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

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

#91

Post by dubfan »

nardi wrote: post #77
justinpaulson wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zipper merging is only optimal if traffic is already slowed down dramatically. If traffic is still moving at any kind of speed, then early merge when there is space available will clear congestion faster than everyone driving up to the merge point and hoping that it works out.

This is the commonly held belief that is false. It is false because traffic is caused by lack of capacity, not inefficient driving.

Road capacity and driver efficiency are related. Roads have a theoretical capacity that is rarely reached due to inefficiencies in driver's habits.

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

#92

Post by dubfan »

joshwa wrote: post #89
Noted wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rarely have seen issues in California with zipper merge, when the lanes are actually merging. Most of the time the issue I've seen is when people are cutting over from a turn only lane to try and force their way to go straight.

Turn-only lanes (using a turn-only lane to go straight) is where I see the worst cheater/vigilante behavior. (It's always BMW's who do it, too... ) Those turn-only lanes are just wasted capacity that could be used to carry more traffic into a zipper merge. I'm guessing that at some peak hour the turn lane has utility, but at reverse-peak they should be able to switch to a regular lane leading to a merge point.

Zipper merging inside an intersection will almost certainly lead to gridlock due to incomplete mergers before the light changes.

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

#93

Post by MagicWishMonkey »

ericHosick wrote: post #40
notacoward wrote: post #27

Zipper merging works great as long as everyone on both sides is willing to alternate (or if strong enforcement requires them to do so). Otherwise, letting "late mergers" scream past fifty "early mergers" often creates a situation worse than simple early merge. There's plenty of blame to go around. * The vast majority of the people blasting down the late-merge lane clearly have no interest in alternating or merging in…

Zipper merging is the optimal solution. People early merge because they think it is the optimal/moral/better/'done my part' solution. If everyone knew about zipper merging there would be no early mergers (and 'late mergers' don't exist within the context of zipper merging).

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.

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

#94

Post by idbehold »

rayiner wrote: post #38
incision wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>'I have driven in many states and never has the mentality that you cannot, MUST NOT, let someone ahead of you been as bad as it is here. Minnesota Nice, indeed.' We don't rule the lists anymore [1], but I'll put the horrible traffic and drivers of the DMV (DC, Maryland, Virginia) up against anyone in a gridlocked struggle for the title of worst. Though, I've routinely been told by people more traveled than myself th…

Grew up driving in DC/MD/VA. I think PA/NJ/DE is much worse.

That's funny. I grew up driving in PA then moved down to DC for a job and I think DC/MD/VA drivers are much worse. It's like none of them have ever driven in the rain before. "Holy shit the road is made of ice, better drive at least 15mph under the speed limit." - The thought process of every DMV driver when it starts to drizzle.

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

#95

Post by pseudonym »

flomo wrote: post #43
kelnos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've rarely seen people in (northern) California do proper zipper merges. CA has some of the most clueless and inattentive driving I've ever seen.

Disagree. I used to reverse-commute through the Golden Gate Bridge and the Caldecott Tunnel, where the freeway went from 4 lanes to 2 in both places. 99% of drivers manage to zipper-merge properly. Likewise, almost everyone zippers at the South 101 Central Freeway merge. California drivers may or may not be bad, but they're much better than the ones in Minnesota.

I still commute occasionally across the bridge. Getting people to zipper merge 4 to 2 lanes properly going onto the bridge almost never happens.

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

#96

Post by dusing »

VikingCoder wrote: post #79
dusing wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the Twin Cities and "Minnesota nice" means merging incredibly early when a lane is posted as closed. As a transplant I can always count on getting and extra 1/2 - 1 mile ahead by staying in the closed lane. It is getting better, but still 40% of the time the car at the end of the zipper merge is NOT happy to see you, and thinks they are letting you in. Signage is helping at the big construction areas.

"Getting ahead" means you're not following the whole point of this idea, which is to MINIMIZE the speed differential between the two lanes. If you want to show people how it's done, you go the same speed as the cars next to you in the open lane, and zipper merge at the end. GRRRRR. Yes, THEY are doing it wrong, because they're early merging. (IDIOTS!) But you are ALSO doing it wrong. I'm reminded of the George Carlin…

"Getting ahead" does not mean speeding, and its hard to go the same speed as the full lane when it is at a stand still. I do slow down from the speed limit significantly just in case someone wants to pop out.

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

#97

Post by seandougall »

frogpelt wrote: post #46
ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If everyone maintains speed it's actually not a big deal.

Unless they didn't maintain enough space for the big truck. Then someone has to slow down.

Or unless more than one lane is closed, or there's, you know, actual traffic. I would love to drive in a place where "you don't even take your foot off the brake" works, closures or no.

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

#98

Post by ericcumbee »

dubfan wrote: post #88
peeters wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking about educating drivers, I wish we could just kill that mentality once and for all. It drives me crazy when someone obviously beats me to a stop sign, then waves me through as though they're doing me a favor. No my friend, you're just making it slower for both of us by not following the established rules of the road. Thankfully my city is replacing as many stop signs as possible with traffic circles, where y…

> 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.

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

#99

Post by dr_faustus »

Well, this is (has always been) the standard in Germany and it works pretty well. We even have one of those great German words for it: Reißverschlussverfahren (= zipper procedure).

Concerning people not letting you in: In case of ending lanes (except ramps) you are obliged to let people in. There is always the occasional douchebag that doesnt but it almost never happend to me. At worst you have to wait for one car to pass.

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