Submitted by needathneed t3_zqyn4y in RhodeIsland
From Middletown/138 and the Newport side there's a light now, significantly backing up traffic. Yesterday I was stuck in the roundabout by Walmart due to the new light they installed. Either way, you must face a stop light or stop sign to get on the bridge.
I hope it either smoothes out or they have other things planned eventually when the construction is over because egads. I miss the days last week when I could easily merge onto the bridge.
When I first saw the plan a lot of alarms went off. I kept wondering how they thought this was going to make things better. Then I realized, I saw a lot of talk in those presentations about reducing accidents, but nothing about improving efficiency. When you understand the traffic engineers were probably presented with "please design something that will reduce accidents," absent another parameter to "also improve efficiency," this is what you end up with. Who cares about efficiency? And if traffic is at a standstill, bingo, fewer accidents. On paper, at least. In the real world, that probably won't be the case.
These engineers don't operate in the real world, so what do you expect? Another example is over in Jamestown, the entry onto 138 heading to the bridge is way too short. I know someone who brought it up to RIDOT, and some engineer got back to them saying they'd crunched the numbers and the entry was plenty long enough for the speed limit there. No kidding, genius, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize traffic is routinely traveling 10-20mph above the posted limit there, creating potentially unsafe conditions for vehicles trying to enter the highway. Their response when that was pointed out? That's not their problem, that's a law enforcement issue.
What I got out of that is that there's gonna be 25 acres of developable land available after this is all done. So thanks RIDOT, totally worth it.
Maybe they should have started by just tearing down the Newport Grand and putting something there. How much space do they think they need? Do we need 25 more acres for a bunch of stores to sit empty?
The Newport Grand property is owned by RI commercial real estate development company Carpionato Corp. The company plans to redevelop the casino land. It has yet to finalize those plans and has given no definitive answer to when, or whether, it will move ahead with any construction.
You have a keene eye for things. Glad you seen through the smoke screen of government funding.
Thank you, this looks like a great redesign - can't wait for it to be complete!
I'm stuck in this traffic now. It's a total clusterfuck.
be safe
imagine with summer traffic. It's going to be impossible
This design seems insane. There seems to be a lot of pinch points that will just create a ton of traffic. And now because of all the lights, your stopping people from getting on the bridge to wait for people getting off whereas before there were two separate ramps for each. I hope they have a plan on how to fix this, because it seems like a total mess that will lead to more accidents.
That's exactly it, the waiting for others to get on/off thing. What in the FUCK
My own slight hope is that when it's done, maybe there will be more lanes in places that make sense, but I'm not hopeful. The layout just doesn't make any sense to me. It just seems like you've taken a full duplex road and converted it to half duplex with the stupid lights.
The old traffic pattern was smooth this new pattern is an unnecessary traffic jam generator!
I work by the base and have to go through the this to get home. They already screwed up the rotary which was impressive enough. As soon as that gets clogged up traffic gets backed up in every direction. Unless they can sort out a smooth transition towards the bridge without going through a light This is gonna be brutal for a long time. Whatever civil engineering firm did the traffic analysis on this should be allowed to sue the school they got their degrees from.
The whole point of a rotary is to let the flow of traffic continue without stopping, and the stop lights just what, 100 feet in front of it is killing that effect.
Guess what's gonna go on that land.
Probably a Hotel, that will tower over every other building in Newport.
Newport is going to kill its own tourist scene, it's just a bunch of giant hotels and bars, there's nothing to do, it's overcrowded, and overpriced.
I have to go on base monthly to login my creds, a couple months ago I was like oh, this is new… but my coworker and I were talking and I was like oh boy, this is gonna be like the cluster that was installing the barriers on the bridge (and at that time I was working on the island 5 days a week so… not fun).
Hoping it smooths out a bit!
Husband commutes to the island each day and said it was a clusterfuck - is what is up now permanent?
Edit: They did this to create more parcels for development and create an "innovation hub"? Are you kidding me? What snake oil salesmen came up with that line of bullshit?
I was caught in this absolute monstrosity today. Added 40 minutes to the commute. Wanted to cry.
We live in Middletown and commute across the bridge most days. Like others have said, the minute there's any traffic its gonna be just terrible. This looks like the perfect way to make traffic worse. Also, thismorning I got stuck behind a driver who refused to turn right on red and backed up traffic to the round-a-bout. A few days ago, we would have been halfway over the bridge by the time the light turned and they finally turned right. I don't get it.
I drive this every day… its going to add 20 minutes to my commute easily and for no reason… every day will be a traffic jam where there was rarely one before.
At 6:00pm traffic was stopped at rotary for light and traffic backed up on on ramp from Newport. Poorly planned and will be a disaster in the summer.
Whoever did the analysis in the presentation posted to the DOT page on this appears to have thought, "Oh, most of the accidents occur at the traffic circle! We better break that up!" Not realizing the accidents come from the roundabout being a chokepoint of high volume flow and all they've managed to do is increase friction with stoplights, which will increase accidents, and that's according to... https://www.dot.ri.gov/Safety/roundabout_safety.php
All this traffic is causing crashes, what if we make MORE traffic!
I was at the Walmart plaza around 3pm and it was already a cluster of traffic. I can only imagine at rush hour. My gripe is that the lights are way too long and there is no way that this will be sustainable ESPECIALLY come summer.
On another note, I became the asshole who didn’t realize the right lane was a right turn only lane now (bc ya know, no sign stating that) and got yelled at by a traffic cop. All the way around we are just doing great things in Newport!
I’m not really seeing how going from a gentle curve to a 90 degree turn onto a short road that has a light at the end is doing anything other than causing traffic
It's not about traffic... It's about selling that land...
Yup
They need a dedicated right turn lane (with no stop required) from the roundabout onto the bridge connector (or whatever they want to call that road). That would get things back to where they had been mostly. The exit from the shopping center is still going to screw things up but that will at least help manage the issue.
Oh so you mean the way it was?
Bingo!
Some RIDOT bureaucrat has their feelings hurt and is on here downvoting everyone.
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They need to delete that new light. It would solve everything
How about deleting the entire project
DOT director needs to resign. So many debacles with their designs and creating horrible traffic over the years
laterbacon t1_j10on01 wrote
Details here: https://www.dot.ri.gov/projects/pellbridgeramps/