
New Mexico's Singing Road - chris_overseas
http://thesingingroad.com/
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szszrk
There is an awesome short video on such roads by Tom Scott, where he explains
how it went badly in Lancaster, California [1]. Twice. That one plays off key.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef93WmlEho0)

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s5300
Lancaster is awesome.

Despite it being y'know, the high desert, they're total fucking hillchucks out
there (I say this as an Appalachian, and the poorer part of the poorness that
is Appalachia at that...)

They shut down a sizeable portion of downtown for a weekend every year.
Literally shut it down. For a fuckin Grand Prix.

Last year, they out of the blue ran into an acquaintance of mine who
builds/races custom electric skateboards that can hit 60mph+ (our new speed
trap record is 57mph uphill, dude is insane) and invited us out on a whim to
race ~45mph on a winding 0.7mile track. Was cool, and the methed out crowd
that is the high desert seemed to enjoy it, despite it being quite different
from karting... Invited us out again this year and most likely will for the
foreseeable future.

I never got wind of the price the organization had to pay to the insurance for
adding a few dozen random people averaging 42mph on pieces of wood (and
chromoly...) on a short track with several tight hairpins a week before the
race (which is always finalized at least a year in advance...)

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jasonlingx
> They shut down a sizeable portion of downtown for a weekend every year.
> Literally shut it down. For a fuckin Grand Prix.

They do this in Singapore too. They used to close all the roads in the city
for 2 weeks just for the F1, but slowly got more efficient (or less over
abundantly cautious) over the years. It’s all for the $$$ here though.

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injidup
And when you drive the wrong way down the road it sings "worship satan ...
worship satan"

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msla
No, you hear people screaming at you to stop and pull over.

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anderskaseorg
> You must drive the speed limit in order to hear the road “sing”; go to slow
> or too fast and it won’t work.

That’s not how physics works, though. Go too slow or too fast and you’ll hear
the same melody in a different key (before you crash).

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TheRealSteel
I'm fairly sure this would only work within a certain speed range, cars have
suspension, there's other noise to contend with, and human hearing is limited.

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jtbayly
Sure, at 450MPH all bets are off on the high notes, but rumble strips don't
suddenly stop making noise when you drive 90 MPH.

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ChuckMcM
I've not seen this one, but have seen others. I much prefer this sort of
technique to change behaviors (get people to drive more slowly, or take the
stairs by turning it into a piano keyboard kinds of things), than threats of
enforcement fines or jail time.

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thaumasiotes
In a similar vein, I've heard of a building addressing the problem "everyone
complains about how long it takes to wait for the elevators" by, instead of
trying to speed up the elevators, installing mirrors next to them.

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bobthepanda
Airports also do this, by making the walk to baggage claim rather indirect. It
turns out that people don't really mind the walking, but they do mind the
waiting, so the solution is to make the walk match the time it takes for your
luggage to actually get to the claim.

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jacquesm
That only works in airports where the distance from the various gates is
roughly equal to the reclaim area. Schiphol is definitely not one of those,
from some gates it is 30 seconds to baggage reclaim, from others a stiff 10
minute walk.

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RyJones
Delta always seems to land at the gate in Belgium, you walk over to Amsterdam,
then walk to the baggage claim over in Rotterdam.

Every time I fly in, I’m amazed at how much time we spend taxiing and how far
from passport control our luggage claim is

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awiesenhofer
> I’m amazed at how much time we spend taxiing

I am baffled by this every time I am flying as well. That alone - for me at
least - is a huge argument for taking the train vs the plane when traveling.
Never had more than a 5 minute walk in european trainstations and no baggage
claim either.

~~~
jacquesm
The main reason that landing strip is where it is is because of noise
pollution rules. Schiphol was/is growing very fast as an international hub
(faster still now that Heathrow will be out of the EU) and that caused a lot
of flights over densely populated areas. There was some talk about moving the
airport into the sea but that didn't work out either so in the end they added
another strip in a relatively unpopulated area that allowed starts and
landings from the direction of Alkmaar / Heemskerk / Beverwijk. Most of those
including the line-up turns are over agrarian areas, though in some cases the
agrarian strip is only a few 100 meters wide, for instance between Heemskerk
and Uitgeest where a lot of planes make their turn into final approach.

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RickJWagner
That's awesome!

But how did they resist the urge to make it sing "On the road again"?

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carapace
There was an advertising gimmick I saw once that consisted of a plastic ribbon
that you attached to a balloon. The ribbon had ridges on it that encoded an
audio blurb. You pinched it at the top and pulled down, running your thumbnail
over the ridges, and the balloon acted like the diaphragm of a speaker to play
the audio.

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wizardforhire
I’ve thought of a similar idea only with graffiti and still images along the
concrete barriers with the images spaced and timed with the flicker of street
lights to give drivers passive information in the peripheral to indicate when
their driving the speed limit. Essentially like the strobe pattern on
turntables.

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yellowapple
I wonder if this has an impact on tire wear? I'd imagine the bumps would wear
down the tread faster. Probably negligible for such a short stretch, but still
curious if there's been any sort of analysis to that effect.

~~~
pp19dd
Studies of rumble strips - this being one - have rather focused on crash
reductions, noise pollution, effect on cyclists and roadway cracking. By all
accounts, tire wear is beyond negligible unless you're driving on a flat tire.

Only measurable damage in studies appears to be road wear (edge cracking) and
the effect of migrating cluster of accidents to stretches of road without
rumble strips.

Vehicle crash reductions vary from state to state but averages lean toward 20%
overall, 45% head-on and sideswipes, and 65-70% on long highways. Of those
reductions, 20% less alcohol and drug related run-offs, 40% less sleep-related
incidents.

The best rumble strip design is the one most hated by cyclists.

[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S199668141...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1996681416300670)

[https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/research/conts_rumb...](https://safety.fhwa.dot.gov/roadway_dept/research/conts_rumble/conts_rumble.pdf)

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SECProto
> The best rumble strip design is the one most hated by cyclists.

What design is that? Links do not make anything clear.

As a cyclist, I think any rumble strips would be annoying if they eliminate
the shoulder (the only somewhat safe place to bike). But in Canada rumble
strips are mostly only used on highways, where you'd never want to bike
anyway.

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pp19dd
First link: "Outcalt 2001 [9] Tested vibration and sound readings for cyclists
and 4 vehicles types. SRS rated best by cars and worst by cyclists.
Recommended design was 3/8″ depth, 12″ width, 48′ skip pattern with SRS and
12′ gap"

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juliushuijnk
Here is a singing road that was quickly canceled as it was driving people
crazy who lived nearby:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTSZLvcQXY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNTSZLvcQXY)

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rob74
Yeah, you should only do stuff like this where nobody's living in earshot -
which is easier to do in the US than in the Netherlands of course...

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burlesona
Here’s a YouTube video of the road in question. Pretty cool!

[https://youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78](https://youtube.com/watch?v=E6Nl53bCC78)

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awiesenhofer
Reminds me of this Top Gear Clip

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcgdoyinus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zcgdoyinus)

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dreamcompiler
Great example of sigma-delta modulation. (Or it might actually be PWM. I
should get out and look at it some time.)

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aklemm
I just drove past this with my kids on I40 three days ago. Didn't know about
it! How disappointing.

