🚀 go-pugleaf

"Palin'sAbortion" <kinkysr@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:9c815883-fe9e-47e8-ab3a-015856f3fba2@j8g2000yqd.googlegroups.com...
>I don't know which of the Galapagos Islands writer Washington Post
> writer Robert McCartney is from. But for his and others' information,
> following are some traffic truisms that have been around for awhile:
>
> 1)   You can't build your way out of urban traffic jams. Ask L.A.

Sure you can.   But you have to build fast enough.
>
> 2)   Studies [do the research] have posited that the most inexpensive,
> efficient, effective, and least disruptive methods for reducing the
> effects of traffic snarls are the systematic synchronization and
> placement of traffic signals and signs.

It can't hurt.   But everytime a traffic signal is placed in the 
Fredericksburg area the cost seems to start at $100k and doesn't seem to 
have an upper limit.
>
> 3)   An outer beltway around Washington, D.C., planned and built 40
> years ago, might have made things here, now, a lot easier.

By the time the beltway was  completely (early/mid 60s) folks had lost their 
taste to do what had to be done when it came to building roads.

It you want to see an example of how "they" used to do things, study I-395 
(nee' I-95, nee' Shirley Highway) where it goes under King Street.   There 
was a very large apartment/townhouse complex there.    The new highway went 
right through it.   Compare that to the decades it took to complete the 
section of I-66 from the Beltway to the DC line.
>
> 4)   A car-addicted population like ours will never adopt or adapt to
> [mass] "transit." (I note that "mass" is a no-no in transit
> discussions nowadays.)

Likely true.

What "they" don't seem to understand is that for folks who already own a 
car, the marginal cost of taking public transit and driving your own car are 
about the same.   If you want to take the family or just go on a date, your 
"out of pocket" for gas is a fraction of what public tansportation would 
cost.   The "reformers" want to attack this by increasing the cost of gas. 
Trouble is that this cripples the economy because some folks absolutely NEED 
cars to get their jobs done in an efficient way.

The "intelligent" way is to reduce the cost of public transportation.   One 
way is just to pay private contractors to provide free shuttles along 
certain routes.   Rather than having a large orgainization with unionized 
workers, hire a bunch of small operators who will pay about the same money 
that school bus drivers get.


>
> 5)   As things and plans stand, the D.C. region's traffic situation is
> INSOLUBLE.
>
> Moreover, when a billionaire Virginia developer like Til Hazel -- who
> had a big hand in creating the metro region's insoluble traffic
> congestion -- says the Tyson's plan is "trivial," we ought to listen.
> Half of us will be dead if or before the 'plan' is ever finished.


>
> And anyone who's not actually recently visited Arlington, Virginia's
> "nirvana" won't find it countywide; it's confined to the the
> relatively small Rosslyn-Balston corridor. Arlington overall is still
> mostly the congested hell-hole it's always been.
>
> Parting message for you Galapagos Islanders -- stop persistently
> feeding Post readers bull-shit about the "need" for unaffordable "more
> roads and bridges."

Really?

Perhaps the roads and bridges would be more "affordable" were the wages 
based on true market conditions rather than the "dream world" wages set 
under the depression era Davis Bacon law.

>
> Darwin might understand.

Really?

What kind of car did he drive?