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Diverging Diamond Interchange

Post by AlanOfTheBerg
EDIT: Changed subject line to match the name of the interchange. I left it misnamed below in my post
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Hi all.

I was chatting with a friend who is a traffic engineer and he told me about a new type of intersection being implemented in the US. Currently, he says there are only two of these, one in MIssouri and other in Utah.

I believe he called it an 'inverse double diamond' or 'double inverse diamond' or something like that. It's a new way to improve traffic flow for a limited access freeway/highway with a lower volume roadway intersecting at a right angle. The interchange is for medium-volume traffic flow overall.

What's odd about it from a US-perspective is that on the non-freeway roadway, traffic direction is inverted under or above the freeway. That is, you are driving on the left for a distance until the other side of the interchange.

I just thought I'd drop this note because it looks interesting. I was thinking about mocking it up in a deserted area of Eastern Oregon which I am an AM of, just for visual sake so you could see how it works, but, just before posting this, I found it on the good ol' net. The Federal Highway Administration calls it a Double Crossover diamond. Check it out!

-Alan
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
I am pretty sure this is the interchange in Cartouche. Aerial are old and the interchange matches the aerial right now. But I think I see a match between the aerial here and the FHA picture linked to previously.
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
jondrush wrote:Single Point Urban Interchanges are more interesting to me, because they can solve existing urban issues without consuming more land.
I have at least on of those on I-5 in Salem, OR. I've seen them several times in Memphis, TN. I don't see that they consume considerably less land than the diverging diamond, though.
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
Use the links previously in this thread to read more about them. They actually improve traffic flow dramatically.
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Post by AlanOfTheBerg
There is no way to remove all problems. You call out one exception which affects both types of interchange flow. I can't argue with that. Add lanes to the ramp would help for a while.

[OT]
The best way to remove traffic bottlenecks is to remove traffic. :) This means combining carpooling, massive increases in mass transit, specifically buses and trains, alternative personal transportation, massive internet infrastructure increase to make telecommuting a true reality for more workers, and reduce suburban sprawl by capping allowed children per family at 2.
[/OT]
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Post by bgodette
gettingthere wrote:And what is the logic with this so called 'double diamond' crossing? To cause a head-on collision when someone doesn't think for a second and ends up on the incorrect side of the road?

And what purpose does this serve? Something similar to a traffic circle but more efficient?
I think the "issue" that it tries to solve is asshats making a left from freeway exit that enter and block intersections when the traffic is backed up, thereby causing a secondary jam on the crossing street. But it really doesn't, now it just moves the asshat point a little bit further out on the crossing street to the crossings on either side.

The SPUI works far far better than this ever could as it's controlled by what's effectively a single set of lights. It's a normal intersection writ large and prevents "lets zoom down the exit lane and up the ramp, through the exit intersection and down the entrance ramp back onto the jammed freeway" maneuver that just makes the jam worse for everyone else as you merge again.
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Post by bgodette
AlanOfTheBerg wrote:Use the links previously in this thread to read more about them. They actually improve traffic flow dramatically.
I did and I'm just not seeing the improvement over an SPUI for vehicle traffic, it just moves the problem a little further away while adding an expense of driver confusion for the first few they encounter. It might be better for interchanges with pedestrian and bicycle traffic however.

Think about it this way, what happens when the on-ramp gets backed up to the point where the tail is reaching the crossing points, then add in some yahoo parking his SUV right in the middle of it. Same thing as conventional diamonds.
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Post by CBenson
jondrush wrote:Single Point Urban Interchanges are more interesting to me, because they can solve existing urban issues without consuming more land.
Hey, that looks familiar. I just cleaned up one of those here: http://www.waze.com/livemap/?zoom=15&la ... yers=BTTTT

All the ramps were already there and the arterial road (Telegraph Road) was already split, so I just edited the connectivity to make the intersection work. However, I suspect I will have to go back and simplify the interchange at some point.
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Post by CBenson
jondrush wrote:Cool, yep that would be a lot easier if Telegraph hill wasn't split. Also prolly shouldn't be a Major Highway, should it. :geek: :mrgreen: :twisted:
Yeah, there are a lot of split highways in the base map here that I wouldn't have split. I'm not taking the time yet to convert them. And yeah, Telegraph should probably be a minor highway. But I don't worry much about the labels.
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Post by Daknife
This is a rather old thread, but I wanted to add the insight of someone who regularly drives through both DDI's and SPUI's. While both are very efficient, the DDI is actually much more difficult to make a deadly mistake on. The first time I drove through a SPUI, it was early in the morning and I turned a little too far left and found myself on the wrong side of the center divider. Had there been any oncoming traffic there could have been an accident. And that was a newly opened interchange with nice bright paint marking the lines. With a DDI there is no question as to which way you are to go, to turn into oncoming traffic requires an intentional excessive angle turn to the right. It's intuitive, no wondering if you're following the right dashed line.

At first these looked confusing, but after a couple times through I decided they are just the opposite. Now they are cropping up all over the place. As to space requirements compared to a SPUI, the SPUI's in Utah are much wider than a traditional interchange, DDI's are much longer. A couple DDI's that have just opened fit into the space much better than a SPUI would have. The DDI's pushed a interchange back away from the freeway, but required no buildings and very little non-road land land

https://www.waze.com/editor/?zoom=5&lat ... FTFTFFTTTT This one put turn restrictions on the intersection immediately to the west of I-15 and the main stop light was moved to the next intersection to the west. As it was built in an existing underpass it simply couldn't get any wider and it didn't. The whole set of intersections all flow so much more smoothly now than they did before the rebuild. Nobody get's caught waiting in the middle of an intersection waiting to turn left. Which ever way you want to turn, you just get to the appropriate travel lane and take the turn as you move with the flow of traffic. These really do work very well.
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