lesiz

One thing missing here is >>disclosure<<. The press should get involved.

We citizens of Torrance should have been publicly notified about this hazard so we can individually decide whether we want to even drive our cars over the bridge. Mechanical systems are famous for failing. What if the flare creates 10x what it's supposed to?

And signage at the entry to the road should indicate the risk. At least drivers would have a warning and would be less likely to freak-out and cause an accident.

Update Sept 6. I attempting a posting of a picture of the entrance to the road showing in the foreground the railroad-type barrier that I suppose lowers in case of a flare. When they were building this road I was really perplexed why they were putting in railroad crossing lights and barrier when there were no railroad tracks! Now I know.

In the background of the picture in case it really does get posted, you can see the two flare stacks. Click the picture to enlarge it.

bitingduck

The EIR instructed that "remotely operated physical barriers (e.g. crossing gates) shall be constructed on both ends of the Del Amo Boulevard extension." It doesn't sound like that recommendation was followed.

lesiz

Actually there are railroad-type barriers. I wondered why these were there when there's no RR tracks. I'm inserting an image, but I think you will have to click on the link to open it or enlarge it.

hamster

I disagree on most counts.

* 2 kW/m2 is not the predicted worst case, it's the "likely longer-duration" case. (The EIR refers to an "Appendix F" or the Hazard Analysis, but I don't see it on the web site.)

* Flaring towers are 500 feet from the road. Width of the road is negligible by comparison. They also appear to be quite high. Not sure of the exact height but at least 200 ft.

* It would take a cyclist 40-60 seconds to travel through the affected area.

* Maybe a 15-foot high, 1200 foot long fence would have created enough shade to put a bike path and a sidewalk along the north side of the road. There's no realistic way to protect the south side. I don't know why that was not in the project.

bitingduck

Whoever did the power analysis for the EIR apparently disagrees-- they noted that the heat load on the south side of the road is negligible and that it should be considered for bike lanes. I haven't taken a look at the geography of the area, just skimmed the EIR. You can see them in the picture that lesiz posted- they look a lot closer than 500 ft from the north side of the road, and much less than 200 ft high-- more like 50-60 feet above the road. And there is a low barrier that would shade a cyclist riding on the righthand side of a rider on the north side of the road-- it's probably to make them less visible to drivers as they go by. Making it two layers with a few inches in between would attenuate the radiation pretty well.

For reference to what a kW/m^2 is, a typical hair dryer is around 1.2 kW, most of which is being projected out of a nozzle a few square centimeters, rather than distributed over a meter. A line of trees along the north side of the road would give a significant reduction in the radiated heat to a cyclist at the edge of the road. The trees in the middle probably give significant shade to the south side of the road, but in my skimming of the report they weren't mentioned as serving that purpose.. As it stands, a single layer of just about anything (e.g. car window) is sufficient for them to declare it safe for people to go through. Prohibiting cyclists in both directions still seems like an overreaction.

hamster

No, they are 500' from the road, 200' from each other, and much higher than 50-60'. https://goo.gl/maps/lkNKO Even at this angle, their projections are over 150' long. For scale, there are some utility poles and shipping containers in the picture, these utility poles are around 40' and containers are 8' in height. Comparing with containers, I see that the towers are right around 200 ft. When the flare is burning, flame is projected some distance further upwards.

The hair dryer comparison is misleading. Almost all of the heat produced by the hair dryer is carried away by the air, only a small fraction is transmitted to your skin. Flares produce infrared radiation, which is mostly absorbed by the skin.

Here's a better comparison. 2 kW/m2 is the energy flux from a standard "pear-shaped" 100 W incandescent light bulb, 1 inch from the surface.

bitingduck

There's a plan map in the EIR, and they are indeed 500' from the road. It shows the road as about 100' wide, which will cut the power to about 1400 W/m^2 on the south side, which isn't very unreasonable (given that noon in LA is about ~1 kW/m^2 on a sunny day)


but it's also concentrated over a *very* small area.



I get about 3.9 kW/m^2 for that, (for an A19 2.375" diameter bulb, 1 inch away, assume 100 W point source in the center of a 3.375" dia sphere, 90% of power goes to heat), so a 50 W bulb is better. I just tried it with one of the few incandescent bulbs in my house, and 60W at 1" isn't too bad, but will get uncomfortable after a while.

hamster

sphere diameter should be 4.375". Yes, it's a bit higher, it works out to 2.32 kW/m2, but it's all approximate anyway.

diphthong

sounds like a definite destination for any self-respecting group ride this weekend. htfu.

bitingduck

doh. right.

facial

Flare-up events from 500 ft away giving an intense infrared radiation source amounting to 2 kW/m^2 sounds pretty intense (if one considers that the solar spectrum has peak value at visible wavelengths, which are mostly not felt as heat). This is probably one of those Universal Studios -type intense radiative impingement scenarios, except perhaps lasting much longer at 30-40 seconds.

However, the ban is still inappropriate because car glass does not shield that much from IR radiation either. Put it in another way: should other safety hazards, such as falling debris from mountain cliffs that may be shielded by car bodies (below a certain size) be reason to exclude cyclists from Angeles Crest or Glendora Mountain Road? Although, falling debris is inadvertent and occasional, while the flare ups are intentional and occasional. Sounds to me like a multi-10-billion-dollar corporation is being chicken of taking the blame for operating a dangerous refinery close to civil infrastructure. Exxon Valdez, anyone? And I suppose if they consulted (or: influenced) the city to ban cyclists hoping to start something against cyclists being on the road, I would be discontent and prepare for lifelong war.

A valid reason to ban cyclists is if flares occurred all the time, like rocks falling on the highway like rain. Then I can see nobody daring to use it, de jure or de facto.

The most appropriate action is to post a warning sign to caution all commuters alike to beware of the flares. First should be a general warning sign saying "caution: flares" and a second one, "cyclists: danger: flares" should be enough. No need to splurge money on expensive striping when there's a lot of shoulder anyway.

My advocacy:
1. Bicycles should be tolerated, even on roads with variable safety.
2. The "road" is obviously not an "expressway" nor "freeway."
3. Cyclists' safety, like motorists' safety, is our own responsibility; hazards like falling rocks or flares, wherever appropriate, should be brought to our attention. The government's responsibility is to promote awareness and not legislate categorically against liability or contingencies.

bitingduck

In that case, again, there would likely be road users other than cyclists who are similarly affected and the correct response would be to mitigate the hazard (e.g. via a screen wall) rather than ban particular classes of users. Given the $$ spent on a very short road extension, it seems that a screen wall likely wouldn't have had that much impact to the cost. It's worth noting that the EIR didn't say "ban cyclists from the north side" it said "don't install bike lanes or sidewalks on the north side".

lesiz

One of the flares spewed flame and smoke for over an hour today. I got a photo from the west end of the road in question. I will try to post it here:
Note that the crossing gate is down.

Biker395 

FWIW ... I received no further info from the Torrance City Attorney's Office.