Comment 77897

By ViennaCafe (registered) | Posted June 03, 2012 at 00:11:02

"I get off the Main St E ramp during the week for work. It's a broken ramp. It's unsafe. Although never witnessing a collision here, I've seen the aftermath and many near-miss situations. I've had to do the NASCAR-style passing to get from the ramp over to Dundurn South before, although now I usually just work my way up to Locke and double-back along Charlton. I usually just stay in the leftmost lane until the incline, then gradually move over lane by lane until I get up to John."

Yeah, it's pretty bad there. Try it on a bicycle.

"In general, they reported that there has often (but not always) been a fairly short period of traffic disruption, but that 'gridlock' or 'traffic chaos' are rare, and never last longer than a few days, as traffic adjusts relatively quickly to new conditions. Sometimes there has not even been a short-term problem.

Two characteristic comments from local transport planners are: 'it'll be all right by Friday', and the ubiquitous 'the traffic has disappeared and we simply don't know where it has gone to'"

The late Jane Jacobs recounted almost exactly this reality in her last (I think) book in which her disdain for traffic engineers, and their conclusions founded upon "what they believe" as opposed to evidence. Dark Age Ahead is well summarised on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Age_Ah...

An excerpt:

The following is a summary of Jacobs' description of the decay in each area.

Community and Family

People are increasingly choosing consumerism over family welfare, that is: consumption over fertility; debt over family budget discipline; fiscal advantage to oneself at the expense of community welfare.

Higher Education

Universities are more interested in credentials than providing high quality education.

Bad Science

Elevation of economics as the main "science" to consider in making major political decisions.

Bad Government

Governments are more interested in deep-pocket interest groups than the welfare of the population.

Bad Culture

A culture that prevents people from understanding/realising the deterioration of fundamental physical resources which the entire community depends on.

Comment edited by ViennaCafe on 2012-06-03 00:16:34

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