Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

lite.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 770 posts

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

#211

Post by seanmcdirmid »

mardifoufs wrote: post #183
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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

Have you ever tried taking these lines before? They have high speed rail between big cities, and tons and tons of small branch/feeder routes out to small towns with the most frequent stops ever imaginable. Getting from huge Tokyo to small Gifu actually works.

It did take some planning however. The USA's model of just "build that office complex wherever you want!" wouldn't work.

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

#212

Post by criddell »

animal_spirits wrote: post #63
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.

The less you invest in public transportation, the more people will drive. The more people that drive, the slower traffic gets. If you just widen the road, all you do is increase the amount of cars that drive. If people can't get to where they are going via public transportation, then they are going to drive instead, increasing congestion. Would recommend watching this video on it: https://youtu.be/RQY6WGOoYis

I think generally what you said is true, but there are other factors. Right now we're in the middle of a pandemic. I'm very thankful I don't have to rely on public transportation.

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

#213

Post by AnthonyMouse »

asoneth wrote: post #190
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 increa…

> 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.

Property values increasing there actually offsets the problem by making it less desirable to live there.

The real trouble is that people build more houses there. But the reason people build more houses there, and suffer a 30 minute commute (which more congestion might have turned into a 60 minute commute), is that they can't afford to live in the place with a 15 minute commute. Typically because zoning prohibits building more housing there.

Now let's see what our choices are here.

We can do nothing at all. Well, now people are screwed. They still need somewhere to live, the place that now has a 60 minute commute is the only place housing can be built, so the housing still gets built there, but now the commute is longer. That's just horrible and helps no one.

Second, we could widen the road and that's it. The new housing still gets built in the suburbs but at least now people waste less time in their cars.

Third, we could loosen the zoning so higher density housing can be built closer to the city, but not widen the road. This is pretty good, because now the people who live in the new housing get the 15 minute commute. But the people who already live in the suburbs are still stuck with the 60 minute commute.

Fourth, we could loosen the zoning and widen the road. Then new housing gets built in the city instead of the suburbs, because people prefer a 15 minute commute to a 30 minute commute, but the people who already live in the suburbs still get a 30 minute commute instead of a 60 minute commute because of the wider road. And it stays that way because the new housing is getting built in the city instead of the suburbs. This is pretty obviously the one that we want.

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

#214

Post by fundad »

pempem wrote: post #204
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…

No one kitts their car out like this in DC bc this amt of snow is basically unheard of...?

we have a new climate

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

#215

Post by baq »

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…

If you design your space for cars as the mode of getting to places, you get exactly that… but it really doesn’t have to be like this. It is possible to plan cities in a way that public transit works. Obviously it won’t if you need to jump into a car to buy bread for breakfast, because otherwise you won’t be back for dinner.

I say this as a member of a two car family who routinely ferries children to places and hates every minute of it that could be spent paying attention to something other than the road.

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

#216

Post by kaesar14 »

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.

No post body was provided.

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

#217

Post by coolso »

guntars wrote: post #3

Link for people that DO want megabytes of tracking Javascript and, you know, media: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/04/weather/winter-weather-tuesda...

And here are some links for people who prefer to avoid CNN:

https://apnews.com/article/snow-storm-weather-195-virginia-6...

https://www.nbc12.com/2022/01/04/vdot-continues-clear-i-95-h...

https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-i-95-winter-storm-traffi...

https://wtop.com/traffic/2022/01/the-storm-paralyzed-traffic...

https://wjla.com/amp/news/local/drivers-stranded-stuck-for-h...

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

#218

Post by evilotto »

gumby wrote: post #27

Interesting to consider that the oil industry may have made a mistake by reframing “global warming” as “climate change”. Harder for people to see events like this as part of “global warning” while it is more understandable as a consequence of “climate change”

The way I think of global warming is just that the atmosphere as a whole is containing more energy. If this idea is translated to simple and easy to understand mathematical models, wild behavior results as a direct outcome.

The simplest version of this is the period-doubling bifuration:

    X(n+1) = r * Xn * (1 - Xn)
"r" is the amount of energy in the system (i.e., heat in the atmosphere) and Xn is the severity of the behavior. The insight is that while the "severity" naturally goes up as the "energy" goes up, once you get to a certain point, the severity goes both well above and below the "natural" level in unpredictable ways. In other words, a more energetic atmosphere leads to both much hotter and colder days.

The Lorenz attractor was described in a very similar way, related to turbulence and temperature gradients. It's not weather or climate, but I do find it a useful analogy.

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

#219

Post by NikolaeVarius »

worstestes wrote: post #185
rayiner wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Seriously, suburbia is hell

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

#220

Post by aidenn0 »

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…

I also grew up in Northern VA. Biggest issue there is how hard it is to build public transit. The silver-line was such a clusterfuck largely because of fights over who should pay[1], how much it should cost and how to balance construction-induced disruption and costs with long-term TCO.

If we could build rail miles as cheaply and quickly as Western Europe, everyone in Fairfax Co could commute via rail except perhaps those work west of there.

1: Fairfax county is rather centrally planned compared to everywhere else in the US I've lived since then, but the DC Metro is funded by MD, VA, DC, and the federal government. The difficulty of building infrastructure seems to scale super-linearly with the number of people paying for the infrastructure...

Post reply on HN