I can't believe I was considering it...

[+dukeofurl01]

I was looking at marks in the area, and I stumbled across KS1934 which is in a column supporting an overpass. For a second I was actually considering going there at like 3 AM and trying to run across the freeway to try and recover this one. I can't believe myself! That's just insane! Anyone else done something crazy like this?

 

There's a whole bunch of marks near here that are on the freeway, and thus inaccessible, and will never be recovered by anyone except DOT.

[mloser]

I'd do it on a Saturday or Sunday morning about 7 am. There would be enough light and probably almost zero traffic. But it wouldn't be on the top of my list of marks to recover for sure.

 

California 99 looks to be a road with wide berms and a very wide median so standing at the mark would be no problem at all.

 

I just visited it courtesy of Google Maps and I think the Rt 20 overpass may have been rebuilt as a double overpass. There is no mention of two overpasses--just the northwesterly of two columns. There are four now, and the description would certainly have mentioned that. I didn't see any evidence of the mark in the street view pics (not enough to definitely say it is or isn't there, but a good hint)

[+billwallace]

ditto, early sunday morning

[+secondgunman]

I've basically done it. That mark required parking on the other side of the road, walking a block or two on the side of the road, crossing four lanes of traffic and two interstate on-ramps, and standing on the side of the road to take the picture before heading back to the car......and that's on the busiest road in town. There's no way I'd try that except early on a Sunday morning.

 

I've never been to Chico, so I won't comment on traffic there. I have driven 99 between Sacramento to Bakersfield many, many times though. I don't think traffic would slow me down anywhere except around Sacramento. Even in Fresno the traffic was reasonable.

[+dukeofurl01]

I used to live in Sacramento. 99 in Chico isn't much different. It's a highway north and south of town, legal to park on the side of the road and legal for pedestrians, but 99 through town it is a Freeway with controlled on and off ramps, and illegal to pedestrians, and of course plenty of cops.

I'm not sure I want to risk it.

[+secondgunman]

If it were me, I'd do lots of recon, know exactly where the marker is. Maybe even verify that it's there by driving by very slowly at some point when traffic permits. Once that's done, I'd have a friend drive me late one night or early one morning for the actual grab. Just hop out, take the pic, and hop back in. You can probably do it in 30 seconds.

 

Then again......I'm crazy.

[mloser]

I've never really considered cops when doing this sort of thing but I think the roads around here all allow pulling off for emergencies at least (and benchmarking IS an emergency isn't it?). My thought in this sort of case is that I might be able to talk my way out of any ticket by doing something that is beneficial, and by doing it at a good time of day when traffic is light. The only time I won't stop is if I can't pull totally off the road so that my car won't be an obstacle. I do try to find the best spot to pull off and have tried alternate methods of approach--when a mark is on top of a bridge abutment of a busy road I will sometimes park below the abutment and climb a bank to get to it, thus avoiding traffic.

 

After looking in Street View in Google Maps I would think that on a weekend morning you could do a slow driveby to see if the mark is even there. If you spot it you could pull off IN the median and run back for a quick check.

 

Please note that I am not advocating such a visit. I am just telling you how I might handle it. I certainly don't know as much about the area as you do so my thought process may be a bit flawed in this situation.

[+dukeofurl01]

I've never really considered cops when doing this sort of thing but I think the roads around here all allow pulling off for emergencies at least (and benchmarking IS an emergency isn't it?). My thought in this sort of case is that I might be able to talk my way out of any ticket by doing something that is beneficial, and by doing it at a good time of day when traffic is light. The only time I won't stop is if I can't pull totally off the road so that my car won't be an obstacle. I do try to find the best spot to pull off and have tried alternate methods of approach--when a mark is on top of a bridge abutment of a busy road I will sometimes park below the abutment and climb a bank to get to it, thus avoiding traffic.

 

After looking in Street View in Google Maps I would think that on a weekend morning you could do a slow driveby to see if the mark is even there. If you spot it you could pull off IN the median and run back for a quick check.

 

Please note that I am not advocating such a visit. I am just telling you how I might handle it. I certainly don't know as much about the area as you do so my thought process may be a bit flawed in this situation.

 

Ah. In California, you can legally pull off and get out on State Highways (though it's not always a good idea), but not on Designated Freeways or Interstate Highways. Oddly, some routes alternate from Highways to Freeways or back again with only a sign to label the division. 99 is one of them.

 

Someday I'll get around to staking out the place first, to determine the location, like you say. I'm still kinda nervous about it though.

Edited October 7, 2010 by DukeOfURL01

[Bill93]

Rehearse your speech to the officer, and see if a sane and sober (non-benchmarking) friend buys it.

[Papa-Bear-NYC]

Rehearse your speech to the officer, and see if a sane and sober (non-benchmarking) friend buys it.

I know a guy (who sometimes posts here) who calls the cops first, gives them a song and dance together with a National Maps Corps ID, and the cops often give him an escort to find a benchmark on a highway verge. I kid you not!

 

My philosophy is the reverse - it's better to say you're sorry, than to ask permission.

Edited October 7, 2010 by Papa-Bear-NYC

[+dukeofurl01]

Rehearse your speech to the officer, and see if a sane and sober (non-benchmarking) friend buys it.

I know a guy (who sometimes posts here) who calls the cops first, gives them a song and dance together with a National Maps Corps ID, and the cops often give him an escort to find a benchmark on a highway verge. I kid you not!

 

My philosophy is the reverse - it's better to say you're sorry, than to ask permission.

 

I would be very interested to hear this. Is National Map Corps even real? If so, how do you get one of these IDs?

[Bill93]

You are more likely to get away with it than to get permission. Especially without a real ID that helps justify it. Nobody in a bureaucracy will give permission for ANYTHING. Only individual property owners do that.

 

But the decision would be based mostly on what happens if you DON'T get away with it.

 

----

 

Side note: I have worked off and on with a hobby project of doing a triangulation/resection network across my end of town by taking angles to the red lights on various towers to transfer known locations to my driveway.

 

One really nice spot to see 6 towers is the top of a parking ramp at the mall, at the far corner from the entrance where almost no one parks even during Christmas shopping. I was set up there one day when the mall security came around and made me leave. He said he couldn't give me permission to stand there and make measurements.

 

The idea of surveying really does scare people. Looking for funny brass disks is also too weird for any employee to take that responsibility.

[AZcachemeister]

I do this fairly often.

NOT recommended as an 'on the fly' idea.

I spent two days last month recovering marks out along I-10 west of Phoenix.

Most of them were in the median, but some were along the ROW fence on 'the other' side.

I wore a hi-vis safety vest, my truck has a flashing amber 'CAUTION' light on the roof, and I put out traffic cones every time I stop.

No officer felt the need to stop and see what I was doing. (And I was watching to see if any went by, but I didn't see any.)

Naturally, I would have curtailed my activity immediately had an office instructed me to do so.

 

Recovering marks in the middle of intersections is another thing I do. Assistant required.

[68-eldo]

It would be great if someone could publish the safety procedures that people that work along the highways are required to follow.

 

Those safety procedures are there to protect them and if we amateurs used them they could protect us too.

 

The police will stop and tell you to leave if they think you are a danger to yourself and/or other users of the highways. And they know the safety rules.

 

To respond to Duke’s post: If you are uncomfortable with it don’t do it. When you get it all figured out how to do this with reasonable safety you will feel more comfortable.

[mloser]

Is National Map Corps even real? If so, how do you get one of these IDs?

 

It's real: National Map Corps

 

The National Map Corps consists of private citizens who devote some of their time to provide cartographic information to the U.S. Geological Survey. Volunteers participate in projects within mutually determined work areas. The only requirements to participate are having access to the Internet and a current familiarity with the area that you are mapping.

They give you a USGS topo quad as an area and you take GPS readings at marked locations on the map (churches, schools, etc. They call them "features". Survey marks are not among them.). I was going to do it but they didn't have my closest quad, and then I started benchmarking, where I feel I am doing more good.

 

I would hesitate to present the map corps ID in a way that makes me an official representative of anything at all. If I had one I would probably only show it to say I had a relationship with the USGS as a volunteer. I would NEVER use it to get an escort to a benchmark (for one thing I am pretty sure the Map Corps doesn't do anything with survey marks). To me that is misrepresentation. In fact, presenting it while benchmarking is misrepresentation. It implies that you are doing an activity for the Map Corps when you are not. They don't collect data on survey marks.

 

I always ask permission of private landowners, but rarely of public/government (non-military. I'm not crazy!) property. Like Bill93 said, the government is simply NOT going to give permission to do something that you can get into danger doing and current society considers pretty much everything to be dangerous. I once asked a city government agency for permission to visit a mark on their property and was granted it, but I didn't ask for official permission--I just asked the county engineer. This gave me the confidence to be on the property and answer that I "had permission", but I really knew if push came to shove I was there pretty much on my own. The engineer certainly didn't write me a pass to be there. Another time I asked the state government for permission to walk across 300 feet of semi-protected land to find a mark near a dam. I was denied by the wildlife protection manager, I suspect either because he wanted to feel his power, or that the mark was destroyed and he didn't want me to find that out. This is on the same property where they allow goose hunting, but I couldn't walk into an empty field and look at the ground. (I am still working on a way around this one. I suspect a Map Corps ID would have helped. The manager wanted to know my official status and I might have been able to present that ID and get out to the mark. Too bad I won't do that.)

 

My thought process on the highway mark would be to do it at a quiet time, hope for no police presence, plan for police presence, stop my car at the north end of the overpass, in the median if I could fit, leap out, run back, see that the mark did or didn't exist, take a pic if possible, and then bolt. If a cop stopped I would simply tell him what I was doing and hope for the best. From what I know they rarely shoot benchmarkers, so the worst end result would be a ticket of some sort. That said, this one wouldn't be on my "hot list"--it is fairly new and unexciting, and finding it would only be rewarding in that I didn't get run over by a truck.

[+dreamarcher]

This is California, the land of the fence and lawsuit. No agency is going to grant you permission if you ask. It's just not going to happen. Just do it and don't bother making a story if you get caught. It's just going to be up to the cops' random personalities. You might as well say you're a squid looking for some red pepper.

[+dukeofurl01]

This is California, the land of the fence and lawsuit. No agency is going to grant you permission if you ask. It's just not going to happen. Just do it and don't bother making a story if you get caught. It's just going to be up to the cops' random personalities. You might as well say you're a squid looking for some red pepper.

 

that is so true.

[Bill93]

When in doubt try the truth.

[+Apollyon]

Heck, it's California. Do it at 8:30 on a Monday. Once the creeping traffic reaches the location, pull out of traffic, put up the hood, and go get your coords and pictures.

[+Apollyon]

I would be very interested to hear this. Is National Map Corps even real? If so, how do you get one of these IDs?

 

See the GC forum on it:

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showforum=38

 

It was suspended in 2008, due to budget issues.

http://nationalmap.gov/TheNationalMapCorps...top_GPSn_II.pdf

[+shorbird]

When using caution, much is possible.

[+Apollyon]

When using caution, much is possible.

 

 

Nice!

 

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