This is topic Ogden UTAH here We come ! in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.


To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=8;t=002639

---

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 10-27-2003, 04:47 PM:
 
Well we will in the Big State of CAL where Arni is the MAN , we intend to travel to Ogden Utah on the 6th of NOV and need advise on Travelling by road from LA to Ogden ,I have got a Travel guide from www.randmcnally.com to take the I-15 N Route 66 , travelling at this time of the year by car are we going the strike snow or black ice ??? and how safe is driving (we drive on the Left hand side)or is it better to take a Bus (Greyhound) as there are 4 of us we want to keep the travelling costs down as much as possible , Air Fares approx 216USD return 432NZD approx each and Amtrak 195USD 400NZD approx. Avis Rentals approx 230USD for 8 days plus gas not too sure about Mileage charge.
 

---

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 10-27-2003, 05:37 PM:
 
Nice road trip you've got planned there Paul! As you've noted the entire route will be on Interstate highway, which is pretty safe (divided lanes, controlled access, curves and grades designed for high speeds). Just have to watch for other driver's mistakes, like you would anywhere else. Thursday daytime shouldn't be bad traffic-wise (Friday afternoon/evenings LA to Las Vegas, and Sunday afternoon/evenings 'Vegas back to LA are very bad). And of course expect morning rush-hour driving conditions in LA from about 6AM-10AM (though the worst of it will be opposite direction to you). 'Vegas afternoon rush-hour traffic will slow you down if you happen to hit town around 4PM-7PM ('Vegas is about five hours from LA on I-15).

Thursday, Nov. 6th is still 10 days off, so will have to see what happens weather-wise. But so far, there's been no snow along your route. Temperatures are dropping below freezing at night at the higher elevations but that shouldn't be a problem unless someone spills something on the roadway

The fires in California's San Bernardino County have caused intermittant closures of I-15 and I-215 in the Cajon Pass area. Hopefully, the fires will be under control by the 6th. There are plenty of alternative routes around the hot spots though.

Some weather sites to look at:
http://iwin.nws.noaa.gov/iwin/graphicsversion/rbigmain.html
http://www.noaa.gov/

Looks like about an 11-hour drive for you that day, with Las Vegas at about the 5-hour point. Give a shout if you decide to stop in 'Vegas for lunch or something.
 

---

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-27-2003, 05:45 PM:
 
Paul,
Yea, Best to drive up here.... just hop on I-15 and take that all the way. If you like the desert as I do then take route 93 just north of Vegas to route 6 in Utah and then east over to I-15. Route 6 goes through the Great Basin area which is spectaculuar if you like big open places. There are also a couple of old mining towns... Caliente, and Pioche as you head north along route 93 in Nevada that are quite interesting. Pioche once had a population od almost 30,000 people but today is less than 2000. It still has an operating movie theatre though.

Overall I-15 is pretty boreing....although just north of St. George you can take a side trip to Zion National Park (absolutely worth seeing), Its about 30 jmiles off of I-15 and well worth the drive and sped a day there on the tour. Be sure to catch the 15/70 film at the Zion Park Large Format Theatre while you're there. You could also check out Cedar Breaks near Cedar City. So at least of you want to see stuff I guess there is an advantage of going both ways....I've just been up and down I-15 soooooo many times . Give me a call when you get in town and I'll show you around.

Mark @ CLACO
801-355-1250

When in Ogden be sure to check out the Egyptian Theatre. A real eye popper of a theatre...live and film. There is an Ernemann 16/35 in the booth there.
 

---

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-27-2003, 05:45 PM:
 
I would also recommend you to drive. You might take a bus to your location, but if you want to go anywhere else, you are pretty much in a hopeless situation here. Public transport does exist, but it is not very developed.
Driving rules are basically the same as in many other countries, you can take a look at the California Driver Handbook to master the finer points like where you are allowed to turn left over the yellow lines and stuff like that.
There is also a silver mining town next to I-15 in California, Calico. It is reconstructed a bit disneylandy, but it is worth stopping for a quick look around.
 

---

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 10-27-2003, 07:28 PM:
 
Thanks for the tips guys , I'm looking forward to the Trip and as they say "Getting there is half the Fun"
 

---

Posted by Ron Yost (Member # 1850) on 10-27-2003, 07:45 PM:
 
We drive on the right (unless we're trying to outrun the cops).

Fill up the car whenever you get a chance. There's vast distances of nothing on the route your taking, so keep the car gassed up. (Petroled up?) Gas stations are self-service where you'll be.

Credit cards are the way to go, if you can. Visa, MasterCard, etc. You'll have to visit a bank if you want money exchanged. The U.S. is very poorly set up to deal with foreign currencies in retail locations.

Our "Interstates" are generally kept in good condition. You should have no problem there.

It's not winter yet (matter of fact, it's been abnormally warm here in the West), so snow and ice shouldn't be a problem, unless you get into some high-mountain passes. I wouldn't worry about it.

Most of all .. HAVE FUN!! Do enjoy some of the absolutely stunning scenery California and Utah have to offer. Utah, especially, as Mark says.

If you have time, try to take Highway 1 up the California coast from San Luis Obispo to Monterey. One of the most gorgeous routes in the world!

Ron Yost
 

---

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 10-27-2003, 07:56 PM:
 

quote:

---

Our "Interstates" are generally kept in good condition.

---

quote:

---

Do you have Round-Abouts on Intersections in CAL ????

---

They call them traffic circles and I think there is a grand total of 2 in the 48 contiguous states!
 

---

Posted by John Pytlak (Member # 331) on 10-28-2003, 03:19 PM:
 

quote:

---

They call them traffic circles and I think there is a grand total of 2 in the 48 contiguous states!

---

Then you haven't driven around Boston, MA!

Even Buffalo NY has one.
 

---

Posted by Dick Vaughan (Member # 540) on 10-28-2003, 03:28 PM:
 
OK John ! It's a fair cop.

But for really great roundabouts you need to visit the UK.

http://www.swindonweb.com/life/lifemagi0.htm

http://www.pberry.plus.com/ukroads/magicroundabouts/
 

---

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 10-28-2003, 04:39 PM:
 
This intersection (Saw Mill River Parkway & Taconic State Parkway) was a traffic circle until the early 1970's (IIRC). Traffic jams were very common.

Roundabout History
 

---

Posted by Aaron Sisemore (Member # 145) on 10-28-2003, 06:02 PM:
 
There are three roundabouts/traffic circles here in Petaluma... It appears to be the new fad around here, rather than a 4-way traffic light, just build a roundabout!

-Aaron
 

---

Posted by Jeffry L. Johnson (Member # 453) on 10-28-2003, 06:31 PM:
 
Saw Mill River Parkway history

DESIGN CHANGES: The widening plans of the 1950's and 1960's were never implemented, but a number of measures have been undertaken to improve safety and traffic flow on the Saw Mill River Parkway in the decades since then. The East Hudson Parkway Authority undertook these measures throughout the 1960's and 1970's.

The most notable of the changes by the East Hudson Parkway Authority was the construction of the three-level "half-stack" interchange with the Taconic State Parkway (EXIT 26) between 1969 and 1972. The interchange, which has crossover ramps on the center level, provides only parallel connections (i.e., north-to-north, south-to-south); reverse connections are not provided. It replaced the dangerous "Hawthorne Circle" at this location.

Roundabout safety
From the September 2002 issue of New Urban News

Study demonstrates roundabouts’ safety

A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has determined that roundabouts — popular among many New Urbanist designers — are much safer than other kinds of intersections.

The Institute examined 24 intersections in eight states that were converted from stop signs or traffic signals between 1992 and 1997. The results that emerged are remarkably favorable:

• Vehicular accidents overall declined 39 percent.
• Accidents resulting in injuries fell 76 percent.
• Accidents resulting in death or incapacitating injury plunged 90 percent.

“Roundabout construction should be strongly promoted as an effective safety treatment for intersections,” said the four-person team of Bhagwant N. Persaud, Richard A. Retting, Per E. Garder, and Dominique Lord.

For years some New Urbanists have promoted roundabouts, or traffic circles, as an alternative to standard intersections controlled by stop signs or traffic signals. Now the Insurance Institute has weighed in with a highly encouraging, mathematically sophisticated before-and-after study of “modern roundabouts” in urban, suburban, and rural settings in California, Colorado, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, South Carolina, and Vermont.

A modern roundabout, according to the Institute, is a circle “designed for very low traffic speeds, about 15 mph.” Entrances and exits are curved so that motorists must travel slowly — far different from the rotaries of decades ago, which typically allowed drivers to enter at 35 mph or faster. The Institute says a modern roundabout typically needs to be about 100 feet across so that it can be properly designed to slow the entering traffic.

Other safety factors
Though reduced speeds help explain roundabouts’ safety, other factors in their success are the elimination of left turns against oncoming traffic, the elimination of right-angle collisions, and a reduction in rear-end collisions. Raised “splitter” islands divide the roadway at the entrances and exits, providing refuge for pedestrians and at the same time separating opposing traffic. The Institute says roundabouts may help reduce traffic delays, vehicle emissions, fuel consumption, and noise. They can save local governments money by avoiding the need to buy, install, and maintain traffic signals.

After a long period of being out of favor among traffic engineers, roundabouts have been built in growing numbers in recent years. “We use roundabouts often in both infill and greenfield design,” says Peter Swift of Swift and Associates, town planners and civil engineers in Longmont, Colorado. Roundabouts, Swift says, can accommodate high road capacity, give retail and commercial enterprises valuable exposure to traffic, provide pedestrian comfort, and create “a very safe multi-modal environment,” all at the same time.

That combination makes roundabouts “perhaps the most elegant solution to handling intersections and encouraging pedestrian activity,” Swift says. In many cases, roundabouts make it possible to slim a four- or five-lane signalized intersection into just two lanes plus a median or center turn lane, he notes. With fewer lanes, pedestrians have an easier time crossing the road.

Some designers express reservations. Mike Watkins, head of the Kentlands project in Gaithersburg, Maryland, for DPZ Architects, says a roundabout at the end of Main Street in Kentlands is a problem for pedestrians, especially the elderly, attempting to cross the busy Kentlands Boulevard.

Watkins says one of the virtues of a roundabout — its ability to keep traffic moving — is at odds with the needs of pedestrians who want to cross. In his view, a further disadvantage of roundabouts is that, “the crosswalk is pushed away from the intersection,” creating travel paths that are inconvenient for pedestrians.

Swift says the problem at Kentlands, where the roundabout in question was designed by a local engineer, is an example of an entirely different phenomenon — roundabouts that have been “designed wrong.” The Kentlands roundabout “was designed for relatively high-speed throughput,” Swift says. “There are wrong ways and right ways to design these things.”

In a correctly designed roundabout, pedestrians cross about 20 feet before vehicles enter the circle, Swift observes. Splitter islands, a critical element in slowing the traffic, can be designed with great esthetic interest, as can the roundabout’s center, he points out.

Transportation engineer Walter M. Kulash of Glatting Jackson Kercher Anglin Lopez Rinehart community planners in Orlando says properly designed roundabouts are safer for pedestrians because those on foot need to cross only a single direction of traffic at a time and do not have to be concerned about vehicles turning from unexpected directions. “A roundabout is a less direct route in terms of distance,” Kulash concedes, but the distance is usually more than offset by the fact that pedestrians don’t have to wait for a “walk” signal.

The authors of the Institute study did not have enough data to estimate the effects on pedestrian safety. The Institute said roundabouts are not appropriate for high-volume urban intersections. However, Swift points out that Michael Wallwork, a prolific Florida-based designer of roundabouts, designed a two-lane roundabout in a commercial, mixed-use location in Towson, Maryland, that handles 30,000 to 40,000 vehicles a day safely.

The full report, “Crash Reductions Following Installation of Roundabouts in the United States,” can be found at the Institute’s web site at http://www.highwaysafety.org.
 

---

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-28-2003, 09:28 PM:
 
Dick,
Yes the Airport in St. George is on top of a plateu. I did a round trip there from SLC on Mountian West. Was the most fun flight I've ever had....better than most rollercoaster rides in BIG amusement parks. The cockpit door kept poping open...catch must ahve been bad, so I could see ahead on approach. So far as I know no one has ever overshot the runway there. They'd come down on top of some retires home if they did. Mostly retirees down there. The desert lovers version of Palm Beach ya see.
I also service all the movie theatres down there...Mesquite, St. George, Cedar City.

Mark @ CLACO
 

---

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 11-03-2003, 02:39 AM:
 

quote:

---

They call them traffic circles and I think there is a grand total of 2 in the 48 contiguous states

---

Probably the largest concentration in the US would be their freely-scattered, integral part of Pierre-Charles L'Enfant's design of Washington D.C.
 

---

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 11-03-2003, 12:24 PM:
 
Just for the record, we've got five traffic circles here in Sin City--two in Summerlin and three in North Las Vegas. Las Vegas drivers are notoriously aggressive and inept so it's not surprising that the two Summerlin circles consistently have some of the highest annual accident counts in the state. The circles were recently striped and had seperator islands installed at the entrances, so we'll see if the smash numbers change.

And there is at least one major SoCal one in Long Beach, CA--I used to live just off the northwest side of it. People there seemed to be a little better at negotiating it.

Maybe it's a simple case of exposure--people get used to them after a time. The Long Beach one has been there since the 1950's; the Summerlin ones are barely over 10 years old.

I like the Las Vegas Review Journal's take on them: Traffic circles are like foreign films. The critics generally love them, but the public would rather see something else.
 

---

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 11-03-2003, 06:54 PM:
 
Most of the Roundabouts here in Auckland are treated like mini Stockcar racing tracks , the smaller ones seem to have more of a problem than the larger laned ones
 

---

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 11-16-2003, 02:28 PM:
 
Well I have returned from a great trip to the Mainland USA LA Nevada , Arizona and Utah (Drive tru only) sorry not able to meet up with any Techers while there . only a short visit and our hosts kept us busy , visited Salt Lake City and took in all the sites , Driving was good although not too many keep to the speed limit and kept the Bears busy , I did not see where they were hiding but still saw them handing out tickets ???? we had some snow in Ogden and the kids were able to make their first Snow Man , although the fall started again and that soon melted , great place in the West and we will be returning
 

---

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 11-17-2003, 01:19 AM:
 
Paul, glad you all enjoyed your vacation.

Hope the next time you'll have some time to meet the boys...

>>> Phil
 

---

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 11-17-2003, 05:06 PM:
 
Thanks Phil , i plan to take a longer visit next time as there is just too much to see in LA , Nevada and Utah , might just need a Camper Van , we stayed for a short time in Little Rock CA.saw the Aqua Duct and the Fault Line
 

---

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 11-17-2003, 10:10 PM:
 
Hi Paul, Didn't get your message till this morning but I'm glad the trip went well!! In a lifetime one would only scratch the surface here with all there is to see and do. Please do come back for more highway fun and exploring. Utah needs about 10 times the number of Highway Patrolman than it has. The problem here is that everyone driving has to be first !!! I thought driving in N.Y., and Boston was dangerous but its kids stuff compared to here.....

Mark
 

---

Posted by Mike Heenan (Member # 392) on 11-17-2003, 10:12 PM:
 
Some of the worse drivers I encountered were in Alberquerque NM. Yike that was not a pleasant experience.
 

---

Posted by Paul Cassidy (Member # 951) on 11-18-2003, 04:27 AM:
 
Sorry Mark that I was not able to contact earlier and meet up at Salt Lake but I was not able to get on the internet on my Lap Top and our hosts PC was not the best and I needed to get on to Film-Tech to get your number , the Egyptian Theatre was being used for live performance at the time I was there "story Telling" and one of the girls at the homw I was staying at was one of the story Tellers , Also loved eating at "Chuck-a-Rama" what a cheap meal for all that food .
 

---