By LESLIE MILLER, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 50 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - If getting stuck in traffic makes you want to roll down your car window and scream, look no further than another of those studies to find the bad news: Gridlock is getting worse. Congestion delayed travelers 79 million more hours and wasted 69 million more gallons of fuel in 2003 than in 2002, the Texas Transportation Institute's 2005 Urban Mobility Report found.
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Overall in 2003, there were 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 2.3 billion gallons of wasted fuel for a total cost of more than $63 billion.
"Urban areas are not adding enough capacity, improving operations or managing demand well enough to keep congestion from growing," the report concluded.
Honolulu became the 51st city in which rush-hour traffic delayed the average motorist at least 20 hours a year. The Hawaiian capital joins such congested areas as Washington, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago — and Virginia Beach, Va., Omaha, Neb., and Colorado Springs, Colo.
The report was released Monday, the same day the Senate resumes debate on a bill that would spend $284 billion on highways over the next six years.
But that's not enough money to solve traffic problems, according to highway and transit advocates.
The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials estimated it would take as much as $400 billion in federal spending over the next six years to solve traffic problems, based on a 2002 study.
Roads aren't being built fast enough to carry all the people who now drive on them, according to the Transportation Development Foundation, a group that advocates transportation construction.
The number of vehicle miles traveled has increased 74 percent since 1982, but road lane mileage only increased 6 percent, the foundation said.
Tim Lomax, a co-author of the Urban Mobility Report, said the soft economy and slow job growth in 2003 meant that congestion got worse more slowly than it would have during better times.
"The upside of a slowdown in the economy is the congestion didn't get worse very quickly," Lomax said.
In seven of the 13 major cities, the annual delay per rush-hour traveler actually went down slightly: Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, New York, Houston and Philadelphia.
Lomax said that didn't mean congestion improved throughout each area. It probably just spread out to the suburbs.
"In most of those places, delay actually went up, it just didn't go up as fast as the number of people moving in went up," Lomax said.
Only job loss or major commitments to expand capacity will decrease congestion dramatically, he said.
Refusing to build more roads and transit systems won't discourage population growth, Lomax said.
Take fast-growing Austin, Texas, for example. In 1982, the average peak-hour traveler was delayed by 11 hours a year. That delay increased to 51 hours in 2003, the report said.
"Austin didn't add transportation capacity in the '80s or '90s," Lomax said. "The 'If you don't build it, they won't come' philosophy didn't work."
Congestion can also be reduced by managing traffic better. The report said such techniques as coordinating traffic signals, smoothing traffic flow on major roads and creating teams to respond quickly to accidents reduced delay by 336 million hours in 2003.
Robert Dunphy, senior resident fellow for transportation at the Urban Land Institute, said that half of all traffic delays are caused by car crashes.
"There are huge benefits to getting in there and clearing accidents quickly," Dunphy said.
Commuters also adapt, said Alan Pisarski, author of "Commuting in America" and a transportation consultant.
"People give up and go somewhere else," he said. "Or else they're leaving home at 6 a.m. or 9 a.m."
___
Total insanity. The cure for all this is to spend more BILLIONS On road construction. They seem to forget that we are spending billions TODAY for road new road construction and all it created was more traffic.
rs_woods
05-09-05, 02:54 PM
What about flying cars?
Dahon.Steve
05-09-05, 03:34 PM
What about flying cars?
Not for another 5000 years!
I don't know where the author want's to add capacity. There's no more room for roads in New York City, Los Angeles or Houston.
randya
05-09-05, 03:40 PM
Even with unlimited funding for purchase of right of way and road construction, you couldn't build new roads fast enough to accomodate all the new cars and trucks built and purchased in this country each year. This problem is only going to get worse, until the oil runs out, or we make a change from the current suburban lifestyle, which depends on private vehicles for transportation, whichever comes first...
SpokesInMyPoop
05-09-05, 04:38 PM
Even with unlimited funding for purchase of right of way and road construction, you couldn't build new roads fast enough to accomodate all the new cars and trucks built and purchased in this country each year. This problem is only going to get worse, until the oil runs out, or we make a change from the current suburban lifestyle, which depends on private vehicles for transportation, whichever comes first...
Honolulu's got it pretty bad... a lot of people there are into buying the newest cars and homes... hell, my sister has gone through 4 cars in the past 10 years! There's even a freeway that runs directly above a major street by the airport (were they trying to save space somehow??) to relieve congestion. Sadly, nobody bought into the monorail idea in the late 80's (then again, it'd prolly break down every week with the way things run down there), and Waikiki is overridden with motorized trolleys (not attached to any rail... looks like a trolley car on 4 wheels, emitting its lovely smog).
Maybe one day, we'll be using the remains of cars to build our homes. Hopefully I'll be back at the beach, fishing and gardening in my little grass shack (watch out for hurricanes!).
DieselDan
05-09-05, 04:49 PM
No Sh!t sherlock.
Chris L
05-09-05, 04:52 PM
No Sh!t sherlock.
Absolutely spot-on. This falls into the "yeah, now tell me something I don't know" category.
SpokesInMyPoop
05-09-05, 05:16 PM
at least the media is feeding it to the masses... this article was just another push.
skanking biker
05-09-05, 05:23 PM
No Sh!t sherlock.
Dig deeper Watson
pseudobrit
05-09-05, 05:31 PM
I never sit in traffic during my commute. I often never even see the taillights of another car.
Working third shift probably has a little something to do with this. If I had to work daylight, I'd be riding in without a doubt.
konageezer
05-09-05, 06:19 PM
What about flying cars?
Oh, Lord have mercy!
Can you IMAGINE those millions and millions of aggressive, sleepy, incompetent, distracted commuters in flying cars? Talk about a whole new scale of carnage. Fiberglass fireballs would be plunging to earth every 15 seconds.
The mind reels.
-=Łem in Pa=-
05-09-05, 07:06 PM
The new wave of assault by carpetbagging , charliton land developers is called 'TND', meaning Traditional Neighborhood Development whereby they cram as many houses, sometimes 10-15 to an acre, on as much cement as they can....then the worst part about it is what they call 'Traffic calming measures' where they build curbage out into the road, make cars back out into oncoming traffic when leaving a parking space and put huge speed lumps every 50 feet. This is the rage here in the east. These abominations are spreading like a plague. There is no hope and we have terminally lost when the prevailing mentality of the people who are building out this country have determined for us that mass congestion and gridlock is good for us and it should become an accepted way of life.
pseudobrit
05-09-05, 07:34 PM
The new wave of assault by carpetbagging , charliton land developers is called 'TND', meaning Traditional Neighborhood Development whereby they cram as many houses, sometimes 10-15 to an acre, on as much cement as they can...
I know exactly the types of houses you're talking about. They're popping up everywhere in my county, where they're covering the most fertile non-irrigated farmland in North America with thousands of these abominations.
It's the most sickeningly depressing, ugly looking thing you've ever seen. Row upon row of nearly identical grey or beige, PVC-sided houses with a 2-car garage and a small lawn fore and aft. Randomly winding roads with intermittent sidewalks, gently sloping kerbs that double as rain gutters. Homeowners associations dictating what you can and cannot do to your own property. The most hideously boring and tasteless architecture known to man. Must drive to anything (shopping, work or school) because there is nothing inside the development except 120 other identical-looking houses.
No wonder suicide is up. I'd kill myself if my family had tried to raise me there too.
randya
05-09-05, 07:58 PM
The houses are ugly because no one wants to hire an architect or design to a standard that is better than lowest common denominator. Building roads with speed bumps is an admission that drivers can no longer be expected to behave responsibly and drive at safe speeds in residential neighborhoods -they're just in too much of a hurry to get to their next pointless destination... :(
lilHinault
05-09-05, 08:17 PM
What they do in SoCal is take a traditional neighborhood, buy a house on a lot, demolish the house, then put in a 4-unit or an 8-unit if it will fit, condo. Then you have 4X or 8X the traffic emitted from that site.
And I know Honolulu, it's really easy to spend 1 hour going 1 mile anywhere in the greater Honolulu area. For some reason bikes are really, really rare though. Scooters are big there, they get stolen a lot, but I did the math and figured out that if I got a used scooter, say $400-$500, that looks ugly but runs ok (light bodyweight helps here as they tend to lose some of their pep over time) I could afford to get it stolen once a year and still beat buying a monthly bus pass for price. There's no splitting lanes for scooters though, although you can pull a few "sneakies" here and there, and the main advantage of a scooter there is there's NO parking, and you can park a scooter a lot of odd places.
ivan_yulaev
05-09-05, 08:27 PM
Wow, tell us something we don't know ;)
The point is, more roads won't fix anything. It's like in some urban areas (can't remember which for sure, san francisco?), they added highway lanes until some highways got to insane numbers, like 8 lanes each way. However, adding lanes didn't affect traffic in the slightest, because of the merges etc., traffic speed remained the same.
So, we're all screwed! Except for those of us that realized we don't need a 5000 lbs. cage to get around.
randya
05-09-05, 10:32 PM
I-5 through Seattle is 12 lanes wide, 4 in each direction and 4 reversible express lanes, and it's a traffic nightmare.
Vancouver BC wouldn't let the freeway into downtown and they're doing fine without it.
Portland passed on the Mt. Hood freeway and used the money to build a light rail system that works. There's still two freeways downtown and an outer loop that predictably fill up twice a day during 'rush' hour.
-=Łem in Pa=-
05-10-05, 04:54 AM
The houses are ugly because no one wants to hire an architect or design to a standard that is better than lowest common denominator. Building roads with speed bumps is an admission that drivers can no longer be expected to behave responsibly and drive at safe speeds in residential neighborhoods -they're just in too much of a hurry to get to their next pointless destination... :(
I am on a committe to fight it in our township....we try but we lose.
The 'designers' say pedestrain friendly is the way our once rural, farming township
should be......the new people want to walk. This is too funny ! People walk ?!?!?!
Suuuuuurrrrre......................C'mon, really.
pj7
05-10-05, 06:24 AM
It's a good thing the money is spent doing research like this, god knows cancer isn't that big of a problem. Maybe next they can spend $250million to do research showing that yellow + blue = green. Do we really need some "scientist" telling us traffic is getting worse?
As far as flying cars; people still haven't mastered four-direction control of vehicles yet, add pitch/yall and a Z-axis to navigation and of course the traffic problem would decrease, because the population would dwindle (read: death due to stupidity).
I guess Chucky Darwin was on to something....
Man do I miss the days of living on a farm, 30+ miles from the nearest non-family neighbor :(
H23
05-10-05, 06:49 AM
It's a good thing the money is spent doing research like this, god knows cancer isn't that big of a problem. Maybe next they can spend $250million to do research showing that yellow + blue = green. Do we really need some "scientist" telling us traffic is getting worse?
As far as flying cars; people still haven't mastered four-direction control of vehicles yet, add pitch/yall and a Z-axis to navigation and of course the traffic problem would decrease, because the population would dwindle (read: death due to stupidity).
I guess Chucky Darwin was on to something....
Man do I miss the days of living on a farm, 30+ miles from the nearest non-family neighbor :(
Actually, the report itself has a lot of interesting information, and some sound suggestions for improvement.
Its really sad that this report is presented to the media-consuming public in sound-byte sizes, because what most people will take away from that study is that we need to drastically increase our road building projects in order to reduce commute times-- look at LA, they went from 98 hours/year wasted in 2002 to 93 in 2003. Isn't that great!? :(
Here is the actual report....
http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/congestion_report/index.htm
pj7
05-10-05, 07:35 AM
Actually, the report itself has a lot of interesting information, and some sound suggestions for improvement.
No doubt it has some interesting information in it, but money could be well spent on something more important or more pressing to the American people. Sure, traffic is a problem, but it is a problem we have brought upon ourselves due to our own inert laziness and profound gluttony for saving time, making more money, and getting a quick fix.
Sorry, I'm still flustered about this situation (http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=105592) that happened locally. As a soon-to-be-father and one who has gone thru this sort of thing in the past (my first child died over 10 years ago due to a drunk driver) it really hits close to home and clearly shows that we have to improve other aspects of life before worrying about how to get to Burger King faster today than yesterday.
The automotive industry in general pisses me off. Every single car commercial available is the same thing, some guy on a deserted country road, red-lining the tach, and hugging the guard-rail-less curves overlooking a lake or seashore. Sure does look neato doesn't it. Where are the car commercials that show a mom with 3 screaming kids sitting in gridlock? Then kids and young adults buy these cars and attempt to pilot them in the same manner and boom, removes some innocent family from the face of the earth.
Or some drunk ass driver destroys another mans family. (http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/4445112/detail.html)
As far as the topic of this thread is concerned, yeah I'll admit, it makes you think, it has some good information in it and makes some nice points. It also makes one glad that they chose a more sensible form of transportation (http://www.bikeforums.net/forumdisplay.php?f=20) than petrol eating, poison deficating beasts of steel. But in the end, the people are doing it to themselves, it shouldn't be a burdon upon the governemnt to rescue the people from their own stupidity.
Maybe all those "The End is Neigh" zealots holding up signs at the overpasses were on to something, Slouching Towards Bethlehem comes to mind.
H23
05-10-05, 07:54 AM
No doubt it has some interesting information in it, but money could be well spent on something more important or more pressing to the American people. Sure, traffic is a problem, but it is a problem we have brought upon ourselves due to our own inert laziness and profound gluttony for saving time, making more money, and getting a quick fix.
...
I agree to some extent, but the problem is complex because that we can't instantly transform our cities to fix these things in one step. You simply can't remove highways. It will never happen, ever.
I really wish we had European scaled towns. Small dense cities with public squares and narrow streets. But we can't there from where we are now. Instead, we have to mitigate the situation we have. In my view, this means unprecedented investment in public transit and "smart growth" policies. All of this stuff begins with studies that identify the scope of the problem.
The government has to step in at some point, if not, the developers will (and are), and all they care about is their bottom line-- sprawl and quality of life be damned.
pj7
05-10-05, 08:10 AM
I agree to some extent, but the problem is complex because that we can't instantly transform our cities to fix these things in one step. You simply can't remove highways. It will never happen, ever.
I really wish we had European scaled towns. Small dense cities with public squares and narrow streets. But we can't there from where we are now. Instead, we have to mitigate the situation we have. In my view, this means unprecedented investment in public transit and "smart growth" policies. All of this stuff begins with studies that identify the scope of the problem.
The government has to step in at some point, if not, the developers will (and are), and all they care about is their bottom line-- sprawl and quality of life be damned.
After a few minutes to relax and laugh about the fat chick that barked at me on my commute home yesterday, I'm opt to agree with you morely now.
Guess I was still a little hot headed earlier, though I still feel the same now as I did then.
"sprawl and quality of life be damned" - bet the founding fathers didn't have that in mind.
....
Honolulu became the 51st city in which rush-hour traffic delayed the average motorist at least 20 hours a year. The Hawaiian capital joins such congested areas as Washington, Atlanta, Boston, Chicago — and Virginia Beach, Va., Omaha, Neb., and Colorado Springs, Colo.....
In seven of the 13 major cities, the annual delay per rush-hour traveler actually went down slightly: Dallas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, New York, Houston and Philadelphia.....
....
Total insanity. The cure for all this is to spend more BILLIONS On road construction. They seem to forget that we are spending billions TODAY for road new road construction and all it created was more traffic.
Bah, humbug. A big sigh and a question...who cares? Another endless rag on how it sucks to live in a city. Maybe 1% of this nations land surface is taken up by urban areas, where, for two periods of time (the morning and evening rush hours) folks have to wait in traffic.
As for me? I relax riding in the country air in New England. Let 'em rot under the streets of Boston...they wanted their big dig, now let em lie in it.
roughstuff
cyclezealot
05-10-05, 08:53 AM
We will be at Hononulu airport the second week of July..on our way to Molokai with an overnight at Polynesian Cultural center..thanks for the tip...
my attitude about building freeways..it only encourages them...the definite portend of suburbanization on a massive scale as urban areas quadriple in area..
what I favor as a way to save ourselves from total loss of mobility..."Green laws' controlling development, like they have in Europe and mass transit.and of course the bicycle to get around the gridlock.
Dahon.Steve
05-10-05, 10:33 AM
Actually, the report itself has a lot of interesting information, and some sound suggestions for improvement.
Here is the actual report....
http://www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/congestion_report/index.htm
It's that old report. I'm sorry to reposted this because it's old news!
The report was interesting but I doubt anyone read it because there was VERY LITTLE in it's support for public transportation. I thought it was a new study released today.
H23
05-10-05, 10:49 AM
We will be at Hononulu airport the second week of July..on our way to Molokai
....
Hey, have fun in Molokai. That is one of my most favorite places on the entire planet.
~50 mile long island with micro-climates ranging from desert to rain forest. Stunning vistas, pristine beaches, and really nice people. I was deeply relaxed for weeks after coming back from there.
scarry
05-10-05, 11:00 AM
It's that old report. I'm sorry to reposted this because it's old news!
The report was interesting but I doubt anyone read it because there was VERY LITTLE in it's support for public transportation. I thought it was a new study released today.
The study is just a sales pitch for the highway building lobby.
Chris L
05-10-05, 03:38 PM
at least the media is feeding it to the masses... this article was just another push.
No, the media is just whining on behalf of the masses, something they have been doing for as long as I can remember. Whining is just an easy way to sell newspapers.
jakemoffatt
05-10-05, 04:06 PM
Shrink the roads, install traffic circles, merge the sidewalks with the roads, remove all signs and signals.
Force the cagers to communicate with each other and with the peds and bikers.
Build smaller cars. Really. Like the smart cars. I mean... traffic would be only 25% as bad if cars were 50% as long and 50% as wide. There would be four times as much road/car ratio and the long line at the exit from the freeway would only be half as long or a quarter as long with the extra lanes. Take away lane stripes and let people use the extra space and you've got even less space wasted.
How many times have you been on a WIDE lane and not been able to pass because theres no stripe for a passing lane? Thats stupid.
Getting rid of stripes and lanes would make a more open road because people would also be encouraged to get smaller cars to take advantage of filtering. Just like motorbikes filter through.
There was an article on Wired a few months ago about a dutch(?) guy who created roads like this and they worked very well and were very safe.
It would be interesting to test this in the States and see how it works.
Basically the idea behind the dutch guys design is that traffic rules/roads are still engineered the way they were in the 1900s when cars were an unknown and traffic was very very light.
Personally I think all cars should be equipped with a bot-driver that uses GPS and communicates with the other nearby cars and auto-navigates/coordinates a course to a given destination. Drivers are too unreliable/unskilled to do that themselves. If a person could not/would not upgrade to this, given say... 5 years to meet the requirement, then they would not be allowed to drive their vehicle. The biggest problem with that plan though... is making it and instituting it.
genec
05-10-05, 04:36 PM
Shrink the roads, install traffic circles, merge the sidewalks with the roads, remove all signs and signals.
Force the cagers to communicate with each other and with the peds and bikers.
Build smaller cars. Really. Like the smart cars. I mean... traffic would be only 25% as bad if cars were 50% as long and 50% as wide. There would be four times as much road/car ratio and the long line at the exit from the freeway would only be half as long or a quarter as long with the extra lanes. Take away lane stripes and let people use the extra space and you've got even less space wasted.
How many times have you been on a WIDE lane and not been able to pass because theres no stripe for a passing lane? Thats stupid.
Getting rid of stripes and lanes would make a more open road because people would also be encouraged to get smaller cars to take advantage of filtering. Just like motorbikes filter through.
There was an article on Wired a few months ago about a dutch(?) guy who created roads like this and they worked very well and were very safe.
It would be interesting to test this in the States and see how it works.
Basically the idea behind the dutch guys design is that traffic rules/roads are still engineered the way they were in the 1900s when cars were an unknown and traffic was very very light.
Personally I think all cars should be equipped with a bot-driver that uses GPS and communicates with the other nearby cars and auto-navigates/coordinates a course to a given destination. Drivers are too unreliable/unskilled to do that themselves. If a person could not/would not upgrade to this, given say... 5 years to meet the requirement, then they would not be allowed to drive their vehicle. The biggest problem with that plan though... is making it and instituting it.
Would work in inner city areas, but not out west where neighbors alone can be miles apart and the nearest town might be 10-20 miles away.
Of course, the real issue is that currently the city streets are filled with SUVs and the like that never see dirt. In fact, Paris was proposing to ban such vehicle in the city.
H23
05-10-05, 08:35 PM
The past had great visions of the future....
Like the Monotrace (http://www.hybris-concept.com/html/navigation_nn.asp).
palmertires
05-11-05, 03:51 PM
What about flying cars?
Would you want to leave your house if cars could fly? :eek:
Poguemahone
05-11-05, 04:15 PM
"Would you want to leave your house if cars could fly? "
Probably would, as soon as a flying car crashed into my house. Wouldn't take long, by my reckoning.
cyclezealot
05-11-05, 11:15 PM
Hey, have fun in Molokai. That is one of my most favorite places on the entire planet.
~50 mile long island with micro-climates ranging from desert to rain forest. Stunning vistas, pristine beaches, and really nice people. I was deeply relaxed for weeks after coming back from there.
H23...Been a tough year...We need to unwind..How about bike rentals..? Did you bike there..Molokai is mostly thought of for MTB biking...? I ride roads. MTB pretty foreign to me...What interests me also...I understand Molokai has the only real coral reef in Hawaii...?
H23
05-12-05, 06:29 AM
that think kicks ass! looks like them bikes on extreme g! cost?
Yes, they were cool. The monotrace was approximately a very low-riding motorcycle with an enclosure. It also had little "training wheels" that popped out of the sides whenever the speed dropped below 10 mph. These things barely got out of the prototype stage back in the late 80's early 90's, I think the cost was US $30K.
I don't know why these things never took off. They make a lot of sense. Most households these days have multiple cars. At least one car is used for work commuting and carries only one driver 90% of the time. It really is very silly for people to drive to work by themselves in a car that is designed to carry 4+ people.
Perhaps the look of the monotrace was too intimidating?
H23
05-12-05, 06:33 AM
H23...Been a tough year...We need to unwind..How about bike rentals..? Did you bike there..Molokai is mostly thought of for MTB biking...? I ride roads. MTB pretty foreign to me...What interests me also...I understand Molokai has the only real coral reef in Hawaii...?
It would have been great to bike there. We rented a car but I am pretty sure you can rent bicycles or mopeds while there.
Note that you'll probably get to Molokai on _very_ small plane from the Honolulu airport, so it is not practical to bring your own wheels.
DC_Emily
05-12-05, 07:07 AM
It's circular logic...more traffic, more roads, leads to more traffic.
Sorry, I'm studying for the lsat's and wanted to use what I've learned for SOMETHING, ANYTHING other than the lsat's!!
There, I feel much much better LOL
lokerola
05-12-05, 07:24 AM
I live in DC and I say build more roads. The developers throw up endless houeses right next to each other, massive condo units, etc,etc, and not one iota of new roads. Or if they do put in new roads, they leave the entrances to major highways one freakin lane. I-66 they widened to 4 lanes out in Centerville where all the developers are building houses, but then it narrows to 2 lanes a few miles before the beltway and the entrance to 495 is one freaking lane. It's no wonder people are ready to kill each other out there. It's BAD traffic design. When I used to travel those roads all I wanted to do was force the traffic designers to ride with me to work for week (2 hours one way in stop and go traffic) to see what needs to be done. Studies! Ha! Just drive around the DC area for a week and see all the huge developments and no new infrastructure to support it. Build more roads for God's sake! Hell, back in the 1950's, the planners of the beltway wanted to make a second beltway because they knew traffic would be terrible in 25 years if they didn't have enough roads. Unfortunalty the wealthy powerful said "not in my back yard" and it never got done. To hell with your back yard, build more roads! Anyway, you can probably tell I used to spend 10 hours a week for 5 years in DC traffic. Gee, that's about 500 hours a year, or roughly 20 days a year for 5 years, that's 100 days spent in traffic. I want my life back!
lilHinault
05-12-05, 10:25 AM
2 hours stop and go is 1 hour on a bike!
scarry
05-12-05, 10:56 AM
I live in DC and I say build more roads. The developers throw up endless houeses right next to each other, massive condo units, etc,etc, and not one iota of new roads. Or if they do put in new roads, they leave the entrances to major highways one freakin lane. I-66 they widened to 4 lanes out in Centerville where all the developers are building houses, but then it narrows to 2 lanes a few miles before the beltway and the entrance to 495 is one freaking lane. It's no wonder people are ready to kill each other out there. It's BAD traffic design. When I used to travel those roads all I wanted to do was force the traffic designers to ride with me to work for week (2 hours one way in stop and go traffic) to see what needs to be done. Studies! Ha! Just drive around the DC area for a week and see all the huge developments and no new infrastructure to support it. Build more roads for God's sake! Hell, back in the 1950's, the planners of the beltway wanted to make a second beltway because they knew traffic would be terrible in 25 years if they didn't have enough roads. Unfortunalty the wealthy powerful said "not in my back yard" and it never got done. To hell with your back yard, build more roads! Anyway, you can probably tell I used to spend 10 hours a week for 5 years in DC traffic. Gee, that's about 500 hours a year, or roughly 20 days a year for 5 years, that's 100 days spent in traffic. I want my life back!
For gods sake. NO MORE ROADS.
PaulH
05-12-05, 11:21 AM
I live in the DC area, and I think that the road congestion is one of the key factors in making it a great place to cycle.
Paul
H23
05-12-05, 11:53 AM
I live in DC and I say build more roads.
...
To hell with your back yard, build more roads! Anyway, you can probably tell I used to spend 10 hours a week for 5 years in DC traffic. Gee, that's about 500 hours a year, or roughly 20 days a year for 5 years, that's 100 days spent in traffic. I want my life back!
Wait. You live in DC (Alexandria) and you DROVE instead of taking the metro?? It sounds like you brought the problems onto yourself.