Motorists have been stranded on a major interstate in Virginia since last night • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by kbutler » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #109

kbutler wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does climate change also explain the larger storms in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries? https://www.novec.com/About_NOVEC/Virginias-Historic-Snowsto...

UN: "In the period 2000 to 2019, there were 7,348 major recorded disaster events claiming 1.23 million lives, affecting 4.2 billion people (many on more than one occasion) resulting in approximately US$2.97 trillion in global economic losses. This is a sharp increase over the previous twenty years. Between 1980 and 1999, 4,212 disasters were linked to natural hazards worldwide claiming approximately 1.19 million live…

Sounds really conclusive, doesn't it?

If you look a bit deeper at the statistics, this database "records disasters which have killed ten or more people; affected 100 or more people; resulted in a declared state of emergency, or a call for international assistance."

What factors besides frequency and severity of weather events could affect these statistics?

Most obvious are population growth (doubled over that period) and increased urbanization (reversed from 60:40 primarily rural, to 60:40 primarily urban). This means that an event with the same severity is greatly more likely to be reported and included in this database. Similarly for economic effects - because of the growth in assets, infrastructure, and GDP, that doubling of economic losses, even if in constant dollars, represents a decrease in losses relative to total assets. So this data doesn't really represent a measure of change in the weather as much as change in human society (and the page is titled, "The human cost...")

The IPCC report is somewhat equivocal about change in the actual heavy precipitation events, stating "the frequency and intensity of heavy precipitation have likely increased...with increases in more regions than there are decreases". (with "likely" meaning > 2/3 probability)

Roger Pielke, Jr., has done a lot of work on extreme weather events: https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/how-to-understand-the-n...

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

#222

Post by acdha » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:33 PM UTC

trhway wrote: post #98

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...

public transportation doesn't work for people with pets, in many situations for people with children, people with various health issues.

> public transportation doesn't work for people with pets, in many situations for people with children

Do you mean the millions of people who do this every day don't exist? You might personally prefer that and it's certainly an opinion which has been lavishly subsidized in the U.S. but this is a lifestyle choice, not a truth.

> people with various health issues.

How many of the people who cannot take transit are capable of safely driving cars? Public transportation — whether bus/rail mass transit or on-demand access services — is key for a large number of people who cannot drive themselves and a large number of people who could but are not affluent enough to afford the $10K/year or more that personal car ownership (considerably more if you need a vehicle customized with assistive technologies).

Again, you obviously have an opinion on this issue but that doesn't make such blanket statements less incorrect.

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

#223

Post by cure » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:35 PM UTC

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…

Good advice. I also keep a "Portable Car Jump Starter" in the trunk. These days they are basically big batteries (mine is ~3100mAh at 12V apparently) and they come with USB plugs and a built-in flashlight... Handy if you need to recharge your phone in a pinch.

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

#224

Post by evilotto » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

It sucks a little less, but some customers in California are going on a week without electricity after big snowstorms, with a few days yet to go. That's rough when you rely on a well for water.

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/california/pge-pres...

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

#225

Post by kaesar14 » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:36 PM UTC

mardifoufs wrote: post #174

kaesar14 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The context of this thread is about Virginia which is part of the I-95 corridor, the most densely populated area in the country, with a population density comparable to many Western European countries[1]. This is like the one region of the country you actually could scale up intercity/state transport, and it sucks so bad that Amtrak is terrible. 1: https://tetcoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/2040_Vis... .

I guess it could be, but the point of the GP was that the jobs and the population were spread out widely even if the population density is similar. Now I could be wrong, but from what I know from the half of my family living in France, transit in Paris for example is mostly pouring into the city where the jobs are. In this case, everything is spread out, so the density itself does not really matter. The problem is th…

You can connect those smaller cities with stuff besides rail, you know.

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

#226

Post by MandieD » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

flavius29663 wrote: post #176

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But when the jobs are spread out all over the spokes, that model breaks down. So don't spread the jobs out all over the spokes? Is some urban planning really hard to do here? > Rail transit is an anachronism, best suited for the 1950s when life involved a woman staying home with the kids while dad took the train into the city for work. That isn't true at all in much of the world. Rail transit still works in many no…

> Rail transit still works in many non-dysfunctional countries. Define "works". Sure it can move millions of people each day, but those people live miserable lives most of the time. Have you lived in a city where commuting one hour each way by train is considered "very good" ? And some of the worse are around 1.30-1.45 hours each way, each day? Even if for a while the train is fine, if the city is growing it will bec…

Yes, our life in Franconia (northern Bavaria) is nothing but suffering, in our townhouse with a yard that’s a 600m walk from a subway station and a suburban rail station, either of which gets me to downtown Nuremberg in 20 minutes, because that place is a hellhole, and to the miserable corporate 35-hour-a-week job (the fault of IG Metall) that pays for said townhouse in 40 minutes. I especially resent the fact that I can go out for that swill they call beer in Bavaria with my colleagues after work in that dump called downtown Nuremberg without worrying how I’ll get home.

A truly regrettable existence that no human should have to endure. We mourn the lack of a reason to own a second car. My husband’s bike ride to work is an even worse torture.

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

#227

Post by scythe » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

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…

It doesn't exactly help that tall office buildings are not allowed in DC. It's hard to have a "hub" when it's illegal to build a hub.

>You want to know what the future of America looks like? Go to the Dallas suburbs.

Can I point out the irony that you're posting this in a thread about a natural disaster exacerbated by suburban development patterns, and your example of Dallas suffered a similar disaster less than a year ago, made worse by the thermal inefficiency of the same development patterns? Is that the future we should want?

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

#228

Post by dugmartin » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

kaesar14 wrote: post #147

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But when the jobs are spread out all over the spokes, that model breaks down. So don't spread the jobs out all over the spokes? Is some urban planning really hard to do here? > Rail transit is an anachronism, best suited for the 1950s when life involved a woman staying home with the kids while dad took the train into the city for work. That isn't true at all in much of the world. Rail transit still works in many no…

Quoted post unavailable.

Some numbers for comparison according to a Google search:

Hong Kong Area: 427 mi²

Washington DC Metropolitan Area: 5,565 mi²

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

#229

Post by kbutler » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #139

kbutler wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...on snowmobiles..." So the drivers could leave, but the cars would remain stranded.

Are there that many snow mobiles in VA?

:-D Great question.

Probably? https://www.yellowpages.com/search?search_terms=snowmobile+r...

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

#230

Post by barneygale » Tue, Jan 04, 2022, 9:39 PM UTC

weberer wrote: post #201

kaesar14 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Sometimes the majority of people just disagree with you. It doesn't always have to be some conspiracy.

Because the readership of HN is mostly Americans who can't imagine not driving. The knee-jerk against public transport is pathetic and predictable.