Yeah, I'll be sure to have my survivors write the Governor a nice note after whatever my previous toll rates would have fixed on the road or bridge kills me.
The MDGOP (I presume) already took care of that for you by putting up campaign-style "Thank you, Hogan!" roadside signs everywhere.
I got this idea: If the old tolls really were producing so much surplus money, how about using it to build |another bridge|?
You should have seen the spectacle the day the new! lower! toll! rates! went into effect. There were groups of GOP activist lackeys Happy Citizens with *THANKS GOVERNOR HOGAN* signs, jumping and waving at traffic on both sides of the bridge. It was embarrassing and infuriating and there was too much heavy traffic for me to properly flip them off.
Also too: How about a fucking double stack or fucking extra lane or fucking 'nother fucking bridge or fucking tunnel under/over the fucking Severn River to take care of the horrendous traffic problem that happens *every fucking day* on That Fucking Severn Fucking River Fucking Bridge? Huh? Huh?
You could always join the Smrt People who take the 450 bridge instead, which lets you stare at USNA buildings ("110% ID Check!!11!!") while stuck in traffic but comes with the added bonus of joggers to drive over.
Now there's a good idea. It's true that I'm way under my Death Race 2015 quota. This will help.
There is a thing called the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, and although it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the concrete/rubber/auto/fossil-fuel industry, even their studies show that building more roads makes things worse. "Induced demand" is the traffic engineering term for it; "drive till you qualify" is what the real estate agents call it.
It's just amazing how unable we are to imagine a world, or even a small part of the world, that doesn't depend on more sprawl always and forever.
Translation: Your commute sucks, but – wait – we're doing all this fantastic road construction, which will snarl traffic even further, but only for a little while. After all the construction is done, your commute will suck even worse!
I wish I could walk.
In this particular case, I'm not sure that's true. I can see that being true for widening roads between A and B (filling to take the shape of its container, etc.), but the traffic in this case is coming from two different point sources.
Consider points B(altimore), W(ashington) and Q(ueenstown). Right now, we have path WQ (d/b/a US 50), wherein you can get on Constitution Ave and technically stay on the same road until you hit sand. On the other hand, there is no path BQ; instead, traffic from point B is routed down "Interstate" 97 to hit WQ at roughly the mid-point (if not closer to W than to Q). Just about every other option involves heading off in the "wrong" direction first.
(There's also the option of taking MD-2 to path WQ, but that's not really tenable because fuck you.)
A Dundalk-to-Kent-County bridge would create a BQ path by dumping traffic into US 301 which IMO is currently underutilized (more tractor-trailers than cars, cruising through at-grade intersections, pretty much the whole way between point Q and the Delaware line).
If nothing else, it would keep Orioles/Ravens and Nationals/[REDACTED] fans separated until past prime road rage territory.
I yield to the topological rigor of your argument. My idea, however, was to think about what it would be like to build transportation facilities not for the people who already go to OC every weekend in their SUVs, but instead for future beach-goers who might not even own cars, if such a thing can be countenanced.
Something like what they're doing along Route 7 in Vienna. The current residents are horrified: no parking at the Metro stops! But the future denizens of the strip of apartments and malls along that (now awful) road might find it a better way to live.
Or not. But we'll never know unless we try it. And we'll never try it if we don't think about it.
More chaotic public gunfights. That's the answer.
If we have more shootings, then people will expect them and nobody will mind! Brilliant!
Yeah, it'll be like traffic reports on the D. C. beltway and accidents on I-95. Ho, hum, another mass murder. "Don't get killed, honey.
Whatta country.
Bay Bridge traffic backed up in both directions for at least a mile each.
1610AM: "ZOMG, three week old toll rates!"
#ThanksHogan
Yeah, I'll be sure to have my survivors write the Governor a nice note after whatever my previous toll rates would have fixed on the road or bridge kills me.
The MDGOP (I presume) already took care of that for you by putting up campaign-style "Thank you, Hogan!" roadside signs everywhere.
I got this idea: If the old tolls really were producing so much surplus money, how about using it to build |another bridge|?
You should have seen the spectacle the day the new! lower! toll! rates! went into effect. There were groups of
GOP activist lackeysHappy Citizens with *THANKS GOVERNOR HOGAN* signs, jumping and waving at traffic on both sides of the bridge. It was embarrassing and infuriating and there was too much heavy traffic for me to properly flip them off.Also too: How about a fucking double stack or fucking extra lane or fucking 'nother fucking bridge or fucking tunnel under/over the fucking Severn River to take care of the horrendous traffic problem that happens *every fucking day* on That Fucking Severn Fucking River Fucking Bridge? Huh? Huh?
You could always join the Smrt People who take the 450 bridge instead, which lets you stare at USNA buildings ("110% ID Check!!11!!") while stuck in traffic but comes with the added bonus of joggers to drive over.
Now there's a good idea. It's true that I'm way under my Death Race 2015 quota. This will help.
There is a thing called the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, and although it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the concrete/rubber/auto/fossil-fuel industry, even their studies show that building more roads makes things worse. "Induced demand" is the traffic engineering term for it; "drive till you qualify" is what the real estate agents call it.
It's just amazing how unable we are to imagine a world, or even a small part of the world, that doesn't depend on more sprawl always and forever.
Translation: Your commute sucks, but – wait – we're doing all this fantastic road construction, which will snarl traffic even further, but only for a little while. After all the construction is done, your commute will suck even worse!
I wish I could walk.
In this particular case, I'm not sure that's true. I can see that being true for widening roads between A and B (filling to take the shape of its container, etc.), but the traffic in this case is coming from two different point sources.
Consider points B(altimore), W(ashington) and Q(ueenstown). Right now, we have path WQ (d/b/a US 50), wherein you can get on Constitution Ave and technically stay on the same road until you hit sand. On the other hand, there is no path BQ; instead, traffic from point B is routed down "Interstate" 97 to hit WQ at roughly the mid-point (if not closer to W than to Q). Just about every other option involves heading off in the "wrong" direction first.
(There's also the option of taking MD-2 to path WQ, but that's not really tenable because fuck you.)
A Dundalk-to-Kent-County bridge would create a BQ path by dumping traffic into US 301 which IMO is currently underutilized (more tractor-trailers than cars, cruising through at-grade intersections, pretty much the whole way between point Q and the Delaware line).
If nothing else, it would keep Orioles/Ravens and Nationals/[REDACTED] fans separated until past prime road rage territory.
I yield to the topological rigor of your argument. My idea, however, was to think about what it would be like to build transportation facilities not for the people who already go to OC every weekend in their SUVs, but instead for future beach-goers who might not even own cars, if such a thing can be countenanced.
Something like what they're doing along Route 7 in Vienna. The current residents are horrified: no parking at the Metro stops! But the future denizens of the strip of apartments and malls along that (now awful) road might find it a better way to live.
Or not. But we'll never know unless we try it. And we'll never try it if we don't think about it.