11foot8+8 bridge finally claims another victim

“Hit Bridge, Win $50,000 FINE For Repair Bill”

Maybe I missed this, but why can’t the city excavate a lower roadway? Is it swampy down there? Toxic wastes? Eldrich subterranean horrors? Utility pipes?

Ignore the distance if you want, but some percentage of the vehicles will be looking to cross the tracks and the choices are this and several level crossings which have killed people. But realistically, no, closing a road in this situation is unlikely to lead to neutral or shorter distances. One of the major parking facilities and a highway on ramp for the neighborhood are on the far side of the bridge and a lot of the trip generators are on the close side. South Duke and Buchanon, the two closest streets are both level crossings and more dangerous to lives (the bridge has a fun webcam, but the level crossings kill people).

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There’s a 100-year-old main sewer line that runs under there. And similar to the bridge, it was trenched before there were really standards for this sort of thing, so there’s not a lot of clearance above it. This part of town has lots of hills and crests, so any significant change would mean lots of regrading throughout the local system to account for the new elevation of the sewer.

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But they tried your idea of less signage under the old conditions, there were more accidents. No one constructed an abnormally low bridge. They constructed a bridge of adequate height for the vehicles of the time and then another century of road standards and vehicle design happened. Most of the alternative options change from a risk of vehicle damage to a risk to human life. These crashes are bad. Lots of the alternatives are worse.

Sewers and active roads nearby. The sewers pose the bigger immediate issue , but regrading to drop enough to reach full modern highway standards would also then require regrading the nearby streets on both ends of the bridge to not introduce a sudden drop in the roadway. You very quickly get into obscene costs down that road.

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If (and it is a big ‘if’, IIRC from the many, many previous discussions re this bridge) it were even possible to raise the bridge or somehow increase the passable height, the cost to the city would be more, unless the full cost of all changes were paid by the insurers who pay out when truck drivers damage the city’s (or railroad’s) infrastructure.

I.e. it should cost the city (railroad) absolutely nothing at present to repair their property when some idiot damages it by not paying attention to the warnings. The insurer/fleet owner, etc. pays. So any other solution costs more.

The warnings are there. They are very visible. Human factors may explain idiocy but it does not excuse it. Short of some very expensive engineering it is not readily fixable. The problem has been gone over so many times, don’t you think if there WERE a practicable fix it wouldn’t have been done by now? And from what I recall, the engineering options are very limited and have already been implemented. Have you seen the umpteen previous, lengthy threads re this bridge?

So, the city incurs no cost today, and you say it is cheaper for it to pay some unknown sum to fix the problem somehow. When you can get the people who currently end up out of pocket (insurers, drivers, fleet owners) to agree to pay for the unidentified ‘fix’ for the problem, do get back to us.

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If I were in charge,

  1. I would start with asking the drivers that hit the bridge if they saw the sign and why they chose to move forward with an understanding there is no penalty regardless of their response.
  2. I would then propose and study removing signage to reduce alert fatigue
  3. I might also consider adding low-cost pumpers to all lanes turning into that underpass like they have at mcdonalds drive throughs and parking garages.
  4. I would consider centering the bridge height specification over the lanes turning under the bridge, replacing the white “you are over height” sign with strobing red LEDs inside the text of the bridge height sign
  5. I would consider leaving the traffic light red until the offending vehicle left the intersection.
  6. When I say consider, I mean perform low-fidelity prototype testing with truck drivers to evaluate efficacy before spending money to fully implement.

These are all low cost options and none require modification to existing buildings or historical districts.

I’d make everyone wear their underwear on the outside.

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I never proposed modifications to the height of the bridge; it’s understood that is not an option.

Lawyer for the insurance company should easily place blame in the city for improper and clearly inadequate signage as evidenced by the numerous accidents.

Visibility of signs is not just a measure of the photons bouncing off the sign and colliding with a human retina. Visibility includes human attention and recognition of those signs, which is where these signs are failing.

No, I don’t think a practical fix would have been implemented by now. As everyone is quick to point out, all the truck drivers are stupid. I’m now pointing out that all people, in general, through no fault of their own, have human flaws and those flaws exist in the city/state/railroad officials as well (along with teams everywhere, working for all organizations). The folks tasked with ‘fixing’ this situation clearly don’t have the proper training - just as the truck drivers appear to lack the proper training.

Human factors is an enormous problem for most products and services, even meteoric and highly profitable ones. A product or service can be an undeniable success and still have a failing human factors score.

“If I was in charge…” I’d declare voting day an official paid holiday, defund the police, and make the Lambata our national dance.

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Your Majesty.

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Insurance companies are not dumb. If they thought they had any chance of subrogation with the city they’d have tried it long ago.

Hmm. Sounds like you need to write them a letter. Or a job application. Because ‘clearly’ every single person who has ever been involved in dealing with this has had inferior training and experience compared to yours. Go for it.

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They’ve already upgraded the signage several times; in many ways the current signage is a marked improvement. Interlinking the signage with the traffic light actually does appear to have been counterproductive because many offending trucks don’t associate the traffic light with the height warning and attempt to beat the red. (Yes, I know I’m bingoing myself, quiet @gracchus). This isn’t to suggest that the signage couldn’t be further improved, but iteration takes time and money. (Don’t assume that there have been no productive efforts made to improve this situation.)

Height bumpers are infeasible because (here we go again) Peabody has major retailers in both directions that take deliveries from the Peabody side, so there are trucks that have to drive almost to the bridge before turning. For a height knocker to be effective it’d have to be a block or two before the traffic light, when most vehicles would still be driving the speed limit, and anything sufficiently massive to get a driver’s attention would do at least minor damage to the vehicle – which, yes, is better than hitting a bridge, but not fun times for all those trucks whose regular business takes them under the knocker bar. Knocker bars are designed for low-speed encounters; this is a state highway. There might also be other constraints on a knocker bar that I’m not thinking of (e.g., maybe they are not eligible for placement over main thoroughfares due to the risk of snagging and falling or something).

Language changes to the sign are probably the most productive approach, though the question of what language would be permitted by highway code is… potentially challenging. I’m not sure I understand what your suggestion is regarding LED lights. Red strobes on a road sign are a BAD IDEA generally and possibly also restricted in use by highway code.

The traffic light can’t stay red until the vehicle leaves the intersection; sometimes it’s behind other vehicles. It’s impossible to guarantee that the light triggers when the vehicle is at the stop line; anyway, some of those trucks have to turn left.

I do think there are improvements that could be made to the signage, in summary, but at this point I think it’s really just hill-climbing. And assuming that we’re the only ones thinking about this problem right now is naive and does a disservice to urban planning professionals.

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Did I mention ruling by elected council and the mandatory vows of piety for those in power?

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I’d do all that AND @KathyPartdeux’s underwear thing, AND redistribute the wealth of the 1%… then I’d put you both in charge as Queens of America and go run a book shop somewhere…

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Me mum was driving home from a late hospital shift and ran into a train at an unmarked railway grade crossing. Bad for the car but she was okay. One week later, a guy was killed at that same crossing. THEN warning lights were installed.

Moral: Deaths might provoke action.

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We are pleased by your confidence in us.

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My specific nightmare scenario is that the Megabus driver takes a bad turn leaving the bus station and ends up on the wrong side of Chapel Hill St, then doubles back down Gregson to get back to the 147 ramp.

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Oh yeah… I know my betters when I sees them! :grimacing: I’d just screw it up anyways! Better leave me to screw up a book shop instead! Low stakes and all that!

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I’d abdicate and retire to the Caribbean.

The jewels might be missing.

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