🚀 go-pugleaf

in article 9eu4gg$lqa$1@samba.rahul.net, spp@cs.berkeley.edu  wrote:

> 85 Doesn't go through San Jose.

Oh, it doesn't? It certainly cuts through a major portion of south San Jose,
from its southern terminus along many miles to where it enters Los Gatos. It
then cuts through another portion of west San Jose. Check your map.

> On those ocassions when I have to travel by car from Berkeley
> to Santa Cruz, in order to get to an evening event, I find it
> incredibly inconvenient that there is no freeway
> that totally bypasses San Jose.  880 to 17 is the most direct
> route but it is the worst in terms of traffic.  And obviously,
> San Jose people commuting locally are not benefitting from
> people like me who are just passing through the middle of
> downtown San Jose.

You have cited the worst bottleneck in the Bay Area: the passage of 880 from
Milpitas to the 101 interchange. The fact that it goes through San Jose has
much less to do with the congestion than the fact that it has the same
number of lanes as it did when it opened in the fifties (two in each
direction).

> The best route is in fact the one that most resembles
> a bypass: 280 to 85 to 17.  Unfortunately, 280 is most
> easily reached by going through San Francisco...

I agree. Tell them to widen 880 north of the 101 interchange. "Bypass" is
not a factor. The route you described just has wider roads. Oh, I forgot:
"making freeways wider does not reduce congestion".

> I consider San Jose an excellent example of why, in general,
> you need bypasses, and how the city-center-oriented freeway
> system makes traffice much worse.

You are making a generalization from a notoriously bad isolated problem.
Your conclusions, based upon a lack of real familiarity with the area (see
the comment about the route of 85 above) makes a good argument concerning
why local control of transportation is best.

-- 
John Higdon     | Email Address Valid | http://www.anntec.com/
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