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Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

arstechnica.com

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Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#151

Post by QuiteMouse »

tedsanders wrote: post #128
boyaka wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is helping to correct traffic. Everybody else is messing up the zipper merging by not filling in both lanes equally.

No. The way to correct traffic is to stay in the right lane, moving at the same speed as the other lane, and merge at the end. That is what the zipper merge is. Driving at a faster speed than the other lane does not correct anything.

The zip line is always free though, so obviously you're going to be going faster then the other lane that is backed up with traffic.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#152

Post by QuiteMouse »

Klinky wrote: post #55
rcthompson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If enough people are doing zipper merging, then there is no way to cut in line, because both lanes are equally backed up. Then once people get to the merge point, they won't have any sense of unfairness because the other lane was waiting just as long, so there will be less impetus for "vigilantes" to mess things up. I'm not saying there will be no problems, but I don't think that more zipper merging will automaticall…

The question then is, do enough people zipper merge, and do people really have a proper understanding of fairness? A lot of the driving population may not be acting rationally, or even have enough awareness to comprehend the big the picture. Cars put people into their own bubble, where quite oftenly only their needs are being considered.

They certainly do not. I always leave space for a car at the zip, and damn near every time 2 or 3 will try to push their way in there even though there is only space for 1 car. Infuriating.

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#153

Post by tedsanders »

QuiteMouse wrote: post #151
tedsanders wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The way to correct traffic is to stay in the right lane, moving at the same speed as the other lane, and merge at the end. That is what the zipper merge is. Driving at a faster speed than the other lane does not correct anything.

The zip line is always free though, so obviously you're going to be going faster then the other lane that is backed up with traffic.

Again, the correct way to zipper merge is to reduce your speed to the traffic beside you and then merge at the end.

The whole reason zipper merging is efficient and safe is that both lanes of traffic are moving at similar speeds, making merging quick and easy. If you zoom past the other lane of traffic, you are actually worse than the early mergers in terms of safety and efficiency.

Edit: For those of you downvoting me, could you please explain your reasoning? Do you disagree with the content of my message or its delivery?

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#154

Post by mkl »

coryking wrote: post #124
Negitivefrags wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In New Zealand we just have signs like this all over the place: http://i.imgur.com/AtaDOGX.jpg

The two lanes in the picture merge into one "center" lane. I've never seen that here in the states. Typically it is one lane merging into another lane. I'd wager the "merge into the shared center lane" makes the zipper protocol more obvious.

I think you misinterpreted the picture - the left lane ends and merges with the right, as when joining a motorway (we drive on the left). You can see the real thing in the photo above the closest two cars.

The zip system is used ubiquitously here - I didn't even know there were other systems, so I was curious to see what new thing the article was about. From what I understood, the alternative is not really a "system"?

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#155

Post by lotsofmangos »

aenean wrote: post #6

Traffic management is a fascinating intersection of sociology, fluid dynamics, behavior change, and urban planning. If you're interested in this field, I can't recommend the work of Tom Vanderbilt enough. His book "Traffic" brought urban planning to the masses in the same manner "Freakonomics" made social and public policy accessible. http://tomvanderbilt.com/traffic/

Critical Mass by Philip Ball has some nice bits on traffic.

http://www.philipball.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&vie...

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#156

Post by DrewRWx »

a_e_k wrote: post #123
dubfan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thankfully my city is replacing as many stop signs as possible with traffic circles, where you'd have to be a complete idiot to yield to someone who got there after you. In Seattle, we have traffic circles in many of our residential neighborhoods. People still do this here. Another common thing is people taking lefts by just driving on the left side of the circle (I've had people honk at me for taking lefts the cor…

I've sometimes waited at those circles. Many of those neighborhoods you mention also have streets just wide enough for one vehicle at a time to get through. I'd rather wait at the circle for an oncoming vehicle than have to worry about who will yield to whom and whether there's a sufficient gap in the parked cars to do so.

This can be seen in miniature on my university campus. Thankfully some new surface markings make it slightly more obvious that they are going the wrong way.

Out of curiosity, is your traffic circle configured in a way where taking that left requires no turning while the proper right actually takes effort?

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#157

Post by arecurrence »

iLoch wrote: post #20

This works pretty well where I live. Here in Vancouver, a major bridge that takes traffic into the downtown core is only 3 undivided lanes. There's a huge amount of traffic flowing over this bridge in the morning as it connects work to home for somewhere in the range of 60,000 - 70,000 commuters daily. From the residential side of the bridge, traffic zipper merges from 4 lanes into either one or two depending on the…

I see this as well whenever crossing the Lions Gate southbound. I suspect if there weren't 4 lanes merging together it would be a different situation (I don't see people doing this correctly in other parts of the peninsula that merge).

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#158

Post by underwater »

ericcumbee wrote: post #98
dubfan wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thankfully my city is replacing as many stop signs as possible with traffic circles, where you'd have to be a complete idiot to yield to someone who got there after you. In Seattle, we have traffic circles in many of our residential neighborhoods. People still do this here. Another common thing is people taking lefts by just driving on the left side of the circle (I've had people honk at me for taking lefts the cor…

we have a couple around here near campus. The problem is shockingly few people know how to behave in a traffic circle.

They're trivial to learn. I don't see how people can use that as an excuse. Imagine someone saying "I don't understand traffic lights, they're so confusing."

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#159

Post by laacz »

malandrew wrote: post #35

That video explanation made no sense to me. Basically the "interface" presented to the drivers has not changed, so why would drivers deviate from how they currently merge? Because the government said so? I don't see this working. However there are two solutions that could promote zipper merging: (1) Force both lanes to the center before moving that center lane to the side that is available ahead: ____________________…

To my understanding in intensive traffic it's more about uniform and predictable behaviour.

First option will not improve since (at least in Europe) it just changes lane priority. In linked article's merge case priority traffic is in left lane, since right one merges. In your center merge case priority traffic is on the right (when doing simultaneous merges to center lane, one on the right has priority over the one on the left). So it probably won't change anything.

Barrier option is much better, but it has challanges and restrictions of their own.

Edit: Oh, and I forgot to mention that over here in Latvia I see people starting to respect zip merging. It's all in our head. Not because government said, but because everybody follows simple rule and everybody gets home faster and with less stress :)

Re: Washington, Minnesota officially endorse a “safer, faster” traffic merge

#160

Post by cdash »

adwf wrote: post #103
MagicWishMonkey wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is most people don't know how to properly zipper merge, so pretending that everything would be hunky dory as long as people play by a set of rules that you know they aren't likely to play by is an exercise in futility.

Don't know why you're being downvoted; I've had too many people deliberately block my merge when I merge late, to ever try it at full speed in the UK :(

People block your merge because they think you cheated and should have merged earlier. If they were educated about zipper merge they would not have the same feeling.
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