Talking Traffic

A sinkhole in Milwaukee, WI, ate an SUV and a traffic signal pole.

Christian Yarnell of the Columbia School of Journalism had a conversation with me last month about speed humps. Here is his final article. It’s well worth the read. He manages to summarize pretty much the entire situation around these traffic calming devices.

Speed Humps face a Roadblod

A set of business owners on Kauai island in Hawaii have put together their own transportation stimulus and fixed a bridge that needed fixing:

So Slack, other business owners and residents made the decision not to sit on their hands and wait for state money that many expected would never come. Instead, they pulled together machinery and manpower and hit the ground running March 23. Video Watch the volunteers repairing the road.

And after only eight days, all of the repairs were done, Pleas said.

I’m fascinated by this. Not because I don’t think this kind of thing can happen, but because I’m well familiar with the bureaucracy that could have made it not happen.

Image credit to Southbound_07

Today is the anniversary of Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Union forces at Appomattox. This is a significant date in US history and it also marks a reflection point on the history of transportation. The American Civil War was arguably the first “modern” war. The advent of the cheap rifle and the minié ball produced a level of casualties not seen in the Napoleonic era. Another addition to this conflict was the widespread use of the railroad to move troops and supplies.

In some respects, the war was entirely about securing bases of supply and production. The paramount example of this is Sherman’s drive on Atlanta. The goal of the campaign was to seize Atlanta and eliminate it’s usefulness to the Confederacy as a railroad hub and production facility. It is also no coincidence that Sherman moved from Chattanooga to Atlanta always following the Western & Atlantic railroad, which was the only way he could supply his troops. The Battle of Appomattox occurred because Lee wished to resupply his army there. Unfortunately for him, Union forces got there first and burned the trains that were waiting. The Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest single day of the entire war, was situated there because Lee was looking for shoes for his army.

The South was hampered in its war fighting capability by unstandardized railroad guages (width’s between the rails) across the states. The North, while having some of the same problem, had many more rails of the same guage and were therefore able to move railroad cars around more easily.

Today is a day to remember, whether you supported the Southern Cause or not. But also remember that railroads and other transport helped to determine the outcome of the war.

You may recall from March 2007 the Bluffton University baseball team bus that mistakenly exited the interstate in Atlanta on a left-hand ramp, failed to recognize the stop condition at the top of the ramp and crashed through the barrier wall on the opposite side of the cross road, falling to the interstate and killing seven.

It has happened again, thankfully without any crashes or injuries. A bus driver thought that the left-hand exit was a continuation of the through lane and took the ramp, but the increased signage, striping and raised reflective pavement markers brought to his attention that he should stop.

The question here is, what to do? You might think from that AJC story I linked that the Georgia Dept. of Transportation is being lackadaisical about this problem, but I assure you they are not! I don’t have any good before/after images of the exit ramp signage and striping but if you were familiar with the road, you’d realize that it was a night and day difference. And there is a project in the works to put in large overhead guidesigns at all of the HOV exits around town.

Yet despite the extremely over-signed-and-marked left-hand exit at Northside Drive, another bus driver made the same mistake. Why?

From my own experience driving that stretch of HOV lane, it’s easy to see how you might do it. The road is in a slight left turn at that location and if you are following the left edgeline, you might just drift into the exit lane and proceed up the ramp. GDOT has used a dotted white stripe to indicate that the edgeline continues across the ramp exit, but I can still see how the mistake might be made.

However, let’s not forget that despite the driver error in this case, the signage was sufficient to alert him to the dangerous condition and the bus was stopped safely at the stop sign. I think that’s a win, don’t you?

171,000 vehicles per day passed this spot in 2007, according to GDOT’s coverage traffic counts. Extrapolating that to today means 124 million vehicles have gone through. Using some guesses of 0.5% bus traffic and perhaps a third of those using the HOV lane, that means 208,000 buses have passed this exit and only two (that we know of) have incorrectly evaluated the situation. That’s 0.0009 percent of the buses making a bad call.

Could this ramp have been designed better? You betcha! Are signs and striping going to “solve” the problem? Probably not. Unless you define the problem as “keep people from dying by driving over the top of Northside drive bridge thinking it’s I-75″. That I think is already solved. If you define the problem as “keep people from taking this ramp, thinking it’s I-75″ then I expect to hear of more cases in the future.

Alluding to yesterday’s post concerning the inaccuracies in an Atlanta Journal Constitution article about Ramp Meters, I have an anecdote:

My wife and I go to plays at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta every few months. In order to get there from our house (during rush hour), we avoid the interstates and use surface streets (Johnson Ferry Road, for those of you in the area). We’ve made this trip often enough at the same approximate time that we know what the traffic is like and yesterday we encountered an unusual hang-up as we approached Interstate 285.

The traffic engineer in my cannot let things like traffic backups slide. I began speculating out loud as to the cause of the congestion: wrecks, congestion on the interstate, signal being out, whatever. After 10 minutes or so, we arrive at the interchange and I see it: The Ramp Meters are On!

I laughed. This was the first day that this particular ramp meters was activated and I had totally forgotten.

I predict that there will be a lot of complaints forwarded to the DOT concerning the congestion (on the approach streets) caused by the meters. This sort of project always needs tweaking when it’s first implemented. I opine that the observed congestion (by yours truly) was a bit excessive, but it was only day one. We’ll see how it all falls out. Hopefully, the AJC won’t run with the complaints and publish anything scathing. Give the DOT a chance to get the kinks worked out. This will improve traffic flow in the area.

Why do I do this Talking Traffic website, with its podcast and tidbits?

Because of this:

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

Ramp meters are traffic lights that are intended to control the number of vehicles entering and exiting the highway. They are to reduce traffic congestion on the ramps. [emphasis mine]

Argh! This is one hundred percent wrong! Ramp meters in no way are designed to reduce congestion on the ramps, they’re designed to reduce congestion on the highway by “metering” the input of vehicles from the ramps. Instead of a flood of vehicles entering the highway all at once, a steady one…two…three…four addition of vehicles allows the highway to avoid congestive backups. Unfortunately, this causes delays on the ramps and possibly the roadways leading to the ramps.

While your wait to get on the highway will lengthen, the time you spend on the highway itself will decrease. That is why Ramp Meters are being installed in multiple locations throughout the country.

Sounds like a podcast topic to me.

Housing & Transportation Costs in your Neighborhood: If you live in a metropolitan area, it’s possible that your town is on this survey of transportation & housing costs by median income. Check it out.

A Blow for Gender Equality: Sweden introduces a new walking-woman symbol to optionally replace the walking-man at pedestrian signals.

UK Stepping on Lollipop Violators: I’d never heard the term ‘lollipop’ as it’s applied in this article about Lollipop Road Rage.

“STOP! In the name of Love”: Stop sign accoutrements to increase awareness. FHWA says, “Nuh uh.”

Rail Riders in Connecticut: A blog posting concerining the recent release of a commuter rail evaluation in CT. It discusses what is going well, and what can be improved on.

“US Transportation in 2015″: A gaze into the crystal ball of transportation development in the United States.

The National Surface Transportation Policy and Revenue Study Commission: SAFETEA-LU, (a lovely acronym standing for Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: a Legacy for Users, othewise known as the transportation funding act passed in 2005) required the implementation of The National Surface Transportation Policy and Reveune Study Commission. They have released their report. The administration has declined to endorse it. Multiple people are evaluating its recommendations and the administration’s response. Apparently there were also some sections regarding Transit that were excised.

The highlights of the report: Transportation is underfunded by 60%. Raise federal gas taxes by $0.40 over five years. Personally, I think the administration is on the right track here. Continued dependence on fuel taxes is a no-win scenario because we want to reduce the amount of fuel (whatever it is) that is needed to get from A to B. This leaves transportation funding high and dry. Usage fees such as tolling, managed lanes, and pay-per-mile are the wave of the future. Correctly, I think.

Presidential Candidates and Transit: How do the Democratic and Republican candidates stack up on the Transportation issue? Live from the Third Rail has the lowdown.

New Rules for Lithium Batteries on Airplanes: Passengers beware. There are now restrictions on lithium-ion batteries in your check luggage. Essentially, you may only place them in checked luggage if they are inside the device they are intended to power.

Cell Talkers Drive Slowly: A study out of the University of Utah finds that people talking on cell phones, even with hands-free devices, drive more slowly and make fewer lane changes. The study indicates the implication that this may cause increased traffic congestion. The Media has locked on to this saying that CELL PHONES CAUSE TRAFFIC JAMS which is not a legitimate conclusion from the study. I do not deny that this is probable, but the conclusion reached by media outlets is overstretching the data.

Maintenance is Key: A pothole (called a crater here) has caused months of congestion in Kolkata, India. Maintenance of existing infrastructure is important. Inter-agency agreements are even more important.

Mathematical Modeling of Traffic Jams: Backward-moving waves of traffic jam congestion have been a topic of study for some time. A team of mathematicians at the Univerity of Exeter have produced a model that accurately reproduces congestion. I’d like to say this was a break-through, as the article implies, but it’s not. These sorts of events have been studied for a long time.

Public Transportation for Dummies¹: A brief primer for beginners who are not used to the public transportation system.

¹If I were trying to be a gamer-geek, I would have said, Public Transportation for n00bs, but that would be posing