DC pulls into a two-way tie with Atlanta for third-most-traffic-jam-plagued metro area behind perennial leader Los Angeles. Ryan Avent helps us understand why.
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Traffic
18 Sep 2007 04:41 pm
Comments (11)
The problem with DC traffic is worse than most. And a lot of that has to do with the fact that has to do with the fact you have two states involved with neither directly responsive to the wishes of the city being served. Add into that you have water surrounding the city causing there to be naturally occurring choke points. Next have a "low taxes rules111!!!" state like Virginia and there ideal of hiring civil engineers graduating at the bottom of their class (lets turn emergency lanes into traffic lanes at certain times!). Then some grand thinker decided to put AOL in NOVA and cause even more sprawl.
second-most-traffic-jam-plagued
Concerning a different kind of traffic, the NYT finally admits it shot itself in the foot. We tried to tell them... Without ever using the word blog, the NYT admits bloggers were right.
There's no real evidence that center cities are enjoying a resurgence - even the ones that have gotten safer (like San Francisco) have lost population. The current trends seem to point to ongoing, continued suburbanization - here in Maryland, there's no move into Baltimore or DC - but there are tons of housing developments going up further and further west from the major cities.
His analysis also leaves out what people actually want; plenty of us like living in the suburbs, and wouldn't have any interest in living in a dense urban center. Amongst other things, I would not want to raise a child there.
The #1 reason is simple: clueless f**king drivers who drive by the "greedy-algorithm" (always try to go as fast as possible at the moment without planning ahead).
Traffic could be much better if more people actually bothered to look at the road around them.
Top 3 Examples I see ALL THE TIME:
1)Following too damn close - Cars approaching merges routinely follow too close to the car in front of them. I constantly see lines of cars approaching a merge - easily visible from a distance - packed one after the other and no one bothers to open up space for merging cars to get in. This makes a smooth "zipper merge" impossible resulting in massive amounts of braking to avoid accidents. Furthermore, cars now waiting in line at a dead stop cut-over to the neighboring lanes causing the cars in that lanes to have to hit their brakes and the whole damn highway grinds to a halt because of a simple merge.
2) Slow drivers parking it in the left lane. I see people driving 55 (or less) in the lefthand lane everyday on the beltway. This goes hand in hand with the "moving road-block" phenomena where 2-3 cars, going the same slow speed, line up together and block other people while stubbornly refusing to move - forcing them to either accept it or careen over multiple lanes to pass them. Of course, there are plenty of nuts who do exactly that and try to move 2-3 lanes without slowing to under 80. I'd say that a significant number of accidents happens because of the interplay between these two kinds of dickheads.
3)Last minute lane changing. Everyday on 95S I see people trying to change 3-4 lanes at the last minute to make it to the exit for 495W. Signs are posted at least 2 miles from the exit, but they just stay in the left lane until they have maybe 100 yards to make it over. Of course, this makes other people hit their brakes to avoid an accident and if the traffic is even slightly heavy can cause a major slow-down.
If people would simply think ahead and drive intelligently - like by looking at the road a few hundred yards ahead and planning their actions accordingly - we could cut down problems by a huge margin. Sadly, I consistently see people who dont seem to know what is going on 10 yards in front of their car, let alone a few hundred (like the people you see race up only to get stuck behind a bunch of slow cars that they cannot easily pass and then frantically try to change lanes while they fall farther and father behind those who just stayed in the lane they were already in.)
Where's the Seattle metro area? I'd put up our horrible traffic against anybody's. Fortunately, I live in Tacoma, so I get to escape the worst of it.
Isn't part of the problem with DC metro traffic the fact that you've got a drawbridge on a Interstate 95? Or did I imagine that the last time I drove up north?
I've typed/thought a variant on that rant so many times, r4d20....the only thing you left out is the suggestion that the fact that half of them are talking on their cell phones just might possibly contribute ever so slightly to this general lack of alertness/assholery....
There's a drawbridge on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge over the Potomac on the beltway, but it very seldom opens. The big problem is the lack of bridges going across the Potomac (there's 6 total) from Alexandria up through Fairfax County. Also would help if we can get the I-95 through traffic off the DC highway network.
In my particular locale (Jersey City, NJ), I have easy access to:
*deap breath*
PATH train
3 NJ transit train terminals (NYC Penn, Newark Penn, Hoboken)
Metro North trains to NY and CT
Amtrak
city buses of at least 3 different lines
longer range commuter buses of at least 3 different lines
and now, light rail in Newark and a longer stretch going from Bayonne at least as far as Weehauken, probably longer soon
traffic? what traffic? Cars are for suckers. I haven't driven for my commute since 1999.
Comments closed October 02, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
To help broaden his horizons just a tad, and to get an idea of the issues facing L.A. which are just a tad different from those facing DC, let me suggest that MattY occasionally tunes in (via KFI's free stream) their show. While they spend a lot of time on celebrity trials and such, they also frequently cover issues that might help MattY understand L.A.'s traffic and other issues a bit better. See also mayorsam.blogspot.com
Posted by TLB | September 18, 2007 5:12 PM