A turn lane in Rhododendron • Hacker News Board

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#11

Post by libraryofbabel » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 4:16 PM UTC

The larger issue, of course, is that eccentric individuals and niche special-interest groups are able to use the planning process and the legal system to jam up all sorts of infrastructure projects in America, from simple turn lanes all the way to high-speed rail. This is not the only reason America has trouble building infrastructure, but it is an important reason. See Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson‘s new book Abundance for a long-form analysis of this… or for a contrast with the US’s “lawyerly society” (and, of course, the disadvantages of leaning too much in the other direction) Dan Wang’s Breakneck: China's Quest to Engineer the Future that just came out.

Both are excellent books and will probably appeal to a lot of Hacker News folks with an engineering/builder mindset.

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#12

Post by jauntywundrkind » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 4:21 PM UTC

Found the rock pillars, FWIW. Gorgeous trees around this area! https://maps.app.goo.gl/7gBd3MuvnmscNLUr6

And you can go back to 2007 to see the old highway, https://maps.app.goo.gl/Qd9evKz7vUnxt1FQ6

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#13

Post by ineptech » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

oftenwrong wrote: post #3

Would a wider road not embolden drivers to increase their speed?

The issue isn't people going too fast, it's people turning left. 26 basically connects Portland on one end and Mt Hood recreation stuff on the other, and it used to be that there wasn't that much in between. Over the last few decades, a lot of development has gone up, meaning a lot more businesses and neighborhoods along both sides of 26, plus the highway has gotten a lot busier.

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#14

Post by bell-cot » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

At what point do you assume that the still-objecting NIMBY's either have personality disorders, or are motivated by malicious self-aggrandizement?

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#15

Post by threetonesun » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

Four lane roads like this, in any context, or any part of America, are an absolute disaster of civil engineering. I get that in the 60s or whenever they were built you had a situation where some cars could barely accelerate up an incline but by the 70s they should have all been reworked.

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#16

Post by cholmon » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 6:02 PM UTC

libraryofbabel wrote: post #11

The larger issue, of course, is that eccentric individuals and niche special-interest groups are able to use the planning process and the legal system to jam up all sorts of infrastructure projects in America, from simple turn lanes all the way to high-speed rail. This is not the only reason America has trouble building infrastructure, but it is an important reason. See Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson‘s new book Abunda…

Freakonomics interviewed Dan Wang about his book Breakneck back in September, see episode #647. It's a very interesting lens through which to view both societies, worth a listen!

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#17

Post by jonah-archive » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 7:34 PM UTC

Among the many reasons that stretch of 26 is dangerous is that the approach from Portland is essentially a freeway from Gresham through Sandy, and then turns into a rural highway until it begins the climb up to Hood. This is because of a remnant of the Mount Hood Freeway construction, which resulted in a lot of little oddities that linger in Portland to this day: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Hood_Freeway

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#18

Post by throwaway173738 » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 7:48 PM UTC

hamdingers wrote: post #9

BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #4

I don't believe I've been on that stretch of road, but it seems to me that if the concern is safety there are other alternatives to adding a turn lane, the most obvious of which being a reduction in the speed limit.

A reduction in design speed of the road has to accompany a reduction of speed limit for it to be effective. Narrower lanes, etc. It sounds like the residents are opposed to, well, anything.

Actually many of the residents were in favor of changing the road. One person decided to fight the entire project on the basis of a cairn of rocks that 5 or 6 archaeologists agreed had no cultural significance.

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#19

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 03, 2025, 10:33 PM UTC

libraryofbabel wrote: post #11

The larger issue, of course, is that eccentric individuals and niche special-interest groups are able to use the planning process and the legal system to jam up all sorts of infrastructure projects in America, from simple turn lanes all the way to high-speed rail. This is not the only reason America has trouble building infrastructure, but it is an important reason. See Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson‘s new book Abunda…

[deleted]

Re: A turn lane in Rhododendron

#20

Post by devilbunny » Tue, Nov 04, 2025, 9:40 PM UTC

threetonesun wrote: post #15

Four lane roads like this, in any context, or any part of America, are an absolute disaster of civil engineering. I get that in the 60s or whenever they were built you had a situation where some cars could barely accelerate up an incline but by the 70s they should have all been reworked.

State highway departments don't generally completely rework a road that's less than 20 years old.

That said, one of my uncles had a VW Beetle in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and he was pulled over by a state trooper. The trooper said, "I clocked you doing 65 in a 55." He replied, "Sir, I stopped at that light half a mile back. If you can get this car to do 65 mph between there and here, you can have it." He did not get a ticket.