^ So why did NJ just spend $2.5 billion widening the NJTP from 3 lanes in each direction to 6, between exits 6 and 9?
They must be expecting something from it.
Having never been to the East Coast, I don’t well know the politics, but here in California implement bad or unhelpful infrastructure ideas all the time. Especially because it sounds like a basic common sense solution, and that it doesn’t work is rather counterintuitive. Another possibility is that four lanes is where you really stop seeing any benefits of road widening. Below that level we’re looking at a different story (a two lane freeway can’t have a higher speed and lower speed lane, plus a carpool lane), and there are reasons to bring a three lane up to a four lane. Why they’d go with three extra lanes instead of one, I couldn’t say.
Parents that go on and on about how wonderful their child is, how the college is paying for everything, how they get the best housing and how their sport’s atheletes are so much smarter than the others, and how her child has no desire or time to socialize with non athletes and won’t let any other parent talk. (This was at a local event hosted by alumni for new students).
Note: My son, not a scholarship athlete, has a date with her daughter once the get to school so Mom you don’t know everything!
White supremacists spewing their hate and holding white supremacy marches.
@Spaceship Do you know anything about why Portland OR hasn’t built any new highways since the 80s, even though hundreds of people move here each day?
If it’s anything like the situation here in San Francisco (and, knowing Portland, I suspect it is), it’s a mix of worry about inducted demand and social justice concerns. The indused demand issue is, put simply, if you built it, they well come. By building car infrastructure, you encourage car use, and cars require enough space that infrasteucture can’t really keep up. You also have worries about climate change, and private petroleum vehicles are a huge contributor to the problem. I know Portland has an official goal of reducing car usage towards that end. Vice versa, if you have the public transit infrastructure to pick up demand (and Portland is better than San Francisco in this regard), you can remove freeways and highways and not have the transit system collapse. We’ve had pretty solid success with taking away urban highways in San Francisco, and I know there’s a fair amount of discussion in Portland about whether to follow suit. This would certainly be a damper towards building any new highways in the meantime. On the social justice end, the areas around highways tend to be lower class, partially on account of noice and partially on account of highways generally being run through either the cheapest land to eminent domain (IE poor people’s homes) or the land of a group with little political power with which to resist (IE ethnic and racial minorities). They tend not to be present places to be, and running a highway through a community generally creates a barrier that divides that community. Just look as West Oakland. It was a thriving working class black community at one point, centered around rail and shipping, but it ran into some struggles in the post WW2 recession. So planners thought they could renew it in the 50s by building the freeway (and note how 50s and 60s use of eminent domain for highways was generally aimed specifically at racial minorities unless doing so was impractical), but having a giant wall in the middle of the community, with a ton of space going to ramps and interchanges, had exactly the opposite effect. Things got much, much worse, as the community was divided in two and many houses and businesses were demolished. It’s a very common urban story, and urban planners are rightfully afraid of perpetuating it further.
Basically, the general vibe among West Coast urban planners is to discourage automobile use, and highways are not popular for what they do to the built environment.
@Mansfield - What CT needs to work on is their rest stops. We traveled through there en route to Boston from West Virginia two years and we were appalled. Here., our rest stops are so clean you could (almost) eat off the floor.
@Spaceship “Basically, the general vibe among West Coast urban planners is to discourage automobile use, and highways are not popular for what they do to the built environment.”
Lol tell that to SoCal urban planners! Look at the newly completed major overhaul of the 91 fwy in the Inland Empire. So many '“carmageddon” days during that fwy expansion. We have a love/hate relationship with our freeways down here and do not see cars going away nor decreasing in demand. Plenty of folks I know including myself commute at least an hour to work and we need those highways to get there. With how spread out communities are, there is no possible and convenient way to link all those suburban communities with public transportation. As a working parent I not only commute for work but there have been plenty of times I would have to drive all the way home to pick up my kid to then drive another hour the opposite direction to get to a game or tournament. Many times I’m just driving straight to the game but it’s about 90 min drive from my work. To rely on public transportation for this lifestyle of working and going to kid’s extracurriculars is not an option in the SoCal suburbs (not even the Bay Area suburbs too).
San Diego has added a few highways to link west to east (the 52, 54, 905) If the pattern of living and working continues to be a trend whereby affordable housing is located in suburbs far from urban areas we will continue to build or upgrade highways, just my opinion.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Please refrain from making political comments.
Mine are all traffic related lately - Stopping at the bottom of on ramps instead of merging, getting in the wrong lane at traffic lights and blocking everyone behind you, tailgating, cutting people off, etc. etc. Can you tell I live in MA?
Drivers that drop their passenger off at the front of the grocery store and then park there making everyone else walk around them to get into/out of the store - really? Too oblivious to the fact you are in a vehicle and can park 20 feet out of the way and watch for your passenger to exit the store?
Lazy shopping cart users that prop them up on the parking lot island instead of walkng them to the cart return or back into the store.
I can tell you the reason road was not widened is that, once you have three or four lanes, widening a road doesn’t really reduce congestion any further.>>>>>>>
Here is one of those instances where I just have to look at an expert and say “huh???” LOL. I truly with all my heart believe another lane or two would have greatly helped the situation. I live in the D.C. area and we have horrible traffic. Adding lanes helps, I have certainly seen it happen.
Perhaps it will encourage people like to not travel that road again as I certainly have threatened for next summer. I want to fly and rent a car…another whole ball of wax itself. Traveling pretty much sucks these days.
If you look up a video called “How to fix traffic forever” it makes a fascinating point about increasing lanes and how it doesn’t work in the long run, citing a highway with like 26 lanes. The video is rather interesting as well. I recommend watching it if you have nothing better to do.
Interesting discussion about ways that I would have thought would reduce traffic that don’t.
My latest irritant is people that crack their knuckles. All of them Repeatedly. I just went to a 3 day conference and met a lovely young woman who, it turns out, was a knuckle-cracker. Often. Made it through the 3 days (we sat together frequently for other reasons) to sit next to a young man on the plane that did the exact same thing.
Bringing back the irritating thread: irritating was being at the breakfast buffet in a line behind someone filling 2 “to go” styrofoam containers and taking the last of what was there. Rather tacky.
Beyond irritated !
A woman (a mom, no less) ordered premium-quality fruit from my child for a school fundraiser and never paid or picked up the fruit… My daughter had only asked for orders in the context of group situations, i.e., parents waiting outside a ballet class, other community orchestra members (so as to not make anyone feel put on-the-spot to buy) so this woman was not pressured to order. People could pay at that time, or later. After the fruit came in (quite a big box box) my daughter called and texted her several times, offering to deliver it at her convenience, to let her pick it up at our house or make other arrangements. There was always a reason the previously-made delivery plan would no longer work, day or night.
Finally, after ten days of back and forth plans, I called the woman and said I’m worried that the fruit will not be as fresh if she doesn’t get it soon. Her reply? Oh, you can keep it if you want it! After counting to (well, not ten, but enough to bite my tongue) I explained that our small family of three have our own box to eat before it spoils. She hung up before I could say jack rabbit. GRRR. I texted her, with no response. Maybe she’s short on cash? But then why order fruit?
We covered the cost. So, I’ll donate some fruit to a shelter ASAP. If it weren’t the season of good cheer I might assert myself further. She’s not a friend, and barely an acquaintance. But when I run into her again, I can’t imagine how she’ll look me in the eye…to stiff a kid doing a fundraiser? But I guess some people are “good” at that sort of thing. Oh, well.
My brother let himself into my house, using the key he has for emergencies, to retrieve a kitchen knife he’d left behind after our holiday gathering. He did attempt to contact me but he did so while D2 and I were at a movie, and I had my phone off. I think this irritates me because earlier this year, I was locked out of my house on a cold morning, without a phone, and eventually walked to his house, a few blocks away, to ask if he had a key. I knocked and he didn’t come to the door; he told me later that he was in the shower and heard the knock but decided not to answer the door. So I went home and broke in through a window.
Here’s another: we are in a hotel. The room is very long. The people above us have been walking back and forth since about 5 am and their kid ran back and forth last night until about 11 pm .needless to say we haven’t slept much.
making crazy left turns -just go right and turn around at a safer place, talking in exercise class, being late and acting like it is normal