DDOT has a new webpage design...

Same URL as before, but a new look and a new design. I'll withhold judgement on the design itself, as I'm more of a function person than a form person. But it would've been nice for them to including EVERYTHING on the new design instead of doing parts at a time. For example, the Projects page, previously full of project information, is now quite lacking, with an announcement that "DDOT will soon be unveiling its Transportation Access Portal". Should've unveiled it with the new webpage redesign. Either that or waited until everything was ready.

Then there's the PDF handling. The new page design opens PDFs in an even smaller frame than before, and unlike previously there is no way to manually change the URL to go directly to the PDF file. DDOT gets a FAIL for PDFs.

As far as the main things I look at, that's about it. Not very promising, so far...

Am I strange to come up with fantasy freeways?

I'm sure some people would think so. For one, it'd be anathema to the anti-freeway types. Some people think it's strange that my hobby involves roads and highways to begin with. Then there's the realist in me that wonders just how I can come up with roads that wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being built.

It's gotta be the roadgeek in me...thinking of the "what if" scenario. Upgrades of existing congested highways, freeways that were proposed at one point then subsequently cancelled, completely pie-in-the-sky proposals, etc etc. "Boy, it'd be great if this road existed!"

So with that, I've revised/re-created a Fantasy MN 3. Updated the exit list graphics, added a map of the routing, and included a detailed route log...items I'm trying to introduce as "standard".

Definately some nice-to-haves...especially 4 lanes, a bypass of Rosemount, and a direct connection to US 52. Do I think it has a chance? Not at all. But that's the novelty of it, I guess...

Kansas and Nebraska photo additions

Continuing my apparent recent trend of daily updates, I've added Kansas and Nebraska gallery pages tonight.

In Kansas, I've added 13 photos of KS 7 (K-7 for you nitpickers) between US 36 near Troy and Atchison.

In Nebraska, I've cleared out the rest of my Nebraska photos, adding 14 photos of US 20 between the Wyoming line and US 385 near Chadron.

Lastly, I took the I-480 Omaha photos off the default Nebraska page and gave them their own page, in a Simpleviewer format.

One thing I forgot...

For the transit hacks out there (especially those who like maps of fantasy transit systems), I've put my Fantasy Twin Cities system into a PDF format.

Webpage photo updates

The first of what I hope to be many blog posts about updates to my websites.

A few weeks ago, I uploaded the rest of my Wyoming photos, from the 2005 summer vacation Meaghan and I took out West. New pages were created for I-25, I-80, US 20, and WY 220. All were done in the Simpleviewer format I've started to use in recent months. My US 30 and US 287 pages were also updated to the Simpleviewer format. Lastly, I added the rest of my miscellaneous photos.

Over this past weekend, I did the same with my Utah photos from the same 2005 vacation. New pages were created for US 6 (from north of I-70 to UT 96), US 89 (Logan to Garden City), and the US 89/US 91 duplex. And the rest of my miscellaneous photos were also added.

Tonight, I updated two of my Minnesota photo pages. Added 1 eastbound and 4 westbound photos to the I-94 page, including new termini photos for both MN 100 and MN 252. The other updated page was the I-94/I-694 duplex page, with 9 westbound photos from the 2003-2005 widening project.