Who can explain traffic jams to me?

I hate the M8 with a passion, and am not looking forward to starting my new job in the centre of Glasgow as a result. Zonecards ahoy!

Regardless, they're commerical free.

xpost by now.

it is usually a chain reaction of lane-changing, late-breaking and the like

And what if their ultimate destination was also far from a station?

oops was quick to react

at least, you have the decency to, at least, pretend (you may, even, not be pretending!) that you would prefer to use public transport!

the world would be a better place, I think, if everyone, at least, pretended

crosspost

I know that comment was directed at me, RJG, and no, I would not prefer taking public trans [HANG ME for having this preference], but if it was feasable for me to do so, I would.

crosspost

I'd direct very little at you, oops,

perhaps, some traffic

not by a very long shot, but there's nothing roundabout in the way cars effect me. According to this study, [URL]http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1292524,00.html[/URL], living in London now, breathing its air, is the equivalent of smoking 27 cigarettes a day.

It does sort of bother me when I see the morning jam, thousands of cars, each with one erson in it. I just wish you guys would car pool, or get public trans, or at least make some sort of effort to limit your oxides.

i could take the bus, but I'd have to be at the bus stop at like 5:30 am in order to get to work in time

I got into the most vicious traffic jam today -- the first time it's ever been like a parking lot for me. it took about an hour to go 2 miles. and i had to pee really bad, too! it was awful.

BTW, how do emissions standards in Great Britain compare to the US, especially California? Cali's emission standards are so extreme, its not outrageous to make using an electric vehicle more polluting.

Also, I'd attribute traffic jams largely to the sheer volume of cars on the road.

I think people should pay more attention to where they live when choosing where to work, and where they work when choosing where to live.

what I also thought was cool was the way the sort of traffic jam nucleus propogates backwards with time.

the lesson: don't EVER slow down for anything.

Most importantly TOP GEAR with Clarkson. discovery channel I luv U

Having experienced daily DC area traffic makes it so much easier to brush off any crowding problems or delays on the subway. I can just think about how it feels to be stuck on 66 eastbound and all my frustrations with the train pale into insignificance. I wholeheartedly believe that I've put 7 years back on my life by avoiding driving. And not just because I'm absolute crap behind the wheel.

http://www.lovearth.net/gmdeliberatelydestroyed.htm

The main thing that got me in Chicago was the way the highway passes right along the Loop, and sprouts this complex array of run-off lanes and exits and such -- there's a lot of lane-changing involved, which keeps the area tied up in anything beyond light traffic.

the problem with almost any good plan

These drivers are called "truckers".

Works like supersonic air flow, and it's why rocket nozzles are designed the way they are.

6 years of engineering school, and these are the things i retain.

...proving what I always suspected.

sonic air flow, too.

this page from an old boingboing link is great:

TRAFFIC "EXPERIMENTS" AND A CURE FOR WAVES & JAMS

Except in LA where you can be bumper to bumper going 75 on the 405.

WAVES & JAMS

http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_may2004/NASCARFan.jpg http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/mmsource/image/2004-6-10/auto3.gif http://www.modenstudios.com/realrice/ricerparty.jpg http://www.whiterose.org/pete/blog/images/robo.jpg http://randyray.name/hello/166/2442/640/MVC-001S.jpg http://www.pertti.com/rtw/rtwusala/Delorean.jpg http://www.ocweekly.com/images/ink/03/02/sm2ledeb.jpg

that's how i see it. the only way to fit 5x more cars without sacrificing speed is to not have any space between. which is nerve-wracking

so obviously this hardly ever works because all it takes is 1 person's momentary hesitation or panic to start the slowdown.

there will always be traffic jams because many people are not willing to compromise their safety even further by driving in a manner which could minimize the traffic problem. (of course, at the risk of completely blowing it by crashing).

but just let me say that i'm not generally in favor of a "speed limit" influencing one's rate of travel

or something like that. its all to do with this funny wavey graph thing.

but mei is basically right i think. unless we want to sit in traffic jams, transport connections should be almost our number 1 influencing factor in decidign where to live. we dont factor it in nearly enough.

I agree that the debate of where to live and work on the basis of how long one spends in traffic is somewhat helpful in deciding where to live (spending an hour in traffic each way means 2 hours of your life lost), but in comparison to other factors, like living space, security/safety, cost of living, and wage? Hey, I'd love to live in NYC and not have to need a car for anything except when I rent one on holidays, but economically, its not very feasible at the moment. At least to live the way I'd like (especially given that traffic isn't a serious concern for me).

also, also, interesting that you use the words "better standard of living". because for me, if you had said "quality of life" i would wonder whether you had really counted how much sitting in a traffic jam reduces your quality of life, as tombot insinuated above. personally, i value not istting in a traffic jam so highly that i would be willing to seach for a job located in such a place where i could access public transport, and living in a place where i can reach that work location efficiently by public transport. for example, as i live within the city, albeit not in the centre, my house is very small and i have no garden. if i lived out of the city, i might improve my quality of life with such features of a house. but that would be offset by the need for an arduous commute along roads.

its a personal thing. if you dont mind sitting in queues that much, then stick with it. but one thing is certain: your situation will not improve in this respect.

Right, but its an issue that often goes beyond merely a garden and the size of a home. In the near suburbs of Hartford, CT, you can get a passable studio apartment for $500. Even then, if you're someone who's scraping by on $2000/mo, that's not exactly pocket change. OTOH, the nearest cities with really excellent public transportation (New York and Boston) are insanely expensive, to the point where it prohibative for many people to live. Sure, the salaries increase, but the rents are astronomical, even for total dives. And to get something that's a total dive and be able to pay for it making even 2250/2500 a month, you end up having to get a place far outside of the main city, or with a bunch or roommates. In that case, have you really stepped far forward from the X minutes in traffic?

Trust me, I'd like nothing more than a park and ride within 5 minutes of my house with rail service that brought me within walking distance of my job in Hartford. It would be great. Right now though, all the mass transit concepts are garbage that have been put forth and simply not anything that would improve upon my 25 minute, typically trafficless, early morning commute. Luna's situation is somewhat similar: lives close enough that traffic isn't an issue, but would like to take public transit. It just isn't there though. And the possibility of moving solely to replace a 5 minute drive with a 5 minute ride on a bus just isn't practical.

(I'll say this though; if that hour commute is a lot to bear, which it is, and you can live comfortably and within your means by moving to a new more convienent location, shit, I wouldn't blame anyone for taking it. if I could get a deal where I didn't have a big yard but could walk to work and still had most of my general media and utility amenities, I'd be all over it too, so I can't blame you in your position.)

i'm still trying to parse this.

The emissions standards in California are ridiculously strict. We're talking so strict, its not outrageous to have cars produce emissions cleaner than the surrounding air. On the other hand, the majority of electricity in America is produced by burning fossil fuels, often with far more polluting effects.

In other words: Manufacturers can and do make internal combustion engine vehicles capable of meeting zero or near zero emissions standards.

the point is that in every city ive lived in, buses have generally been quicker and living on a bus route cheaper than living further out (im UK remember) therefore i get the bus (also *admits* i get free public transport in 4eva), and my point is, when people are queuing down abbeydale rd moving 10 metres in 10 mins, i bet there are some people there who wouldnt have thought of using bus or whatever, and who if they did, might find things a little better. that is all. if your commmute is fine, then its all hunky dory. but as i sadi, just bear in mind that a) it wont improve b) it will probably get worse. long term, those easy early morning commutes will gradually become more and more congested, as more traffic forces more peak spreading to pre- and post-peak.

Argh, this again! Such meaningless bullshit. Whether or not the exhaust from your car is cleaner than the surrounding air is irrelevant. It's still pollution and can only make the air quality worse. It's like saying that dumping raw sewage into the river is fine because it's already full of nuclear waste.

But virtually every method of energy production involves pollution of some kind. Singling out internal combustion engines as being "dirty" is facetious. It doesn't matter what you use; hell, hydrogen needs electricity to be produced too, and it'll take a lot of windmills or solar panels (which also require large amounts of energy and pollutants to be produced) to make. As is, the internal combustion engine is incredibly efficent and extremely clean.

BTW, I did a google search for "emissions cleaner than the surrounding air" (without quotes) and the results were telling. Apart from the first result which is a report from the liberatarian Heartland Institute, every other use of that phrase that I could find came directly from automakers' press releases and other industry sources.

Your arguments imply a resistance to any improvements in air quality whatsoever. By saying "this other technology is somewhat polluting as well" you're avoiding the question of which technology is actually cleaner and implying that we might as well do nothing.

Because power plants never lie. Oh, sure, individual drivers don't go through emissions too, but there's also a lot of drivers that don't have insurance on their automobiles either.

>According to this site even electric cars powered with coal burning power plants have lower emissions than gas burning cars.<

Its also loaded. "equivalent cars" can mean any car that's deemed to be the "equivalent" of a electric vehicle. For instance, comparing GM's electric vehicle to a stock 1991 Buick Sentry (in this case, its a 1995 Acura, a decade old automobile built with older emissions standards. no idea as to whether or not its Cali viable either). It also makes no note whatsoever of what work has been done in the field of making gasoline powered automobiles cleaner.

>BTW, I did a google search for "emissions cleaner than the surrounding air" (without quotes) and the results were telling. Apart from the first result which is a report from the liberatarian Heartland Institute, every other use of that phrase that I could find came directly from automakers' press releases and other industry sources.<

Given that most green websites are staunchly opposed to the use of internal combustion engines, why would they suddenly admit that maybe the work done in California has done some good? They'd rather just show video of brown smoke coming out the back of a 1986 Chevy Caprice.

Your link also explains stuff such as the amount of pollution that can be emitted by a vehicle to qualify it as a ULEV (ultra low emissions vehicle). Unsurprisingly, it doesn't mention that the next set of California Emissions standards, set to take effect in 2009, will effectively make ALL automobiles ULEV, including internal combustion engines. The link also uses France as an example of how electric automobiles could be made to run far cleaner than in the US or UK, since they're not as dependant on fossil fuels. The fact that France operates chiefly on nuclear power is noted but briefly. Oh, and that apparently, in the minds of the folks running this website, California is able to produce enough electricity for itself. That I found really cute.

(most importantly, there's also the slight issue that electric vehicles, at the moment, are nowhere near a viable alternative for most motorists)

>Your arguments imply a resistance to any improvements in air quality whatsoever. By saying "this other technology is somewhat polluting as well" you're avoiding the question of which technology is actually cleaner and implying that we might as well do nothing.<

Well, there's no question that pollution results in the creation of electric power, no matter how you do it. You either make toxic waste, pump out soot, or drop barrels of nuclear material inside a mountain. There's no free ride here. Nor are gasoline powered engines nearly as dirty as many claim them to be.

Won't that take me somewhere rotten?

-- andy -- (and...), September 20th, 2005.

mmm, i think more cartoon rabbits were involved.

No, you've misunderstood, it's late breaking that CAUSES traffic to stop, not the other way round. If you drive keeping a good distance away from the car in front, anticipate what's coming up, and not accelerate too much when you will have to slow down again when you come up to traffic further along the road, you shoudn't have to use the brakes much at all.

Well, it'll take you to Glasgow or Edinburgh depending on the direction I guess... Where are you actually trying to get to?

theoretically thousands of cars could be going 100mph (kph whatever) with only inches between them

traffic jams cannot possibly be avoided, because it would require absolutely every driver to operate their vehicle without fear and with great precision. just one person becoming uncomfortable and applying their brakes starts the whole chain reaction

It might even take you to Port Glasgow, which is arguably worse.