Transportation Scholar

I’ve been testing out communications in the park. (Well, okay it’s just the Visitor Center for now). The idea is to see how well two modems can talk to one another. These modems that I’m borrowing from the USGS have up to a 40 mile range. One modem will be at each of the parking areas with one modem at headquarters. From HQ it’s 8 miles as the crow raven flies to the Windows, 12 miles from Wolfe Ranch, and 14 miles from Devils Garden. The biggest challenge will be line of sight. From this I can tell the feasibility and costs of what real-time parking or remote webcams might cost.

Here’s a picture of the YAGI, modem, 12V battery, and a behind the scenes look at the carpet in the Arches NP VC. The modem has a loopback plugged into the serial port which is used in testing. I’ll be going up into the park with another setup like this and laptop and trying to communicate with this setup at HQ.

It was 4:30PM - quitting time last Thursday and I  was getting ready to go down to grab sushi and see a free screening of The City Dark put on by the Utah Film Circuit when a law enforcement ranger told me that a search and rescue (SAR) was going on and they needed people to be on the litter to help carry the injured party out. So instead of seeing a movie I saw a helicopter land at Landscape Arch (on the sand too, avoiding the microbiotic soil crust). The injured party was life-flighted to St Mary’s in Grand Junction with non life threatening injuries. I realize that I’m not being paid for these SARs though and I’d rather let park employees get overtime if they can. However, when they’re short handed I’m more than willing to help out.

I was given Arches 3R (resurface, restoration, and rehabilitation)  project design review to look over. Estimates are that it will cost ~$24,000,000 to repave the 26+ miles of road here. For fun I was wondering what we’d need to charge each vehicle to cover this cost.

Assumptions I made in arriving at a number include:

Annual Vehicle Entrance Growth Rate: 4%
Inflation Rate: 2.9%
3R Cost: $24,000,000
Design Life: 20 years

We’d have to charge every vehicle entering $26.21 on top of the $10 entrance fee for the next 20 years to cover the cost of repairing the road. This is a napkin calculation to be taken sort of with a grain of salt, as in charging that much for vehicles to enter the park would probably see a drastic reduction in the number of vehicles entering the park. Thankfully (or maybe unthankfully depending on perspective) our taxes cover the costs of these types of projects.

The Skinny Tire Festival happened yesterday. There were 330 participants. Having so many (lycra and spandex clad) cyclists on the road actually seemed to make the roads a bit safer for all users. Cars traveling slowly and patience were the themes to this day. I just climbed up on the switchbacks and grabbed a few shots.

I made an inductor which I’ll use to count cars. It’s all open source. The microprocessor is an ardiuno, and I followed this guide. The idea is that ferric metal changes the inductance (energy in a magnetic field). A magnetic field in this case is made from a loop of wire. We’ll use this or the foundations of this to get real-time parking info. Pictures! The blue thing is the ardiuno, the pegged is a breadboard with a few resistors, diodes, capacitors, and a comparator, and the green circle is the inductive loop.

I took some long exposure shots while camping at Arches Campground. I was out there for fun on a Friday night and also because the Resource Management woman wanted to look for an owl. My “fancy” camera lets me choose between 10, 15, and 30 second exposures. I got a ride up there and biked back this time so that I wasn’t riding in the dark on Friday night. With a lighter bike, it took 1 hour 20 minutes to bike the 18 miles.

I went and did this yesterday. My car failed the safety check initially. I had to replace the washer pump. It’ll need annual safety checks now. I miss my Oregon Share the Road plates. I inquired with the DMV about Utah Share the Road plates and the woman behind the counter said “I don’t like sharing the road”. Oh.

But I also know that nothing lasts forever (cough my job cough), so it’s not that big of a step to get new plates. But now Delicate Arch is on my car and 12 miles from my apartment (preferably reached via bicycle)!

It’s been a quiet and reflective winter. Next weekend will bring the Skinny Tire Festival to town. I’m excited for spring. Summer will mean the return of touring motorcoaches and that whole association.

I decided to stay the night up at our campground before March 1st when reservations go away from first-come-first served and become reservation via recreation.gov.

I’ve ridden on Arches park roads before, but never out and back the full 18 miles on the main road. It is still my sentiment that our roads are currently horrible in accommodating anything other than small motorized vehicles. The roads are narrow and while some drivers are courteous and yield 3 feet, waiting for a clear opening from oncoming traffic before passing, other drivers are not so courteous. It’s harrowing to ride when there’s traffic and requires constant focus.

With that in mind, I do feel like there is a deeper connection with the park made on bicycle. It’s easier to take in the contrasts between sky and land, the stretching landscape, and silence only interrupted by ravens, wind rustling the vegetation, and most frequently automobiles.

It took 2 hours and 20 minutes to ride in 18 miles and 1 hour and 40 minutes to ride the 18 miles out. Anyways, here are some photos.