. Exiting to the East, West or North is an exit onto a 2 lane road for a significant distance. Exiting south leads you into an almost immediate merger situation, as the road goes from two lanes to one lane. This is a problem with many roundabouts put in around SE Michigan.

The worst roundabout is the Lee Rd / US 23 interchange roundabouts. The west side of the expressway is a double roundabout with traffic from Lee RD crossing US-23 immediately meeting the traffic from the on and off ramps of SB US-23. That exits into an immediate roundabout for the intersection of Whitmore Lake Rd and Lee Rd. These are two lane roundabouts and going north, west and south from the roundabouts is usually not a problem. The problem is for traffic going eastbound across the bridge over US-23. There are two exit lanes from the roundabout, but the bridge is one lane in each direction over US-23. There is a very clear merge left sign as you exit the roundabout, but often times the traffic in the left lane (the one that continues) has to stop because traffic in the merging lane doesn't yield the ROW to traffic in the left lane. This is a huge design flaw of using old technology (2 lane bridge) with new technology (roundabout).

Now as for the three vs four vs five lane issue. Several people have already brought up the capacity issues. In my estimation, driving on several of these roads that have been reconstructed from 4 lanes to 3 lanes in the AA area, I have found the flow of traffic is generally very similar to the 4 lane road on the 3 lanes road. The reason is because people aren't having to stop in a travel lane to make a left turn. With that said, I do find these roads tend to have problems when they go from a four lane to a three lane road somewhere other than at an intersection. Too many people are in two much of a hurry and they push the merge, which slows down traffic in the traffic flow lane. The other issues is often that one driver who thinks the speed limit is 5 mph under the speed limit posted on the roadway. The other issue is often that person who thinks its ok to pull into the center turn lane to make their way into the traffic flow lane when making a left from a access point. This is illegal and negatively impacts the flow of traffic by stopping the proper use of the center lane. In the case of the roads I generally drive that have undergone this conversion. There is one additional "benefit" to converting a 4 lane to a 3 lane road. Non-motorized traffic (ie bicycles) have much more room and in a bicycle riding utopia like Ann Arbor, that is important (now if the bicyclists will just follow the rules of the road as they are required to, That Would Be Great).

Now for the trolley. I think someone mentioned the key point in an earlier post. The key to this is that it had to be physically disconnected from the national railway system. Having it disconnected significantly reduces the regulations related to the operations. If a passenger train or trolley is attached to the national railroad system there are significantly more FRA regulations related to operation and maintenance. Now that they plan to sell the trolley, they really should reconnect the tracks to make the GLC and SRI accessible to downtown, which would also significantly improve access to downtown merchants for visitors on those trips.

[NS3322]

Does anyone have a photo of the (rail) trolley in question?

[Super Chief]

There was considerable more money spent then meets the eye on this project. As I said previously the water and shore power for the private varnish owners who pulled up to the depot years ago. Also maintenance and storage in the DPW building on the trolley itself. Really ashame they were so anti rail in that area. Remember the SW1vs Bay View association ruining their view of the bay. The potential was there but storing it since they bought it in 1999 didn't show anybody anything. We will now depart the Kalkaska depot and run north to the Petosky Plastics loadout and return after people get off the train and sight see town for a couple of hours. Don't hear anymore on the Traverse City train after all the studies now do we?