🚀 go-pugleaf

kEN Colburn wrote:

> Who's the mental giant that put in a new,fastmoving freeway (the 105 in 
> LA) and then put STOPLIGHTS where it merges w/ other fways so cars back up 
> for a MILE,wasting gas and spewing more crap in our smog?
>  i bet they don't remove the lights cuz they don't want to prove what 
> fools they were for putting them in. Anyone have a snail add to complain to?

You'd be wasting your stamp. The only reason they haven't put lights
at other interchanges is that most weren't designed with a bypass lane
for the favored few or with sufficient room to line up. As they are
"improved", more lights will appear.

Here in OC, several long-planned freeways have been removed from the
official lists. At the same time, we are building "super streets" with
eight or more lanes of traffic, dual left turn lanes, wide medians, no
access to adjacent property, and 50mph speed limits. With the four-way
lights every quarter-mile, you might average 25mph, more likely 20mph.
These things are freeways the way the politically correct think they
should be: slow. In twenty years, you won't be able to distinguish
super streets from what remains of the freeways.

Freeway flow control (the "meters" on on-ramps) is basically a way to
allow traffic originating in the suburbs priority over local traffic.
When there is too much traffic for the roadway, it has to backup
somewhere. Meters mean the backup is on the ramps instead of the
freeway. Traffic on the north-bound Newport Freeway just north of
the San Diego generally moves at 60mph or greater at nearly all times.
Still the on-ramp meters are on all day, not just at rush hour. It
becomes a road for through traffic, discriminating against the locals
who just want a shortcut to the lunch-time restaurant.

Me, even when I have a passenger, I avoid the diamond lane almost at
all costs. I like the security to change lanes when an obstruction
or safety hazard appears. Have you ever noticed that "car pools" seem
to be entitled to drive five to ten mph faster than other traffic,
EVEN when the other traffic is already moving at 65 or 70 mph?

If the objective is to preserve the quality of California life by
encouraging people to stay away, the method seems to be to reduce
our potential quality. California freeways were once the marvel of
the world; now they are earthquake hazards.
-- 
Dave Close, Compata, Costa Mesa CA	"Politics is the business of getting
dave@compata.ccss.com, +1 714 434 7359	 power and privilege without
dhclose@alumni.caltech.edu		 possessing merit." - P. J. O'Rourke