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Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

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Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#71

Post by whatshisface »

kaesar14 wrote: post #62
whatshisface wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never understood how inducing demand doesn't count as success. That means people want to use the road, doesn't it? It's almost like saying that releasing new software doesn't do anything to help users, because it increases the demand for software by the virtue of its own utility more than it reduces the demand for software by keeping people busy.

Because the metric people care about is traffic on the roads, not how many motorists are able to use the road in a given day. The Big Dig by this metric was a resounding success in Boston, able to dramatically scale up the amount of commuters in and out of the city, but driving still absolutely sucks because of traffic. To the person on the road, the Big Dig solved nothing. Parent comment is saying the only way to sc…

If the metric was really traffic, then that could easily be solved on any road by only allowing even-numbered license numbers to drive on even-numbered days, and vice-versa. If that's an absurd solution, then traffic severity is not the only metric.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#72

Post by meheleventyone »

andrewflnr wrote: post #61
azylman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No comments on emergency situations, but wanted to call out one thing: > You need additional highways (aka: additional offramps) to truly scale day-to-day traffic Additional highways are at-best a stop-gap for day-to-day traffic, never a solution, due to induced demand [1]. You really need large-scale investments in public transportation for this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Effect_in_trans...

I don't understand why public transit doesn't have exactly the same induced demand problem as highways. If there's enough people to fill up new highways, they'll also fill up the public transit... Unless the plan is to make public transit miserable enough that only outside with no better options will use it, in which case it seems like it's all going according to plan already.

Improving public transport absolutely does induce demand and that’s part of the point of making it better. In particular because it’s much more space efficient it also reduces congestion as people switch to it. Same thing with improving cycling facilities.

It’s just inducing demand on an already overused system like private cars doesn’t fix the system being overused unless you can get beyond the desired capacity.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#73

Post by emptybottle »

A good reminder to keep some warm blankets/coats/gloves/hats in your trunk, along with some non-perishable snacks and a first-aid kit & flashlight.

Water is harder to store in the winter since it will freeze and burst containers if full, but snow can be melted given a container to put it in.

Also a good to refuel often. I try treat 1/2 a tank as empty and stop accordingly. On longer trips it lines up well with bathroom breaks.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#74

Post by zitterbewegung »

dragontamer wrote: post #5

I'm not surprised. I've taken this road before during the 2017 Eclipse. Its a path that connects major parts of the country together, but there are no alternative roads to take if this one road closes. Other locations have "Backup" highways to lighten the load or otherwise take up the slack if the main road closes. Not so here. I've been told that Virginia once had plans to build additional highways / alternative roa…

Well there is US Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, that is stuck in this situation (But not in immediate danger ).

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#75

Post by vgel »

steelframe wrote: post #43
vgel wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to live in VA and how incredibly incompetent VDOT is baffles me. There's basically no public transport in the state, and the roads are still horrible. Where does the money go? They're building new lanes on the highways like SR66, but they're privately-funded hotlanes (toll lanes), not regular lanes. I live in Seattle now, public transport is infinitely better, and the roads are better (though they still kinda…

> I live in Seattle now, public transport is infinitely better Perhaps it's because of the bias one always seems to have against the infrastruture where they live, but until at least half of the planned light rail expansion opens up, I'm not exactly inclined to sing praises about Seattle's public transport. Virginia must be downright miserable.

Yeah, it is. For reference, I have a biological sister in VA, and a sister-in-law out here, both of whom can't drive. Both live a similar driving distance from the main city (DC vs Seattle).

My SIL can bus basically anywhere with enough patience. She goes to board game nights, college (pre-covid), etc.

My sister in VA can't go anywhere without getting a ride from my mom. She's actually only a few miles away from the one DC subway line that comes out in her direction, but despite having a disability that qualifies her for the public transport door-to-door vans, she's ever-so-slightly out of their service radius. Even if she could use that, that line is a commuter line that goes straight into DC, it's useless for anything else, and they heavily cut service due to covid + derailment incidents (inspectors were falsifying inspection reports) + car fires. She could use Uber or Lyft, but that's expensive and she's read about people getting assaulted and is scared to use it (I know it's rare, I've tried...)

So, yeah. I complain about Seattle PT too don't get me wrong, but thinking about other states does put it into perspective (even if thinking about Europe puts it into a different perspective...)

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#76

Post by azylman »

andrewflnr wrote: post #61
azylman wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No comments on emergency situations, but wanted to call out one thing: > You need additional highways (aka: additional offramps) to truly scale day-to-day traffic Additional highways are at-best a stop-gap for day-to-day traffic, never a solution, due to induced demand [1]. You really need large-scale investments in public transportation for this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Effect_in_trans...

I don't understand why public transit doesn't have exactly the same induced demand problem as highways. If there's enough people to fill up new highways, they'll also fill up the public transit... Unless the plan is to make public transit miserable enough that only outside with no better options will use it, in which case it seems like it's all going according to plan already.

The way that public transit scales to meet higher demand is different than roads. Whereas roads require more lanes, public transit such as trains can scale by either adding more train cars to existing trains or adding more frequent service. More frequent service, in addition to improving throughput, also helps everyone else using the system by making it more convenient. And, if it "induces" people to move from roads to trains, that also reduces congestion on the roads. So induced demand for rail lines is a good thing.

If induced demand is high enough even that, too, may not be enough - but then building a new rail line is at least no harder than adding a new highway lane (in most cases), and can support substantially more throughput with equal or lower travel times.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#77

Post by mrweasel »

58x14 wrote: post #14

It's remarkable how quickly our vehicles and roads succumb to such conditions. I used to drive that route on I95, and in the winter I would always pack a blanket and bottled water. I can only imagine having children with me. From an infrastructure perspective, realistically, I suppose it isn't feasible to account for more extreme snowfall.

It's not just in the US. Denmark had a snowstorm about a month ago and it was chaos because people take stupid risks. Large numbers of people drive around on summer tires as well as the majority of both trucks and busses.

If people only put themselves at risk, fine. The issue is when trucks and people who felt compelled to drive on summer tires, in a snowstorm, during covid, block the roads and prevent the remaining population from getting home safely.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#78

Post by kaesar14 »

whatshisface wrote: post #71
kaesar14 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the metric people care about is traffic on the roads, not how many motorists are able to use the road in a given day. The Big Dig by this metric was a resounding success in Boston, able to dramatically scale up the amount of commuters in and out of the city, but driving still absolutely sucks because of traffic. To the person on the road, the Big Dig solved nothing. Parent comment is saying the only way to sc…

If the metric was really traffic, then that could easily be solved on any road by only allowing even-numbered license numbers to drive on even-numbered days, and vice-versa. If that's an absurd solution, then traffic severity is not the only metric.

I mean, I don't see how that's really a fair response to saying what people care about is traffic. Yeah, ability to use the road, sure. I don't think people want a new highway to be built and then told they can't use it because they don't have a new car or something.

I as a motorist could not give less of a shit if I'm stuck in traffic for 3 hours a day but the road is able to move hundreds of thousands of cars a day. I'd prefer a road that could only move 20 people a day with 0 traffic. It's the only thing I care about.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#79

Post by njarboe »

azylman wrote: post #45
dragontamer wrote: post #5

I'm not surprised. I've taken this road before during the 2017 Eclipse. Its a path that connects major parts of the country together, but there are no alternative roads to take if this one road closes. Other locations have "Backup" highways to lighten the load or otherwise take up the slack if the main road closes. Not so here. I've been told that Virginia once had plans to build additional highways / alternative roa…

No comments on emergency situations, but wanted to call out one thing: > You need additional highways (aka: additional offramps) to truly scale day-to-day traffic Additional highways are at-best a stop-gap for day-to-day traffic, never a solution, due to induced demand [1]. You really need large-scale investments in public transportation for this. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand#Effect_in_trans...

Most people prefer individual transport systems for many good reasons. "Induced demand" is just more people using new roads because they get to do what they need/want to do. If we build enough roads (maybe using tunnels underground, a la The Boring Company) for everyone to go where they want, when they want, with up to 40 tons of cargo with them, there won't be any traffic congestion. This happened when the interstates were first built in the US and we could have that again if we decided to build thousands of miles of new tunnels. That would be a true national infrastructure project that would make everyone's lives much better. Sitting in traffic is a scourge on humanity. These tunnels could also have buses and groups of buses (trains?) in them for people who would rather travel with strangers, following a schedule set by someone else, and not carrying many objects with them. Could constructing this system also be called large-scale investment in public transportation then we could get everyone on board? Win-win solutions in society are still possible I hope.

Re: Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night

#80

Post by dublinben »

sbierwagen wrote: post #59
Maxburn wrote: post #28

I had no idea CNN had a "lite" mode.

Many news sites from the dial up era have legacy low bandwidth modes. There's a text-only npr.org, for instance. https://text.npr.org/

These sites aren't a legacy of the dial up era. They were relatively recently introduced (circa 2017) to more efficiently deliver vital information during natural disasters. They're a reaction to the bloated nature of their primary homepages.

https://www.poynter.org/tech-tools/2017/text-only-news-sites...

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