The Evil Eyebrow

Category: Transportation

  • This Week in Traffic: 16 February 2007

    Traffic Calming

    Businesses often have objections to traffic calming devices, warranted or not. I have never gone looking for before/after studies dealing with business numbers.

    Officer Goes Below and Beyond

    A California police officer ejaculates on a driver. “I’m not wearing any pants. Film at eleven.”

    Personal Rapid Transit Smackdown

    Ken Avidor has bad things to say about Personal Rapid Transit.

    More from Santa Cruz

    As mentioned in an earlier posting, Santa Cruz, CA has a contentious population. Apparently, however, an advisory panel consisting of 77(!) people is beginning to pall on even those citizens

    Stuck in the Snow

    Just yesterday, I was telling a friend that it had been 1998 when last I experienced real snowfall. At least, I haven’t had to deal with being stuck on a highway for 24 hours.

    Teen Driving Restrictions Save Lives

    AAA has released a study indicating that restrictions on teen driving lead to fewer fatal crashes.

    States with the nation’s toughest teen driving laws have more than a third fewer crashes causing death or injury involving 16-year-old drivers, according to the study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

    I’m in favor; my 15 year old sister is not. I can vote; she can’t

  • This Week in Roses/Traffic: 14 February 2007

    Miami

    Did you know Miami is the southeastern U.S. port of entry for the majority of fresh produce? If you live Kentucky, most of your fridge is shipped (by truck!) from Miami. Think about that the next time you go to the grocery store.

    Miami is also the nations largest port of entry for fresh flowers. Check out this mornings story on Morning Edition no, I’m not a latte-drinking, volvo-driving NPR-listening Hippie. That’s my wife. I just listen to NPR without the rest of that stuff

    Some Seasoning for your Road?

    In an otherwise dry report, the Belleville News Democrat compares road de-icing to table seasoning.

    In all, the Missouri Department of Transportation has used 240,000 tons – which is enough to cover the yearly table salt demand of Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Tennessee.

    Arggh. This is like those comparisons the Discovery channel uses when they want you to think something is REALLY big. “Almost 100 million millimeters!”

    Beltway Omelet

    A trucker on the I-495 beltway around Washington D.C. overturned and spilled 165,000 eggs. “Karbonski said it looked like a large omelet on the road.” At least this officer can attach a cogent metaphor.

    No Bi-Fuel in HOV

    In the dry-but-interesting category, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano issued an order prohibiting bi-fuel vehicles in HOV lanes. State legislators object to what they see as an executive authority overstep.

    Traffic Data Sampling Through Your Cellphone

    It keeps getting closer. As the computing power of the cellphone increases, and as data gathering techniques mature, the cellphone is becoming the leading choice for collecting real-time traffic data.

    Atlanta Traffic Hockey Day

    The Gwinnet Gladiators are having a traffic-themed game on the 24th of February, as reported by Hockey Rants. Check out the jersey!

  • This Monday in Traffic: 5 Feb 2007

    Vibrating Bluetooth to Keep Drivers Awake

    This item would be much more up close and personal than the rumble strips that saved my butt outside Buffalo, NY one fine afternoon.

    Windows Vista

    Windows is apparently getting into the congestion alerting system. LiveSide is a Vista plugin that will allow you to monitor traffic in US cities with the appropriate Intelligent Transportation System hardware in place.

    De-icer from Oil Wells

    North Dakota has been using oil well brine to de-ice roads. People have objections…

    Airline Security Silliness

    Nathaniel Forbes of ZDNet responds to some of the security hassles he has personally encountered.

    When a TSA inspector at a U.S. airport says he’s going to touch your genitals and asks, ‘Is that OK?’, what’s the right answer?

  • This Week in Groundhogs/Traffic: February 2 2007

    Happy Groundhog Day!

    Groundhog Central

    Sun Prairie, WI, claims to be Groundhog Central.

    Parking Enforcement by Camera

    Street Sweeping parking laws will be enforced by cameras mounted on street sweepers in Washington D.C. I like it. They should do the same thing with Snow Emergency days, except you wouldn’t be able to read the license plates.

    Timely Announcement

    With all the furor about Atlanta’s traffic, there was an announcement on Wednesday that the Atlanta Regional Commission (Atlanta Metro’s 10 county planning organization) is awarding a grant to the Atlanta Bureau of Planning (strictly a city office). This will allow them to develop a transportation plan to address growth initiatives. Ironically, a quick stop (2/1/07) at both the ABoP and the ARC websites did not reveal this announcement.

    Photography

    Photo.net is a great website, first populated by Philip Greenspun. Here is a selection of candid photos concerning transportation.

    Driving a Humvee through Bagdad

    This link will take you to a comments page, through which you can click to the youtube video. Excellent driving techniques. I should try them on my daily commute.

  • This Week in Traffic: 31 January 2007

    Tennessee Fatality Rate Dropping

    The reduction is credited to greater enforcement, new seat belt laws, and stricter drunk driving standards (0.08% BAC). Or it could be a statistical anomaly. Crash statisics are difficult to get ahold of and identify causal factors. Several more years of data are necessary to draw good conclusions. With that in mind, check out this article citing Mississippi’s decrease in fatalities, which notes the difficulty in seeing trends with only a few years worth of data.

    NextGen Air Traffic Control Network

    Boeing and Lockheed announce… Nevermind. This is boring. Let’s mine the article for industry-standard double talk!

    Boeing and Lockheed Martin officials say that, by working together, the companies can leverage their expertise in air traffic management and aircraft-centric solutions to implement bold changes and help the U.S. government overcome the challenges that lie ahead in transforming the current air traffic control system.

    …will bring together world-class capabilities to accelerate solutions for a growing air traffic capacity problem.

    …industry needs to look from the ground to the sky for innovation.

    Nice lines, eh?

    Oysters = Donald Trump?

    On top of the traffic nightmare in Atlanta caused by Donald Trump’s inexplicable popularity, there is the Oyster Jam in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina. I haven’t heard about any legislators getting up in SC to lambast the police like they did last Friday in Atlanta. For more on the Atlanta traffic disaster see my response to the state legislator.

    Vehicle Pollution hurts Kids, to the Sound of Music!

    There has been a deluge of news and blog posts concerning a research study from last year that demonstrated lifetime damage to children who breath significant amounts of vehicular smog. This one grabs the eye better than most.

    O’Hare is Expanding, Too

    Hartsfield Jackson Int’l Airport completed it’s 5th runway last year. Apparently, O’Hare is doing similar things but having some construction issues, itemized by this advocacy group. Here are the details of the expansion, under Modernization Plan.

    NH in the Hizz’ouse

    Former transportation commissioner from NH elected to the Transportation Research Board. Go NH!

  • Amateur Day

    The state legislators A few of the State Legislators of Georgia apparently had nasty things to say about the Atlanta Police department after last Thursday’s traffic snafu in downtown.

    Rep. Edward Lindsey (R-Atlanta) said. “Yesterday, you let down the citizens of Atlanta, our commuters, and our guests to these great conventions. This is simply unacceptable for the great international city that I am so proud to represent.”

    This was after reported 3 hour commutes that would normally take 1, or 30 minutes to move 10 blocks in downtown. Suffice to say, it was a mess.

    However, the implication that the Police can run out and start directing traffic and make things better is a fallacy. Anyone who has ever tried to do signal coordination on a network of criss-crossing roadways is aware that optimizing traffic throughput is a non-trivial task. Skilled professionals working in conjunction with sophisticated computer models have difficulty getting it right. Changes to one area cascade throughout the system, and if you begin with a thoroughly saturated network, the best you can hope for is that everyone is trying to leave, which blatantly is not the case in downtown Atlanta. To expect that a police officer directing traffic can alleviate congestion in a situation like that is silly. At most, they can make sure all of the available space is continuously filled with vehicles, but until those vehicles actually leave the area, there will be no relief.

    The “best”* solution would be for officers to set up roadblocks prohibiting traffic from entering the downtown area while directing them to central parking and MARTA. However, once the traffic is already in the downtown area, it’s going to be a disaster no matter what response the police enact.

    To Representative Edward Lindsey, I say that you should spend a day in a traffic cop’s shoes before criticizing their capabilities or performance.

    *By “best” I mean, of course, the solution that leaves the most free roadway. No cars, no congestion. I don’t think anyone would be happy with that solution, however.

  • Atlanta Traffic

    Last Thursday there was a snafu here in Atlanta that I fortunately was not caught in (link, reg. required). Donald Trump coming to town caused serious traffic congestion throughout the entire Atlanta Region. It illustrates how delicate the traffic situation is around here. There are 300,000 vehicles traveling on I-75/85 through downtown Atlanta every day, and that’s an average; it can be worse.

    Today’s AJC has an article (reg. required) talking about how daily traffic has affected the lives of people around the metropolitan Atlanta area. How some people drastically change their daily schedules to avoid peak travel times, and others move from loved homes to shrink their commutes.

    I understand entirely how these people feel. On a normal day, if I leave at 7:30 AM, it takes me 35 minutes to get to work, and a similar amount of time to get home. It only takes 18 minutes with free-flow traffic conditions. On a weather day, or a Friday, or a holiday, or because the Flying Spaghetti Monster is punishing us, it can take 45 minutes to an hour and a half to get home. That gets old quickly.

    Thankfully, Jenn and I aren’t so attached to our house that we will have problems selling it and moving someplace else. We fully intend to move closer in to the heart of Atlanta if we decide to stay here after she gets tenure. However, there are people who, for the sake of a bigger home or larger yard, move to locations that force them into 1.5 hour commutes each way. I have met these people in the course of my work. That would be a nightmare, and I don’t know how they do it.

  • Last Week in Traffic: 25 January 2007

    I forgot to post this before heading for vacation…

    Traffic Death Risk

    Carnegie Mellon announces a new traffic statistics website, concentrating on risk.

    Ontario Police Chief eats Boring Pill

    Apparently traffic safety is no laughing matter.

    Society and Traffic Jams

    Relievedebtor has some thoughts about the relationship between free society and traffic snarls.

    State Transportation Statistics

    The Bureau of Transportation Statistics has released the 2006 State Transportation Statistics for the U.S. There are lots of dry, but interesting, details in these reports.

  • CARma

    A group is trying to guilt Atlanta Drivers into following the rules of the road on I-75.

    The linked article from the Atlanta Journal Constitution gives a thumbnail overview of the plan by CARma to encourage drivers on I-75 through Atlanta to obey the speed limit, allow merging, and not to tailgate. All this to avoid those minor incidents that can cause enormous congestion problems.

    I’m all for this. I allow merges all the time, and I don’t generally tailgate (of course, “tailgate” is entirely relevant to the prevailing traffic density), but I don’t see the traffic slowing down much.

    Ask me in a week.

  • This Monday (again) in Traffic: 15 Jan 2007

    There’s all sorts of stuff piling in this week…

    Big Dig

    Traffic is moving through the Boston tunnel where a woman was killed last summer by a falling piece of falsework. Ironically, I get this news through a TV station out of Sioux City, Iowa.

    Sydney Gridlock

    Sydney Australia is in the same boat as Atlanta, GA. No matter how much money they throw at transportation, congestion will only get worse. It’s more how fast things will get worse than whether they will or not.

    What particularly entertains me about this article isn’t the article itself. It is this quote: “A Federal Government report predicts traffic around Sydney will skyrocket by 25 per cent within the next 20 years…”

    Skyrocket? 25% in 20 years is smallllll growth. Very very sloooowwwww… That’s 1.12% per year. Less than inflation in the U.S. If only our citys’ congestion would grow so slowly.

    Ideal Work Environment

    Rhode Island DOT has innovative way to encourage coming to work. How come the Texas DOT didn’t operate next to a strip joint while I was working there? Hardly seems fair.

    Ancient Transport Blog

    I found Ancient Transportation through the auspices of Roman History Books and More

    Those Pesky Commuters!

    Manhattan drivers stuck in traffic are admonished not to blame the out-of-town drivers.

    On a personal note, I avoid driving into Manhattan like the plague, and I can’t imagine (notice there, argument by personal incredulity!) that I’m alone in that. Who wants to try and navigate by car a huge unfamiliar city when you can park and use public transit while reading a map.

    L.A. Traffic Signal Disruption

    More news about the two indicted defendants in the Great L.A. Traffic Signal Hack previoulsy noted here.