FA+
Shop
Random bitch - drving across town
11 years ago
I lion therefore I lion!
tl;dr, bitch about inefficient traffic management.
Now as most of you know, I live in a small city, so there really is no traffic. When I bitch about having to drive all the way across town, I joke a bit, but the engineer in me really does hate the inefficiencies that are in small towns.
As cities grow and grow, the need for traffic management is apparent, thus the need for limited access highways, 6 lane roads, limited cross streets, etc. MOST small cities (metros of 100k to 500k in population) don't have this.
I had to drive from my house to next suburb over, Marion, a distance of 9 miles. It took me 22 minutes, which i know, isn't that long, but it's all PERCEPTION. On a Saturday night, there's hardly anyone on the roads, BUT the traffic lights still operate like during the day with traffic.
Small cities remedies of traffic: Add a traffic light! Ooooh we have a potential for a car to get to this intersection every minute, add a traffic light! On my drive there are probably 20 traffic lights that are not necessary, and in a major city they wouldn't exist, else they would cause massive traffic jams. All of these traffic lights have fairly short cycles, but, they are all ill timed, so you start moving and 3 blocks later, oh look, a red light! Crap, another one. Ok, crap two cars side by side doing 5 under, no where to go but wait, and oh look, another traffic light missed!
Granted, these lights might stop me for 10-20 seconds at a time, but it's the PERCEPTION that you're not getting anywhere.
Take North Av or better yet, ILL 83 in Chicago. On a Sunday, I can drive 2-3 miles without being stopped. Then I'll get stopped and have to wait for say 2 minutes, but eh, it's only ONE stop. In Cedar Rapids, I counted, I had to stop 18 times on my way across town. And for what? Nothing! A light changes from green to red on the main road because a car pulls up at an intersection and then turns RIGHT! Or another light just has an automatic timed cycle so it will change just because it's set to. Plus, main roads, the city won't push traffic any faster than 35MPH, most main roads tend to be at least 40MPH.
So, of course I get there, taking 22 minutes, but probably 7 minutes of that was waiting for pointless light cycles. But because there's no traffic here, there's no point of trying to do a study to improve efficiencies.
I like how there was a road built to be a bypass of Marion, and initially it had 2 traffic lights. Today it has 7 lights, and they are planning to add 2 more. The speed is 55MPH too, and guess what, ONE car pulls up at a light that hasn't changed for a while, so it instantly changes the main traffic light to red, for one stupid car, who most of the time is turning right anyway!
So, it's a stupid bitch, but it's the engineer in me that sees how inefficient things are. I know there are places that are older in major cities that are much worse headache-wise too :P We do have a policy after 11PM I think it is, that most minor streets have a flashing red and the main roads have a flashing yellow... and guess what, you can sail through and get across town in about 2/3s the time! Imagine that!
Now as most of you know, I live in a small city, so there really is no traffic. When I bitch about having to drive all the way across town, I joke a bit, but the engineer in me really does hate the inefficiencies that are in small towns.
As cities grow and grow, the need for traffic management is apparent, thus the need for limited access highways, 6 lane roads, limited cross streets, etc. MOST small cities (metros of 100k to 500k in population) don't have this.
I had to drive from my house to next suburb over, Marion, a distance of 9 miles. It took me 22 minutes, which i know, isn't that long, but it's all PERCEPTION. On a Saturday night, there's hardly anyone on the roads, BUT the traffic lights still operate like during the day with traffic.
Small cities remedies of traffic: Add a traffic light! Ooooh we have a potential for a car to get to this intersection every minute, add a traffic light! On my drive there are probably 20 traffic lights that are not necessary, and in a major city they wouldn't exist, else they would cause massive traffic jams. All of these traffic lights have fairly short cycles, but, they are all ill timed, so you start moving and 3 blocks later, oh look, a red light! Crap, another one. Ok, crap two cars side by side doing 5 under, no where to go but wait, and oh look, another traffic light missed!
Granted, these lights might stop me for 10-20 seconds at a time, but it's the PERCEPTION that you're not getting anywhere.
Take North Av or better yet, ILL 83 in Chicago. On a Sunday, I can drive 2-3 miles without being stopped. Then I'll get stopped and have to wait for say 2 minutes, but eh, it's only ONE stop. In Cedar Rapids, I counted, I had to stop 18 times on my way across town. And for what? Nothing! A light changes from green to red on the main road because a car pulls up at an intersection and then turns RIGHT! Or another light just has an automatic timed cycle so it will change just because it's set to. Plus, main roads, the city won't push traffic any faster than 35MPH, most main roads tend to be at least 40MPH.
So, of course I get there, taking 22 minutes, but probably 7 minutes of that was waiting for pointless light cycles. But because there's no traffic here, there's no point of trying to do a study to improve efficiencies.
I like how there was a road built to be a bypass of Marion, and initially it had 2 traffic lights. Today it has 7 lights, and they are planning to add 2 more. The speed is 55MPH too, and guess what, ONE car pulls up at a light that hasn't changed for a while, so it instantly changes the main traffic light to red, for one stupid car, who most of the time is turning right anyway!
So, it's a stupid bitch, but it's the engineer in me that sees how inefficient things are. I know there are places that are older in major cities that are much worse headache-wise too :P We do have a policy after 11PM I think it is, that most minor streets have a flashing red and the main roads have a flashing yellow... and guess what, you can sail through and get across town in about 2/3s the time! Imagine that!
Route 83 can be very smooth as long as you aren't boxed in by the semi's.
It takes 20 min to get around Champaign-Urbana...no matter where you start, and where yer going. It's fricking ridiculous at times. On the North side, where all the shopping is; you can't get out of there, no matter what. They did say they were going to look at the timing of lights there, but if yer around right after 5, forget it, you can't get in or out of the area.
As for what you were talking about...yes, Cedar Rapids desperately needs to reprogram their traffic lights at nighttime. You know what else I've noticed? The intersections that have red light cameras on them NEVER switch over to flashing mode, and they also tend to have the longest waits.
Omaha is my favorite city to drive in at night. I can go literally ten miles across the city on some major streets at night, and only have to stop twice, maybe three times at only the most major of intersections. Cedar Rapids compared to that is just...ugh.
Then again, it does not help that you fulfill two of the three O's in automotive mayhem.