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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

#271

Post by asdff »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #60
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.

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

The point of adding lanes is not to improve commutes. It's to improve thoroughput. If you add more lanes, and traffic moves at the exact same speed as it did before, guess what that's a win. Your throughput is now higher, more vehicles are moving per hour, and that ultimately means fewer trucks clogging up the port across town (or across the country).

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

#274

Post by whimsicalism »

beezle wrote: post #198
IdoRA wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The major issue is that VA, for whatever reason, does not have plows and trucks to put them on (unlike say NYC that puts them on the garbage trucks when needed) - at least in numbers necessary to keep the highway relatively passable in the first place. As others have said, (relatively) heavy wet snow storms in VA/MA are not once in a century type events, more like every three to five years. Paying the consequences fo…

MD not MA, MA is certainly prepared for snowstorms

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

#275

Post by scifi6546 »

mrweasel wrote: post #77
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…

a big part of it is how prepared both the government and the people are. In fairbanks, alaska we recently had a much larger storm and although many people lost power for a couple of days and most of the town was stuck at home we recovered pretty much immediately after the snow stopped falling. For many town along the coast large winter storms are normal so they recover even quicker.

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

#276

Post by qaq »

kaesar14 wrote: post #225
mardifoufs wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

bus service is fairly decent in NoVA

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

#277

Post by Spooky23 »

IdoRA wrote: post #208
beezle wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major issue is that VA, for whatever reason, does not have plows and trucks to put them on (unlike say NYC that puts them on the garbage trucks when needed) - at least in numbers necessary to keep the highway relatively passable in the first place. As others have said, (relatively) heavy wet snow storms in VA/MA are not once in a century type events, more like every three to five years. Paying the consequences fo…

Does increased numbers of plows allow you to clean this portion of road quickly enough to keep it navigable? The main issue is that the road is a sheet of ice, so as I understand it you really need chemical treatments, not just snow removal (although snow removal should certainly help). And does the density of cars pose a unique problem? The F’burg portion of 95 sees around 130,000 cars/day pre-pandemic.

New York and Massachusetts are different, but usually the only thing that truly overwhelms them is lake effect snow in Western NY and some nor’easter events. I grew up in the NY metropolitan area, and things like flash floods ancient parkways in the Bronx were the only total disaster like this.

The key thing is that they have equipment and close roads to trucks. VA express lanes gouge drivers avoiding traffic, there should be plenty of money to put plows on 2 1/2 ton trucks.

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

#278

Post by crowbahr »

robcohen wrote: post #110
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…

> I love transit and want more of it, but the transit folks realized it's hard to compete with driving, so they've just given up entirely on making transit great. It's easier to ruin driving. Wow. You just crystalized exactly what I felt was wrong with the argument that induced demand is bad. Thanks.

It's an entirely bad faith and shallow argument. You should probably reconsider what you're thinking is.

The goal of transit first infrastructure is to make the majority of trips unnecessary. You shouldn't be required to own a car to participate in American society.

This means we need to rezone our residential sprawl to allow for more frequent, smaller grocery stores. We need to increase the amount of mixed zoning, increase density, decrease the insane quantity of land dedicated solely to the movement and storage of privately owned heavy machinery (automobiles) and focus on easily accessible areas of bike & bus friendly infrastructure.

The Netherlands was fully capable of transitioning from a nation of car dependent choked cities to a bike first micromobility haven in 30 years. The only thing stopping the USA from doing the same is the enormous government subsidies paid to car owners to keep the roads paved.

If the federal government stopped taking 90% of the cost of every road in the US and you had to pay gas tax to support it all do you think you'd still be driving? Do you think you'd support billion dollar bridge extensions and lane additions when it means gas is an extra $5/gallon?

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

#279

Post by neom »

Jxl180 wrote: post #270
dqv wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this is gross to talk about, but I'd also add "incontinence blankets" to this list. Specifically for being locked in traffic for this long. There are reusable incontinence blankets you can get. This way you have something designed to catch waste if you misfire.

I have these bags made for urine or vomit with a gel in it that will congealed the contents. I was stranded on a closed highway and had to pee so bad. Never again.

Never heard of these before, after skimming amazon reviews on a few products, looks like most folks like "Travel John" and "OUMEE" brand the best. Seems useful!

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

#280

Post by asdff »

tshaddox wrote: post #108
shkkmo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've never understood how inducing demand doesn't count as success. That depends on what you see as the goal. If the goal is reducing congestion, then induced demand means that particular goal is harder to achieve. If the goal is to get more people driving then induced demand is a clear success.

Why in the world would "get more people driving" be a measure of success? For industries that directly benefit from that, sure, but I can't imagine how that could be a societal goal.

Freeways also carry significant trucking traffic. Like iPhones and food? Increasing throughput makes these things cheaper to deliver into your home from where they are produced.
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