Hybrids clog HOV lanes

[Dissipate]

All freeways should be privately owned. These government solutions to congestion are a load of garbage.

 

[CycloWizard]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
The ideal solution to all traffic problems to be to devise a way to make traffic flow uniformly.

Gridlock is caused by non-uniform movements in traffic. Some cars slower, some cars faster, leads to large amounts of inefficiency.

Imagine how nicely traffic would flow if cars all moved at the exact same speed with the exact same amount of distance between them.

Cars need to be computer controlled. It would be akin to unkinking a hose.

Unfortunately, computer controls for cars are, at best, years away. Computers are not the answer to everything, particularly controlling chaotic systems such as traffic flow. Computer driving would be great until you introduce a disturbance, such as someone merging onto the highway, then their logic goes out the window. Plus, uniform velocity is really impossible to achieve for a variety of reasons. If tire pressure is slightly low, the computer would think it's going faster than it is and so on. In short, it's not really a realistic alternative. The analog to this is trains. Lots of people all going the same speed in the same direction with no disturbances. It's a very easily controlled system that has been proven effective time and again. Unfortunately, America has so much invested in cars that this move is occurring very slowly.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: jpeyton
The ideal solution to all traffic problems to be to devise a way to make traffic flow uniformly.

Gridlock is caused by non-uniform movements in traffic. Some cars slower, some cars faster, leads to large amounts of inefficiency.

Imagine how nicely traffic would flow if cars all moved at the exact same speed with the exact same amount of distance between them.

Cars need to be computer controlled. It would be akin to unkinking a hose.

Unfortunately, computer controls for cars are, at best, years away. Computers are not the answer to everything, particularly controlling chaotic systems such as traffic flow. Computer driving would be great until you introduce a disturbance, such as someone merging onto the highway, then their logic goes out the window. Plus, uniform velocity is really impossible to achieve for a variety of reasons. If tire pressure is slightly low, the computer would think it's going faster than it is and so on. In short, it's not really a realistic alternative. The analog to this is trains. Lots of people all going the same speed in the same direction with no disturbances. It's a very easily controlled system that has been proven effective time and again. Unfortunately, America has so much invested in cars that this move is occurring very slowly.

Adding lanes to a highway is a 5 year "solution" at best. Mass transit will never become popular at a faster rate than vehicle usage. My guess is that when it becomes silly to expand sideways (adding more lanes), they'll consider adding second level highways, that have exits into the first level highways every 5 miles. The second level would absorb a lot of the trucking/commercial traffic, as well as longer distance travelers. Expanding underground (big dig style) is not feasible financially.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
You're right that one more lane would make little difference. What they need to do in California is DOUBLE the lanes in BOTH directions on ALL major freeways.

Jason

You're joking right? That's been the strategy for 50 years now, and traffic continues to get worse all the time. Build better highways, and people say 'goodie, I can move even farther from where I work now'.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: CycloWizard

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
I LIVE in California, and more HOV lanes is NOT hte answer. THe people of California don't carpool much AT ALL. We live and work in so many disparate places that very few people even *can* carpool. The carpool lanes end up taking away valuable space that could be used for traffic relief.

What California needs isn't more HOV lanes, what we need is more lanes-period.

Jason

The people don't carpool because the incentive isn't that great. If you were either guaranteed quick transit when you carpooled or guaranteed gridlock if you didn't, which would you choose? Obviously this is an oversimplification, but it's not as simple as you make it out to be, either.

The incentive idea is nonsense. In an area as diverse as California, where millions of people work in tens of thousands of different locations and live in hundreds of thousands more locations, the idea that a bunch of people are going to live and work close enough together to justify carpooling is just absurd.

I am all for hybrids, they are the best thing to hit the market in years, but car pool lanes are a waste of space, a waste of time and a waste of money.

Jason

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
You're right that one more lane would make little difference. What they need to do in California is DOUBLE the lanes in BOTH directions on ALL major freeways.

Jason

You're joking right? That's been the strategy for 50 years now, and traffic continues to get worse all the time. Build better highways, and people say 'goodie, I can move even farther from where I work now'.

You go drive on the 101 or the 405 or the 10 or the 60 or the 5 and tell yourself that's "been the strategy for 50 years". Most of these existing freeways have not been widened much at all, much less doubled. You see the occasional addition of a lane here and there, but they are sadly inconsistent. An extra lane might last for only a few miles in some cases. Then you have our junctions, which are, to say the least, a freaking nightmare. The place where the 10, the 60 and the 5 come together is one of the WORST junctions I've ever seen, spliting traffic 3 ways at ONE point and crushing 5 or 6 lanes down to three branches of 1-2 lanes.

Perhaps the WORST junction in the state is where I-15 and 215 come together, where they crush all 5 lanes of traffic down to a very narrow 2 lane junction only to expand that to 4 (maybe 5, but I think it's 4) lanes on the 15. There is PLENTY of room to expand that junction to 4 lanes, and if they did so they would relieve that bottleneck that ends up backed up for TWENTY MILES or more on Friday nights.

This is a simple problem: There is far too much traffic and far too little capacity. You figure out the answer.

Jason

 

[Dissipate]

Originally posted by: 3chordcharlie

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
You're right that one more lane would make little difference. What they need to do in California is DOUBLE the lanes in BOTH directions on ALL major freeways.

Jason

You're joking right? That's been the strategy for 50 years now, and traffic continues to get worse all the time. Build better highways, and people say 'goodie, I can move even farther from where I work now'.

Maybe it is time to start thinking outside the box and start allowing private enterprise to come up with solutions. Private solutions to public problems work a lot better than public solutions to public problems, trust me.

 

[DragonMasterAlex]

I'll trust history on that count, but you're certainly right.

Jason

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: Dissipate
Maybe it is time to start thinking outside the box and start allowing private enterprise to come up with solutions. Private solutions to public problems work a lot better than public solutions to public problems, trust me.

Sadly, 'pave the universe' which is the logical result of private roads, as long as people are simply willing to pay for more, has the negative effect of eliminating farmland, housing, etc, and uses so much land that it forces settlements farther from employment cores; if you pave thousands of acres, you can't very well build houses there.

At least DMA thinks this is a brilliant idea though; and he gets to vote in your country

 

[3chordcharlie]

Originally posted by: DragonMasterAlex
You go drive on the 101 or the 405 or the 10 or the 60 or the 5 and tell yourself that's "been the strategy for 50 years".

Do you have any idea how much more capacity there is than 50 years ago? I don't know the specific city you're talking about, but the growth in Toronto is probably triple the freeway lanes in the last 50 years, and many 2 and 4 lane roads are now 4 or 6 lanes.

Improving exchanges is a useful idea, especially when there is space to do so. But just because there is room to increase an exchange to 4 lanes doesn't mean there will be room to make it 8 lanes a few years from now. There are more people driving in every major city every year, and they drive farther. Single occupant commuting is simply not sustainable in major cities, the way it is currently practised!

Is there room to add freeway space? Of course! Most places there is! But there isn't room to continuously add space, and most lane additions suffer from gridlock as soon as they open. The fact is most people have alternative options (many of them are even subsidized, creating incentives to take trains or buses), and are simply willing to accept gridlock, high fuel costs, etc rather than make use of those options; this is what 'free choice' chooses. I don't understand why they choose that, but they do.

 

[beer]

The solution is to think like every other major city in the world. There are cities many times more dense than in california and their solution was rail systems. No matter how many roads you add, there is never going to be an end to traffic problems. People will just move farther away and commute further and it's an unending cycle. People are opposed to mass transit for many reasons, but at some point, it will have to happen - look at NYC, Tokyo, Moscow, Seoul as prime examples of really dense cities, beyond the scope of anything in California.

 

[MadRat]

The older countries and cities of the world have long since popped the barrier that CA struggles with as far as traffic is concerned. CA needs a metro transit system thats flexible like the Tube in London or the Metro of Paris. The rail networks all serve many branches within distinct routes. You pay one rate, going into the gare, and then hop on your train as needed. No excessive costs because the same trains run 24/7 on regular routes. As routines of traffic changes, so do the trains, keeping overhead down. CA's problem is that you are a bunch of independent-minded miscreants who couldn't co-op a solution together if your lives depended on it. Learn symbionism.

 

[dszd0g]

I live in the bay area and drive a hybrid. Last I checked I still cannot use carpool lanes. California approved allowing hybrids in carpool lanes, but we are still waiting for federal approval (with out losing our federal freeway income, and the Bush administration seems to have California assigned to the bottom of the federal priority list).

Adding HOV or more lanes in general is a temporary solution at best. We need a greatly expanded light rail and bart system and it should be free. I know that would be expensive, but it is much cheaper than the endless battle with expanding and maintaining freeways. The only way I see to making public transportation catch on here is to have free public transportation. We also drive around late. A lot of bus routes stop at 10pm. We would need every bus route to run 24 hours a day. From midnight to 6 am there only needs to be a route every 1 hour, but people need to be able to get home. The taxpayers would have to foot the bill, but I believe it is worth the investment. Cars are expensive here. I wouldn't mind taking a little longer to get to work if it was free.

 

[Steeplerot]

Every hour? No thanks I have em here coming every 20 minutes even at 3 in the morning in front of my house. Car? bwahhahaha! more rent and food money for us.
A fastpass is 40$ and you are set for a month. The 510 needs 24/7 buses with good service. Freeways and more cars are pointless dead end waste of infrastructure $$
That we lack seriously bad.... damn bridge.