🚀 go-pugleaf

David Masterson wrote:
> 
> >>>>> Rick Damiani writes:
> 
> > On Tue, 11 Dec 2001 18:54:38 GMT, Tlittle <mail@mail.net> wrote:
> 
> > This:
> 
> >> "L.A. has gridlock at all times on most all of our freeways, and
> >> this would obviously ease congestion," he said, "especially if
> >> there was a stalled car, minor accident or freeway repairs during
> >> non-rush hours."
> 
> > and this:
> 
> >> "I have numerous times been stuck in a traffic jam where it's the
> >> middle of the day and the HOV lanes are being used by only a few
> >> motorists," he said.
> 
> > are why such a change is unlikely.  Identifying peak traffic times
> > in L.A. is pointless, as most of the freeways are in a
> > near-perpetual state of congestion.
> 
> How close is this to also being true for the San Francisco Bay Area?

That depends what you define as the Bay Area.  I've seen substantial
"extended rush-hours" (weekday morning and night) in two kinds of places:

1)  Highways that go out to exurbs, especially where there is only one
good route to the area (examples:  101 from Novato to Santa Rosa, 80
near the Carquinez Bridge and beyond it, 580-205 from Dublin to Tracy,
101 south of San Jose, and 152 east of Gilroy where it's only two
lanes).  These get crowded as early as 5 AM and can stay that way until
9 or 10 PM.

2)  Bottlenecks within the Bay Area where there is a lot of traffic
from people going shopping or to evening entertainment, as well as the
commuters.  880 and 680 between Fremont and San Jose have this pattern,
as do 237 and Montague Expwy. going across to connect to 880 and 680.
The freeways in the Walnut Creek area also have it, because they all
run together (onto 680 through WC, and also onto 4 out toward Antioch).

Highway 101 in Marin and Sonoma counties, and 17 south of San Jose, fit
both categories because each is a major bottleneck that needed widening
years ago and no good alternative route exists for either.

Many of the roads listed in 1) jam up on weekends also (outbound on
Saturday morning and, especially badly, inbound Sunday night), as Bay
Area residents head for parks and recreation outside the Bay Area.

Only a few of these (mostly category 2) are as bad as the average
freeway I've encountered in southern California, but they will
certainly get there if nothing is done.  And because each of these
routes tends to be used as only one middle section of a long trip,
with a wide variety of origins and destinations, it's very unlikely
that any form of public transit will help, unless it carries your car
along with you.