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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

#181

Post by cafard »

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 Route 1, if you can get to it.

Back in I think 1995, somebody rolled a tanker full of sulphuric acid on I-95 southbound about Fredericksburg. It took a long time to get to the Acquia exit from just past the previous one, and Route 1 didn't move that well once we were there.

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

#182

Post by throwaway0a5e »

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…

>Instead, the state of Virginia focused on building additional lanes to the already existing highways

They do this because they get to turn the extras into toll/HOV lanes and rake in dough without making tons of people's lives worse and getting pressure put on them to not be jerks like that.

Follow the incentives.

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

#183

Post by mardifoufs »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #165
mardifoufs wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's hard to literally relocate hundreds of thousands of jobs according to some urban planners dreams. We aren't talking about intra city planning, but about state wide job markets. I guess Canada is dysfunctional too because there is absolutely no way to get rail service working beyond the big cities. Maybe it has something to do with north America not being Europe so trying to just force a European model here…

> Again, not talking about public transit in cities (which is amazing and should be scaled up) but about intercity/state/province transport. The distances, and spread are just not comparable to almost anywhere else in the world and you can't just magically make everyone move. This problem has been solved for awhile now, at least since the 1960s when the first intra-city/province shinkansen came online. Just because s…

There's just absolutely no way to compare the shinkansen to what would be required in the DC/VA area. Yes the US should connect its big cities with high speed rail but that would still not do anything for small intercity transit for everyone else

This is just rehashing pop-urban planning buzzwords. Like I'm not sure where the trend of just handwaving every problem as easily solvable by "rail! Shinkansen! City public transit even out of cities!" came from but it particularly does not make sense in this situation considering the commenter you replied to specified he talked about spread out, smaller cities with frequent stops. Which is the opposite of what the shinkansen is for.

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

#184

Post by shadowgovt »

julianh95 wrote: post #12

Some _fast_ and reliable mass transit like the trains in Japan/Europe sure would be nice to help alleviate situations like this and general traffic.

It's less likely to help in this specific corridor. The I-95 is for people going from everywhere to everywhere up the eastern seaboard; there's definitely room for improvement on, say, the Richmond-to-DC direct trains, but to really take pressure off I-95 here you'd need a total overhaul from Florida to Maine and up through to Chicago. I-95 north of Richmond choke-points almost everyone driving any of that.

It'd be a good idea though.

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

#185

Post by worstestes »

rayiner wrote: post #92
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 grew up in Northern VA. Public transit here is a solution looking for a problem. The job centers and commercial are too spread out for public transit to make any sense. Most of the population and jobs in the DC metro area aren’t in DC but spread around in Tysons, Loudoun, Reston, Arlington, Bethesda, etc. The state spent billions building the Silver line out to Tysons, Reston, and Loudoun, and ridership was disappo…

The future is Dallas suburbs? Let’s just call a quits now and save America the trouble

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

#186

Post by zepearl »

emptybottle wrote: post #73

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 bathro…

Btw. I replaced some years ago the blanket with a sleeping bag (warmer + can be folded/compressed better therefore needs less space when stored/hidden in the trunk), and the normal flashlight with another one which is magnetic on one side (for example so that it won't move while mount snow chains).

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

#187

Post by NikolaeVarius »

dragontamer wrote: post #66
NikolaeVarius wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the point of adding lanes is to reduce delays, and induced demand prevents that, you have failed in the task.

The point of roads, from the city's perspective, is to support additional transportation, which causes growth of the city. More transportation means more trade, more services, and better life for all who live near the roads. It might be in the form of easier-to-get deliveries (Amazon goods), or new jobs that have popped up close by, or new housing developments (aka: homes that previously weren't possible due to the t…

You are moving the goalpost.

The purpose of adding lanes was to REDUCE DELAYS. Not support additional transportation. Your entire post hinges on an incorrect premise

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

#188

Post by whimsicalism »

IdoRA wrote: post #164
Spooky23 wrote: post #16

The ineptitude of the state governments in DC/VA/MD is amazing to me. Snow happens in these places?

In this case, a major issue was that the weather was rain transitioning to heavy snowfall. VDOT couldn’t pre-treat the roads because the rain would wash it away, and they couldn’t clear the roads of snow fast enough to prevent ice formation. Similar to the Atlanta “snowmageddon” in 2014, once you have enough 18-wheelers stopped, they can’t start moving again on ice, and they (plus the normal car traffic) clog the roa…

If you see it coming, maybe ban 18 wheelers temporarily? Agree it's not a major problem with the govt.

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

#189

Post by [deleted] »

zip1234 wrote: post #179
nostromo wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, they're shifting the goal posts. Here in city (Seattle) most people drive because transit tends to be spotty and slow for most people. So, what's the solution? Make driving worse of course. Speedbumps everywhere . Change 4-lane roads to 2-lanes. Remove parking. Lower speed limits to absurd levels. Make through streets dead ends. Transit still mostly sucks, but now driving sucks too. Success! I love transit and…

You realize speed bumps are not there to 'ruin driving'--they are mechanical means to stop drivers from speeding as signs are useless and as soon as people are past the cops they speed again.

[deleted]

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

#190

Post by asoneth »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #104
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...

> Additional highways are at-best a stop-gap for day-to-day traffic, never a solution, due to induced demand This continues to be wrong every time someone brings it up. If you have insufficient road capacity, you have congestion, and congestion suppresses demand. If you increase capacity, some of the congestion goes away, and then some of the demand comes back. What this looks like is that you currently have enough c…

Just to be clear, the "induced demand" that concerns me is not the latent demand of a few deferred trips being taken in the days/weeks/months/year after the road is widened, it's the long-term generated demand of people choosing to move further into the suburbs because they can commute more miles in the same number of minutes. The cumulative result is that property values on the periphery of the commuting zone increase and within a decade or so the highway traffic exceeds the optimal capacity again.

Some regions have concluded that adding a lane per decade is sustainable and already have highways more than a dozen lanes wide. I'm curious to see where the upper bound is.

(Personally I think dynamic pricing to maintain optimal highway capacity is a more sustainable approach.)

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