Quote:
Originally Posted by Mazrim
I don't get where people keep saying Stoney was designed for 130 km/h. It's not, and there's plenty of online links to the contract documents that show otherwise. It's designed for 110 km/h, posted 100 km/h. Always has been, always will be. Anything you see or hear saying otherwise is incorrect.
The reason it feels so easy to speed? The government decided to make Stoney Trail "barrier-free", which means putting all hazards outside the designed "clear zone" area for 110 km/h. Generally speaking, this is 9 to 12 meters depending on the curvature of the road. They also added additional requirements for shoulder widths, horizontal and vertical curve design and sight distance designs that well exceeded the 110 km/h design criteria on normal projects.
So while this means the road is more forgiving to people who make mistakes on Stoney Trail, it also makes the road feel incredibly open and smooth, so we all feel it's too slow to "just" 110 in a 100.
Highway 1 and Highway 2 are designed for 130 km/h outside cities, and those are only the roads in Alberta designed to that speed.
Highway 3 will always be 100 km/h unless they widen to a divided 4-lane highway. You will never see a 2-lane undivided road signed for over 100 km/h for many obvious reasons.
Congrats on not being caught speeding. Please stop tailgating me - I'm already doing 110.
|
In my opinion this is terrible human centric design. It encourages drivers to drive faster than the design speed because of perceived safety. Instead using barriers will reduce speeds naturally to the design speed. Also since Stoney has only a few curves and is relatively flat the design speed of the as built state of most of the road is greater than the 110 set out in the contract documents