Does america really need another civic

[manjambles]

YouTube- New Kia Forte Koup 2010 Driving

YouTube- New Kia Forte Koup 2010 Driving

[Rodeoflipper1818]

Das es Koup, ya?

[Eyeflyistheeye]

This thread. it fails.

[AlpineE30M52]

I want my 47 seconds back.

[Mykl]

Looks like a good car to buy your kid when s/he turns 16.

[Tim-H]

If I have kids they can buy whatever the hell they want when they turn 16, they'll be spending their own money, not mine.

[AVANTI R5]

COMPLEX The “Orange Crush” interchange in Santa Ana, Calif., once notorious for baffling drivers, has been upgraded in an attempt to reduce confusion and improve traffic flow

CIRCULAR Roundabouts, like this one in Ohio, are making a comeback for their safety benefits.




STIMULUS Signs for work financed under the Recovery Act, like this one in Cleveland, sprang up in many places this summer.

NEW YORKERS maintain that Los Angeles is a city with no center. But Angelenos argue that the city of freeways has its core in the Stack, a tower of overpasses — the first four-level connector interchange, according to the California Transportation Department — where the Pasadena, Harbor, Hollywood and Santa Ana freeways intersect.

The Stack has long been a postcard symbol of the city. It is, as they like to say at chambers of commerce, a signature structure, as the Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building are for New York. When citizens fled attacking aliens in the 1953 film version of “The War of the Worlds,” they scrambled beneath the Stack and were jammed on the new Hollywood Freeway.

A city and country centered on the automobile are by necessity also centered on the road. Today’s highway intersections are not just landmarks but the modern equivalents of crossroads and town squares, meeting places that become geographical centers of reference.

And both as landmarks and utilitarian features of life, they are getting more consideration. With federal stimulus money flowing to shovel-ready projects that have been on the drawing boards for years, new intersections are sprouting all over.

In recent months, drivers sitting in traffic at construction sites have grown accustomed to seeing signs that say Putting America to Work and bear the recovery.gov symbol or the striped letters of Tiger, which stands for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery.

The Obama administration’s stimulus program, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, calls for spending about $27 billion on highway improvements and repairs. According to the Federal Highway Administration, more than $20 billion of that money has been committed — or to use the government term, obligated.

Federal highway money goes to state transportation and highway departments, not directly to contractors, but nearly 5,000 local projects are under construction and more than 8,000 have been authorized, according to information posted at recovery.gov and the Web site of the highway administration, part of the Transportation Department.

In New Jersey, construction crews are completing the connection between the Garden State Parkway and Interstate 78; for decades, motorists have clamored for such a link. In New York City, federal stimulus dollars will pay for new ramps on Staten Island, and to the Brooklyn Bridge, according to the office of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.
Intersections are among the public works honored by America’s Transportation Awards, a competition sponsored by the AAA, the United States Chamber of Commerce and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials. The winners, chosen for reducing costs and time of construction — not just efficiency or beauty — were announced in October.

The people’s choice award, chosen by on-line voting, was a project that added high-occupancy-vehicle lanes to Interstate 95 in Miami. Farther up I-95, in New Haven, a rehabilitation of intersections was singled out for praise.
Earlier awards also went to notable intersections. The MacArthur Maze, near the east end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, was honored not for its size or the convoluted pattern of its ramps, but for contractors’ heroically rapid repairs after it was severely damaged in a gasoline tanker-truck fire in 2007.

Other standout interchanges include the Marquette Interchange in Milwaukee, which has been called the crossroads of Wisconsin’s largest city, where Routes I-43, I-94 and I-794 meet. Officials and engineers have previously honored the I-35 Interchange in Lenexa/Overland Park, Kan.; marveled at the unique curved bridge of the E-470/I-70 Interchange in Aurora, Colo.; and applauded a five-level interchange near Austin, Tex.

Interchanges have more artistic fans as well. Yutaka Sone, an artist who creates models of Los Angeles freeway interchanges like the Stack, works in white marble, the traditional material of heroic sculpture. He makes a point: the freeway intersections are the heroic landmarks of Los Angeles, like domes and towers in London or Paris.

With their soaring ramps — the British term for an overpass, the flyover, is aptly colorful — and sweeping bridges, the grandest interchanges of major highways mix the thrill of a roller coaster with the grandeur of a Roman aqueduct.
Interchanges in other countries are as important as the Stack.

One of the landmarks of Stockholm is the Slussen, an intersection from the 1930s merging highways, pedestrian parks and waterfront. It is now being redesigned and will be rebuilt.

The frequently unnoticed complexity of intersections is brought home to drivers in the sorts of maps offered by Mapquest, Google Map and in-car navigation units that provide new perspectives on the knots and twists of intersection ramps and overpasses. Interchanges show up on screens in all their varicose variety, like tortured Celtic knots
Not all intersections are dramatic, of course. The most common type is what highway builders call the grade crossing. In its most basic form, it is the crossroads, a place of powerful spiritual meaning in song and story. Oedipus had a moment of truth at “the crossroads where three roads meet,” and it’s where blues singers met the devil and made a deal. (Think of songs like “Crossroads Blues,” and all those references to Highways 61 and 49 in the blues country of Mississippi.)

The automobile demanded new sorts of intersections. One early form of circular intersection was named the gyratory. A highway intersection laid out in a symmetrical pattern, the cloverleaf, opened near Woodbridge, N.J., in 1929.
There are fashions in highway design, as in everything. The latest intersection trend is the return of the circular interchange, popular in the early days but largely supplanted in later planning.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that about 1,000 circular intersections have been built, and the Federal Highway Administration has embraced them. They have been blessed by advocates of the so-called new urbanist movement and by environmentalists who believe they can cut fuel consumption by reducing acceleration from stoplights.

“Roundabouts are vastly safer than traditional intersections, and most drivers like the circular intersections once they get used to them,” stated an article in the June 2008 issue of Status Report, the publication of the insurance institute. The article praised the roundabout for its ability to “virtually eliminate the most serious kinds of crashes that occur at traditional intersections controlled by traffic signals or signs.”

The design of intersections varies not only with the amount of traffic they carry but also with local conditions and local philosophy. Michigan mixes stoplights and extra lanes at grade crossings to produce the Michigan U-turn, an intersection shaped like a button hook. In heavy traffic areas where a left turn at a stoplight would involve a long wait, New Jersey offers its Jersey Jughandle, a loop from the right lane that brings you to the stoplight from a side road.
How well intersections and highways work does not depend just on their layouts. Culture matters. The German autobahns would not work without a careful respect for the distinction between fast and slow lanes. Similarly, the calm alternate car mergings on some freeways contrast with the showdowns of Manhattan-bound drivers lining up for the Hudson River tunnels, who give way only at the last minute.
It is perhaps a matter of culture, too, that New York City drivers are barred from making right turns after stopping at a traffic lights. The inconvenience of this restriction, enforced through most of New York City but not practiced in Los Angeles, was made light of in “Annie Hall,” the 1977 Woody Allen film.

“I don’t want to move to a city where the only cultural advantage is being able to make a right turn on a red light,” said Mr. Allen’s character, Alvy Singer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/au...er=rss&emc=rss

[skywatcher]

I'd get that over a Civic.

[curiousfish]

I felt the same way the 1st time I saw pics.... too similar to JDM Civic

[whoosh]

america needs a good american "civic"

[Tim-H]

Originally Posted by curiousfish

I felt the same way the 1st time I saw pics.... too similar to JDM Civic

Well, Americans wanted it. It just took KIA to bring it over. I'd buy the KIA. If you spec them out the same(Civic Coupe vs Forte Koup) and the Forte comes in 3.5k less on MSRP and has the better warranty.

[Mykl]

Based only on pictures I'd rather have the Kia.

Based on a drive... I don't know, haven't sat in either.

[Mariano]

Originally Posted by curiousfish

I felt the same way the 1st time I saw pics.... too similar to JDM Civic

I'd hit it...

[Magic Marker]

Just based on looks, I'd pick up the Koup. Need to drive one though.

[greg donovan]

i like the hood better on the Kia.

[DeathSStar]

Originally Posted by AVANTI R5

COMPLEX The “Orange Crush” interchange in Santa Ana, Calif., once notorious for baffling drivers, has been upgraded in an attempt to reduce confusion and improve traffic flow

Fail

The top photo is not in Santa Ana, or even in CA. Hell, it's not even in the pacific time zone.

It's a view of the new layout of the Marquette interchange in Milwaukee.



ibwhocares

[ControlFreak]

I'll ride a bike before you see me in that hunk of crap..

[Dex]

Originally Posted by ControlFreak

I'll ride a bike before you see me in that hunk of crap..

Srsly, those overpasses are so crappy looking.


I like the car though. Pretty sweet. My neighbor has the 4dr, very solid looking. The interior is nice too. Good thing people still think these cars are crap , public retardation keeps the MSRP down.

[woody06967]

I prefer "ritard"

[brianbot5000]

The Kia looks nicer than the Civic.

[darknightohio]

Originally Posted by brianbot5000

The Kia looks nicer than the Civic.

Well to be fair, the Civic has been out for much much longer. If Kia somehow made it look worse than the Civic they would be a bunch of morons. A new Civic is brewing at Honda as we speak.

Kia has been doing this for years, copying style from Honda and Toyota...I don't understand why anyone would be surprised.

[AVANTI R5]

Originally Posted by DeathSStar

Fail

The top photo is not in Santa Ana, or even in CA. Hell, it's not even in the pacific time zone.

It's a view of the new layout of the Marquette interchange in Milwaukee.



ibwhocares

They never stated it was. That was the opening picture to the article.

[SCRAPPYDO]

Originally Posted by darknightohio

Well to be fair, the Civic has been out for much much longer. If Kia somehow made it look worse than the Civic they would be a bunch of morons. A new Civic is brewing at Honda as we speak.

Kia has been doing this for years, copying style from Honda and Toyota...I don't understand why anyone would be surprised.

It may be brewing, but is it coming out of the same caldron as the Crosstour, the Acura TL, the new Pilot.

I will pass on all Hondas, until the designer gets off his shrooms.

[boostdog]

Originally Posted by SCRAPPYDO

It may be brewing, but is it coming out of the same caldron as the Crosstour, the Acura TL, the new Pilot.

I will pass on all Hondas, until the designer gets off his shrooms.

+1

although the koupe didn't get as good as rating as the civic in some tests that i have seen for the $ it's a great car.

[Yotsuya]

Originally Posted by DeathSStar

It's a view of the new layout of the Marquette interchange in Milwaukee.

So it is; I didn't recognize it from that direction. Heading north to Milwaukee it's not so bad, though any freeway with flashing lights and curves that say '45mph' is wrong.