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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

#621

Post by blackdeath »

_moof wrote: post #335
throw_nbvc1234 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this logic work with electric cars; just cut the range in half?

Electric cars are apparently much better in these situations than gas-powered cars, because you can keep the heat on for hours and hours without using up much charge (or creating any CO). Don't personally know if that's true but it's what I've read.

I am getting very much the opposite impression from various recent newsarticles in Sweden, where EVs are common and traffic jams due to snow, accidents etc. are commonplace as well.

Google translated a recent P4 article:

The snow weather over southern and western Sweden has had a major impact on traffic and people have been sitting in traffic jams for several hours*, reports P4 Gothenburg.

A major problem has also been electric cars abandoned on the E6 by their drivers. The battery runs out when there is so much heat in the car.

- We will be able to salvage(tow) a lot of electric cars that were on the E6 during the night, says the Swedish Transport Administration's road traffic manager Mikael Salo and believes that this is one of the shortcomings with the new cars.

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

#622

Post by imgabe »

dnautics wrote: post #559
Bud wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

It would be the only state with no agricultural interests, the only state with no ports, the only state where the majority of the residents work for the federal government... The last one alone is pretty scary and a bit of a conflict of interest.

> It would be the only state with no agricultural interests,

Wasn't aware this was a requirement to be a state. Is it in the Constitution somewhere? We'll plant some corn on the Mall or something.

> the only state with no ports,

You clarify below you're talking about Ports of Entry, or state government buildings for managing goods coming into the state. So...DC will make some? Are these naturally occurring structures and if you don't have any in your area you're just screwed?

> the only state where the majority of the residents work for the federal government

Not even true. DC has 200,000 federal employees out of 680,000 residents. A little over a quarter. Not even close to a majority. Most federal employees work outside DC. Note that taking a job as a federal employee does not mean you should be deprived of Congressional representation.

[1] https://cfo.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/ocfo/publica...

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

#623

Post by imgabe »

MathCodeLove wrote: post #586
imgabe wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally agree that not everything is racially motivated, but it's pretty well documented that this is, or at least was, historically. Dream City [1] is a good book about the history of DC. Part of the reason there is such a large Black population is that a lot of freed slaves moved there after the Civil War. In later years, Congress, which is effectively charged with governing the District, and of course included…

Wow thanks! I did some quick googling and it seems there is something to it historically. Though how much of a role (if any) racial division currently plays as opposed to economic and other political motivation is unclear. I'm not inclined to read heavily politicized novels by a single author, typically they're too partisan and don't present things without bias, but I am open to learning more from less bias sources a…

I don't know if you googled Dream City and came up with something else, but it's not a novel. It's a nonfiction history book written by two DC journalists.

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

#624

Post by avnigo »

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…

Keeping some matches handy and lighting a tea candle in the car is surprisingly enough to keep you warm overnight, too.

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

#625

Post by imgabe »

bobsil1 wrote: post #553
bobsil1 wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DC residents should get one-person-one-vote, like most things. We should get rid of 1700s planter superuser backdoors like the disproportional Senate and electoral college.

Then we should rebrand away from the slaver-drafted constitution to the Free States of America, a fourth founding after the original, post-Civil War and Civil Rights Movement. That would match what we actually have, a multiethnic democracy welcoming global talent. Giving residents of Wyoming 70× the Senate voting power of any Californian is a joke.

Not a joke. It was the intent that populous states should not be able to steamroll less populous states in the Senate.

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

#626

Post by pbourke »

crowbahr wrote: post #278
robcohen wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, i…

> 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.

The Netherlands is smaller than New Jersey and has twice its population - its one of the most densely populated countries. Comparing it to the 3rd largest country on earth is risible.

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

#627

Post by pas »

wbl wrote: post #578
jaybrendansmith wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So ... do any of you follow politics? One of the two major parties has given up on governing the country, and has not done so for ten years. This 'grand' old party seems to be toying with the idea of giving up on Democracy next. And we are confused as to why the DC Metro system cannot be fixed?? Here's a tip: Fix that party, and you will find that suddenly the DC Metro has money to fix the automatic braking system.

The DC Metro has plenty of money. They just don't have competence.

For how expensive the US is. No they don't have enough. (And yes, on top of it they are likely not the best in the mass transit game. As it's simply not a priority in the US anywhere else either.)

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

#628

Post by MathCodeLove »

imgabe wrote: post #623
MathCodeLove wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow thanks! I did some quick googling and it seems there is something to it historically. Though how much of a role (if any) racial division currently plays as opposed to economic and other political motivation is unclear. I'm not inclined to read heavily politicized novels by a single author, typically they're too partisan and don't present things without bias, but I am open to learning more from less bias sources a…

I don't know if you googled Dream City and came up with something else, but it's not a novel. It's a nonfiction history book written by two DC journalists.

TIL Novel only refers to fictional books. I've gone my whole life just believing it was determined by length and nothing else.

Regardless, the same holds. 'Non-fiction' can still come with heavy biases, especially on politically sensitive topics.

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

#629

Post by pseudo0 »

Mandatum wrote: post #570
pseudo0 wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it was not anticipated that civilians would be able to own weapons of war) That was in fact the entire point ( https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246 ). > (a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the Unite…

New Zealand is not doing fine. Populism has fucked over a generation, and the chickens have started coming home to roost.

Isn't Arden's government considered fairly neoliberal? Her and Trudeau are the two that seem to be most frequently praised in legacy media for winning reelection despite the recent surge in populism.

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

#630

Post by mrsuprawsm »

asdff wrote: post #310
azylman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way that public transit scales to meet higher demand is different than roads. Whereas roads require more lanes, public transit such as trains can scale by either adding more train cars to existing trains or adding more frequent service. More frequent service, in addition to improving throughput, also helps everyone else using the system by making it more convenient. And, if it "induces" people to move from roads…

Increasing service is very difficult to do. For example, before the pandemic I would take the red line in LA which would be packed to the brim by the time it rolled into downtown LA, not enough room to even turn around while standing. During my commuting I would do a lot of reading about transit and about the redline in particular. To increase the capacity of the red line would take a lot of work that would not be ch…

This is a case of under-investment and poor design. The London Underground, for example, the oldest underground railway in the world, manages 2-3 minute headways (29 trains per hour) on many central lines, both sub-surface and deep level.

Of course, you need to invest in the infrastructure to make it work, but it's very possible.

A quick Google suggests that in Tokyo they even hit 50 trains per hour, so one every 1m20s, which is insanely impressive.

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