Cities Turning to Bicycles

I really find it hard to understand how he could justify a decreasing
radius turn as being a reasonable thing to build. Just because a
roading program can spit out the stakeout points for a particular
piece of roadway, that doesn't mean that it is a good idea to build it.



Such a turn could be designed explicitly for the purpose of slowing
traffic. In that case, a sign can warn of it.

Wayne

"Nate Nagel" wrote
So Frank is an engineer? I thought someone mentioned that he was a
professor? I did a quick search on his name but all I came up with were a
couple bicycling columns that seemed oddly reasonable, given his posts
here.

Yes, he's a prof at Youngstown, has a BS & MS in Engineering (looks like
the general engineering type of degree), along with a PE license (in Penn,
not OH).
He's on the right in the pic at http://www.eng.ysu.edu/tech/index.htm.
And his vitae is at
http://www.eng.ysu.edu/faculty/facul...AME=frkygowski

You'll probably get a reply soon on your lighting post - he's done some
sort of work for bicycle lighting generators so probably believes he knows
everything about it.

He's *all over* cycling newsgroups and websites.
Google is awesome, but I sometimes have severe concerns about the
WWW and privacy issues.

Floyd

In article ,
Wayne Pein wrote:


I really find it hard to understand how he could justify a decreasing
radius turn as being a reasonable thing to build. Just because a
roading program can spit out the stakeout points for a particular
piece of roadway, that doesn't mean that it is a good idea to build it.



Such a turn could be designed explicitly for the purpose of slowing
traffic. In that case, a sign can warn of it.

Wayne

Describe a situation where that would be useful...

--
Alan Baker
Vancouver, British Columbia
"If you raise the ceiling 4 feet, move the fireplace from that wall
to that wall, you'll still only get the full stereophonic effect
if you sit in the bottom of that cupboard."

In article , Wayne Pein wrote:

decreasing radius turns

Such a turn could be designed explicitly for the purpose of slowing
traffic. In that case, a sign can warn of it.

If a curve is desired to slow traffic, then take the tightest radius
value and use that for a constant radius turn. It will slow traffic just
as good if not better and not have the drawbacks.

Mark Jones wrote:

"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...

I'm not interested in excuses about how difficult decreasing radii can be..


This is bad design. For a PE to say what you just said is ridiculous.
To resort to a decreasing radius means that the overall design is flawed.

You should be able to go through a curve without needing to slow
down the whole time. This is how you end up with trucks on their
side with their cargo spilled all over the place.

Are you saying you couldn't handle a decreasing radius curve? Do _you_,
personally, need to have only _increasing_ radius curves to be able to
successfully stay on the road?

How about on a two lane road? Do you want to see only increasing curve
radii when you're heading, say, east?

And Mark - what sort of engineering tricks do you want used when you
turn around and drive west?


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]

"Alan Baker" wrote in message
...
Again, you're lying.
No need to ever hear from you again.

PLONK

Frank Krygowski wrote:

Mark Jones wrote:

"Frank Krygowski" wrote in message
...

I'm not interested in excuses about how difficult decreasing radii
can be..



This is bad design. For a PE to say what you just said is ridiculous.
To resort to a decreasing radius means that the overall design is flawed.

You should be able to go through a curve without needing to slow
down the whole time. This is how you end up with trucks on their
side with their cargo spilled all over the place.


Are you saying you couldn't handle a decreasing radius curve? Do _you_,
personally, need to have only _increasing_ radius curves to be able to
successfully stay on the road?

How about on a two lane road? Do you want to see only increasing curve
radii when you're heading, say, east?

And Mark - what sort of engineering tricks do you want used when you
turn around and drive west?


Blind curves should *never* be decreasing radius. Never. If a road has
traffic in two directions, a blind curve should be, by necessity,
constant radius.

This isn't that difficult a concept to grasp; I don't know why you're
having such trouble with it.

nate

--
replace "fly" with "com" to reply.
http://home.comcast.net/~njnagel

"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
So Frank is an engineer? I thought someone mentioned that he was a
professor? I did a quick search on his name but all I came up with were
a couple bicycling columns that seemed oddly reasonable, given his posts
here.

According to the what I could find out, he is a Professor with a
Professional Engineer(P.E.) certification. I sure looks like he
teaches in the Mechanical Engineering Technology program.

Kind of interesting what he teaches, considering that I have
a B.S. in Electronics Engineering Technology and built a
large scale automated test system that would be related
to his interests as listed on the following page.

http://www.eng.ysu.edu/tech/MET.htm

Scroll to the bottom of the page.

"Wayne Pein" wrote in message
. com...


I really find it hard to understand how he could justify a decreasing
radius turn as being a reasonable thing to build. Just because a
roading program can spit out the stakeout points for a particular
piece of roadway, that doesn't mean that it is a good idea to build it.



Such a turn could be designed explicitly for the purpose of slowing
traffic. In that case, a sign can warn of it.

The only one that I ever remember encountering did not have
any warnings posted and the posted speed was O.K. for the
entry, but not for the rest of the curve. I saw what was happening
right away and got on the brakes or it would have gotten real
interesting.

I do not like decreasing radius curves as they can be very dangerous.

Brent P wrote:


I would suggest Frank ride his bicycle through a decreasing radius turn
that wasn't visable until he was in it such that it forced him to brake
hard. This would probably be the best lesson as to why this sort of
design should be avoided. Braking while turning is as ill-advised on a
bicycle as it is driving. Probably more so.

:-)

Almost every time I make a turn on the bike, it's done with a decreasing
radius, and with braking while in the turn! This is normal for a bicycle!


Sheesh. Newbies!


--
--------------------+
Frank Krygowski [To reply, remove rodent and vegetable dot com,
replace with cc.ysu dot edu]