Talking Traffic

Randall Munroe is the man.

Lest you think I’m doing nothing with Talking Traffic here is a wordle comprising every word from every episode.

I compiled all the episodes into one document recently and just now thought, “I wonder what the wordle looks like?”

Through a set of odd circumstances, I became aware of Smackover, Arkansas, the location of the self-proclaimed “…only center of the road traffic light in the state of Arkansas….”

If you go to the google maps link above and click on streetview, you can see not only a “center of the road” traffic signal, but also a pump jack sitting in the median of one of the side streets!

I’m curious to know how this signal is controlled. Looking at streetview, I can’t see any controller box and it doesn’t look like enough equipment is sitting on the pole itself to do the job. I suppose the grey smudge I see on the image could be doing it, but I’ll have to ask a signal expert to find out.

(I’m also curious about how many times this signal gets struck by errant vehicles)

Smackover, AR official website

An amusing headline from Washington:

Parking Meters Out to Destroy the Human Race

If stop signs had been designed by committee, this is probably what you would get.

Fail Blog is a compilation of user-submitted images and videos with the colloquial title of “Fail”. If you don’t know what that means, I suggest perusing the latest postings and it will become obvious.

Signage is often a topic. This one just came up and I find it horribly amusing. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is all too common.

Warning: A great deal of the subject matter on Fail Blog is not safe for work. This particular link is fine, however

It’s been a while since my last tidbits post. Let’s try to make this a good one!

Laser walls!: Laser walls for visual cueing of the car/pedestrian interface and trying to make it safer for pedestrians in urban areas. It’s interesting.

Canadian Airspace for American Airliners: When flights heading to NY Laguardia or Newark or Kennedy amble into harsh weather, there’s not a lot of room to stack them up, or to avoid the strong winds and thunderstorms. A plan may be in place to allow these airliners to cross Canadian airspace to find favorable conditions. This is also apparently running into Homeland Security roadblocks from a quid pro quo perspective.

Passenger & Freight Rail UP while Air Transport DOWN?: Some discussion about the future of transportation and how it’s affecting the rail and air industries.

Sao Paulo has Bad Traffic: Check out this TIME article about Sau Paulo and its commuters

Wired Photo Contest: Wired magazine is having a transportation themed photo contest.

Topics: Grab Bag: Speed Measuring Units, Foreign Coins, Interstate Myths, Random Statistics, Traffic Calming

 

 Episode 10 - Another Grab-bag of Topics, Celebrating X Episodes [11:09m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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I’ve been advocating for years that we cut rumble strips into our roadways that play songs! It would be simple to space out the grooves in order to generate simple melodies.

The Japanese have beat me to it.

I still dream of hearing the Muppet Show Theme as I drive down the interstate. Someday…

Occasionally, something truly hilarious pops across my radar. This description of the operation of an intersection in Beijing, China, is one of the funniest things I’ve read on the web in a long time.

Previously posted on The Evil Eyebrow.