North County Traffic

[000]

1 simple solution

 

[PPK96754]

 

[FecalFace]

I think we need more lanes on the 5.

Getting rid of the stupid car pool lanes would be a great start.

Maybe you need to get some friends.

Two extra lanes will "fix" it for a couple of years, what then?

As long as we keep thinking that on-person-per-car is a viable mode of transport in a very densely populated area and keep pretending that we live in the countryside and keep building commercial, retail and residential areas miles apart, nothing will change.

 

[FecalFace]

I agree with the poster who noticed the traffic is correlated with the economic recovery. So, it's a good sign, kinda. Can't avoid it this time of year, you've got the races at Del Mar, tons of tourists in town, cruise ships, etc, etc.

Can't add new freeways, no city can afford to buy up that much extra real estate at today's prices. A north-south connector from the 56 to the 76 would cost many billions of dollars. We might as well just buy another dozen desalination plants and solve our water problems forever if we're going to waste that much money, because even another connector would just be a parking lot at rush hour.

Our train system is a joke -- check the Coaster schedule and notice that the last am train leaves north county before 8am. And then what are you supposed to do when you arrive? Pray your company has a shuttle? Pay for a taxi? It's the same problem as riding the bus -- the stops kill you. Drive to the train station. Wait. Take train. Wait for shuttle. Make stops. Wait. Finally arrive, 2 hours after you left home. Might as well grind in traffic, you'll arrive sooner, and what happens if you need some flexibility in your schedule? Screwed.

The only solution is the inevitable: self driving cars, as was noted above. Since they're safer, they'll soon be forced on you anyways, and the fact that they'll solve a lot of the gridlock without costing zillions means it's check and mate. Hey, you'll be able to drive yourself between the hours of midnight at 4 am and on weekends, but soon that'll be just for old people. Who wants to drive when they can be checking their twitter feed?

You did so well until the "solution" part.

 

[etmo]

I agree with the poster who noticed the traffic is correlated with the economic recovery. So, it's a good sign, kinda. Can't avoid it this time of year, you've got the races at Del Mar, tons of tourists in town, cruise ships, etc, etc.

Can't add new freeways, no city can afford to buy up that much extra real estate at today's prices. A north-south connector from the 56 to the 76 would cost many billions of dollars. We might as well just buy another dozen desalination plants and solve our water problems forever if we're going to waste that much money, because even another connector would just be a parking lot at rush hour.

Our train system is a joke -- check the Coaster schedule and notice that the last am train leaves north county before 8am. And then what are you supposed to do when you arrive? Pray your company has a shuttle? Pay for a taxi? It's the same problem as riding the bus -- the stops kill you. Drive to the train station. Wait. Take train. Wait for shuttle. Make stops. Wait. Finally arrive, 2 hours after you left home. Might as well grind in traffic, you'll arrive sooner, and what happens if you need some flexibility in your schedule? Screwed.

The only solution is the inevitable: self driving cars, as was noted above. Since they're safer, they'll soon be forced on you anyways, and the fact that they'll solve a lot of the gridlock without costing zillions means it's check and mate. Hey, you'll be able to drive yourself between the hours of midnight at 4 am and on weekends, but soon that'll be just for old people. Who wants to drive when they can be checking their twitter feed?

You did so well until the "solution" part.

There's no practical way around it. The liberal dream of forcing everyone into ultra-high-density skyscrapers is not going to happen anytime soon.

It's pretty simple: politicians & society will take the easy & cheap way out. The way of least discomfort & least inconvenience. The least amount of scary change. It's easier to force everyone into self-driving cars during commute hours than it is to force everyone out of their suburban homes, it's far less costly, it's far less disruptive, and therefore far less scary.

 

[hgsouth]

If there was good public transportation I'd take it in a heartbeat. I would even deal with the hassle of the coaster schedule if the price wasn't so high.

 

[Matilija]

Poor bastids.

 

[keenfish]

I rarely have to get on a freeway so all is good.

Come to think of it the last time I was even on a freeway was over a month ago and that was riding in a limo on the way to LAX. :cool2:

 

[FecalFace]

I agree with the poster who noticed the traffic is correlated with the economic recovery. So, it's a good sign, kinda. Can't avoid it this time of year, you've got the races at Del Mar, tons of tourists in town, cruise ships, etc, etc.

Can't add new freeways, no city can afford to buy up that much extra real estate at today's prices. A north-south connector from the 56 to the 76 would cost many billions of dollars. We might as well just buy another dozen desalination plants and solve our water problems forever if we're going to waste that much money, because even another connector would just be a parking lot at rush hour.

Our train system is a joke -- check the Coaster schedule and notice that the last am train leaves north county before 8am. And then what are you supposed to do when you arrive? Pray your company has a shuttle? Pay for a taxi? It's the same problem as riding the bus -- the stops kill you. Drive to the train station. Wait. Take train. Wait for shuttle. Make stops. Wait. Finally arrive, 2 hours after you left home. Might as well grind in traffic, you'll arrive sooner, and what happens if you need some flexibility in your schedule? Screwed.

The only solution is the inevitable: self driving cars, as was noted above. Since they're safer, they'll soon be forced on you anyways, and the fact that they'll solve a lot of the gridlock without costing zillions means it's check and mate. Hey, you'll be able to drive yourself between the hours of midnight at 4 am and on weekends, but soon that'll be just for old people. Who wants to drive when they can be checking their twitter feed?

You did so well until the "solution" part.

There's no practical way around it. The liberal dream of forcing everyone into ultra-high-density skyscrapers is not going to happen anytime soon.

It's pretty simple: politicians & society will take the easy & cheap way out. The way of least discomfort & least inconvenience. The least amount of scary change. It's easier to force everyone into self-driving cars during commute hours than it is to force everyone out of their suburban homes, it's far less costly, it's far less disruptive, and therefore far less scary.

Skyscrapers are not this liberal's dream. In fact I don't think they are anybody's dream.
But if you can't go sideways anymore, the only way is up, so there's that.
I don't think it's that bad yet though.

I'm surprised by the lack of optimism and civic pride you and many Americans display.
What happened to making it the best country ever? "Easy and cheap way out", that's it, that's all we should strive for? Maybe that should be the new country slogan: "America - The way of least discomfort & least inconvenience".

It's not about "forcing"people to do anything, it's about giving them a viable alternative that will make them WANT to live in a nicer place, close to shops and restaurants that will make them drive less. It's not a drastic change but it's a leap every American wasting their life in a traffic jam every day would readily take, if it existed. Self drive cars are great for eliminating brake tappers and passing lane hogs but they will not alleviate traffic in the long run. You will still have a single person per Google car, now being driven bumper to bumper at 65mph.

How many defunct malls are there in Southern California? There are many more being built. How about building a mix of residential and retail area instead, where people actually want to hang out and live? How about a decent public transport network option?

It's all very possible but it will not happen as long as profit is the main motivation factor instead of civic pride.

 

[silentbutdeadly]

I agree with the poster who noticed the traffic is correlated with the economic recovery. So, it's a good sign, kinda. Can't avoid it this time of year, you've got the races at Del Mar, tons of tourists in town, cruise ships, etc, etc.

Can't add new freeways, no city can afford to buy up that much extra real estate at today's prices. A north-south connector from the 56 to the 76 would cost many billions of dollars. We might as well just buy another dozen desalination plants and solve our water problems forever if we're going to waste that much money, because even another connector would just be a parking lot at rush hour.

Our train system is a joke -- check the Coaster schedule and notice that the last am train leaves north county before 8am. And then what are you supposed to do when you arrive? Pray your company has a shuttle? Pay for a taxi? It's the same problem as riding the bus -- the stops kill you. Drive to the train station. Wait. Take train. Wait for shuttle. Make stops. Wait. Finally arrive, 2 hours after you left home. Might as well grind in traffic, you'll arrive sooner, and what happens if you need some flexibility in your schedule? Screwed.

The only solution is the inevitable: self driving cars, as was noted above. Since they're safer, they'll soon be forced on you anyways, and the fact that they'll solve a lot of the gridlock without costing zillions means it's check and mate. Hey, you'll be able to drive yourself between the hours of midnight at 4 am and on weekends, but soon that'll be just for old people. Who wants to drive when they can be checking their twitter feed?

You did so well until the "solution" part.

There's no practical way around it. The liberal dream of forcing everyone into ultra-high-density skyscrapers is not going to happen anytime soon.

It's pretty simple: politicians & society will take the easy & cheap way out. The way of least discomfort & least inconvenience. The least amount of scary change. It's easier to force everyone into self-driving cars during commute hours than it is to force everyone out of their suburban homes, it's far less costly, it's far less disruptive, and therefore far less scary.

Skyscrapers are not this liberal's dream. In fact I don't think they are anybody's dream.
But if you can't go sideways anymore, the only way is up, so there's that.
I don't think it's that bad yet though.

I'm surprised by the lack of optimism and civic pride you and many Americans display.
What happened to making it the best country ever? "Easy and cheap way out", that's it, that's all we should strive for? Maybe that should be the new country slogan: "America - The way of least discomfort & least inconvenience".

It's not about "forcing"people to do anything, it's about giving them a viable alternative that will make them WANT to live in a nicer place, close to shops and restaurants that will make them drive less. It's not a drastic change but it's a leap every American wasting their life in a traffic jam every day would readily take, if it existed. Self drive cars are great for eliminating brake tappers and passing lane hogs but they will not alleviate traffic in the long run. You will still have a single person per Google car, now being driven bumper to bumper at 65mph.

How many defunct malls are there in Southern California? There are many more being built. How about building a mix of residential and retail area instead, where people actually want to hang out and live? How about a decent public transport network option?

It's all very possible but it will not happen as long as profit is the main motivation factor instead of civic pride.

What Poopface said

 

[GDaddy]

Public transportation works to the extent that the primary employment centers can be aggregated at one end. The only areas in the U.S. where that has occurred to a significant extent are the towns located along the Acela line on the eastern seaboard, Chicago and (arguably) San Francisco.

Meanwhile, the daily capacity of a light rail system is far less than that of a simple 2-lane expressway with the same footprint, not to mention being exponentially more expensive to build and operate.

L.A.s Blue Line runs 22 miles from Long Beach to the Financial district downtown. It has the benefit of a concentrated employment district at it's terminus and lots of residential suburbs along the route. . It's the busiest line in L.A., system and its ridership amounts to an average of about 90,000 boardings (total) each way. That's 45k per direction. By contrast, the average daily traffic count for those sections of the Hwy-100 Harbor freeway that basically cover that same route is between 240,000 - 300,000. Meaning, adding one extra freeway lane in each direction could have handled 100% of the ridership of that section of light rail line AND whatever other public transportation ties into it to transport those riders to their homes at one and and their jobs at the other end.

 

[GDaddy]

There's how people should act, and then there's how people actually do act.


Have U.S. Light Rail Systems Been Worth The Investment?

Five U.S. metros (Buffalo, Portland, Sacramento, San Diego, and San Jose) opened light rail systems in the 1980s to great fanfare. The mode offered many of the benefits of subway systems for far less public money; San Diego's system, per mile, cost about one-seventh of Washington, D.C.'s Metrorail. Light rail cities like Portland became transportation models for the country, pointing toward a transit-friendly urban future.

Thirty years later, light rail remains the most appealing mode of new public transportation for many American cities. Billions of local, state, and federal dollars have been invested in 650 miles of new light rail lines in 16 regions, and today 144 miles of additional lines are under construction at a cost of more than $25 billion. Many more lines are planned. No region has invested in a new heavy rail subway system, on the other hand, since 1993.

Based on the decisions to build these projects, which were made by hundreds of local officials and often endorsed by residents through referenda, you might think that the experience building light rail in the 1980s had been unambiguously successful. Yet it doesn't take much digging to find that over the past thirty years, these initial five systems in themselves neither rescued the center cities of their respective regions nor resulted in higher transit use — the dual goals of those first-generation lines.

According to an analysis of Census data, in four of the five cities with new light rail lines, the share of regional workers choosing to ride transit to work declined, and the center city's share of the urbanized area population declined, too. San Jose was the only exception, seeing a quarter of a percentage increase in the percentage of workers using transit and a 6 percentage point increase in its center city's share of the urbanized area.

The light rail lines have been useful in transporting a large portion of transit ridership in the regions where they have been built, carrying more than 39 percent of riders in Portland, Sacramento, and San Diego. But while light rail may appear to make the public transportation system more appealing to the average rider, the construction of such a system will not automatically result in increased transit use. The data from 30 years' experience with the mode in the United States — certainly enough time for the demographic or real estate changes that are usually expected to parallel new rail investments — make that very clear.

By the way, that "quarter of a percentage of increase in the percentage of workers using transit" means that if 10% of 1000 workers (aka 100) were already using public transit then San Jose's singular accomplishment of being the only system to increase that ridership means an increase from 100 users to 102.5 users.

Who says $200M doesn't buy what it used to?

 

[FecalFace]

Rail transport system only make sense within a wider public transport network.
In other words there has to be an extensive and FREQUENT transportation system on both ends of the rail line for it to make sense.

People bitch about the Coaster, which I love - the problem is that once you get off the train there's no support network to help you continue on your journey. You have to get off and take a bus to the airport or taxi to elsewhere. I just take a bike on the train.

Which brings me to another point - more bike lanes (wider and safer too). We have the perfect weather year around to be able to use bike transportation, not to mention it would reduce obesity.

Look at Portland..... A lot of mixed residential and mom and pop retail pockets all over the city. Bikes and cars are on the equal footing as far as road space in the city. Free, frequent, trams and buses within city limits, light train to and from the airport..... As a result more people use public transport and bikes.
Damn those soushulist cities forcing people to enjoy life.

 

[Autoprax]

Didn't you guys see true detective 2?

Vince Vaugn said the train is the last pork barrel, besides military.

 

[GDaddy]

Mass transit is expensive:

TriMet, more formally known as the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon, is a public agency that operates mass transit in a region that spans most of the Portland metropolitan area in the U.S. state of Oregon. Created in 1969 by the Oregon legislature, the district replaced five private bus companies that operated in the three counties; Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas. TriMet started operating a light rail system named MAX in 1986, and opened new lines in 1998 (Westside), 2001 (Airport), 2004 (Interstate Ave.), and 2009 (Clackamas), as well as a commuter rail line in 2009. It also provides the operators and maintenance personnel for the City of Portland-owned Portland Streetcar system.

In addition to rail lines, TriMet provides the region's bus system, as well as LIFT paratransit service. There are 610 buses in TriMet's fleet that operate on 79 lines.[1] In Fiscal Year 2013, the entire system averaged almost 316,700 rides per weekday and operates buses and trains between the hours of approximately 5 a.m. and 2 a.m. with no "night owl" service. TriMet's annual budget for FY2014 is $489 million, with over half of revenues coming from a district-wide payroll tax.[5] The district is overseen by a seven-person board of governors appointed by the state's governor. In 2014, the agency has around 2,500 employees.[6]

That's in addition to the extensive use of federal grants (i.e., not local funding) that it took to build portions of the system.

In other words, they are unable to charge anywhere near enough in fares to cover their operating expenses despite their patronage, so they have to rely on an additional payroll tax that employers pay whether their workers use it or not.


I know, I know - the idea makes you feel good so that's really all that counts.


Meanwhile, the NCTDs Sprinter light rail line carries ~7,800 riders a day despite starting at the beach in Oceanside, passing 3 heavily enrolled colleges and ending in Escondido. In parallel with Hwy-78 where the average daily traffic count is 130,000/day.

That 7800/day average ridership for this existing light rail line - which has already been online for 8 years - is ~30% less than our planning overlords had anticipated. It's far less than the line's capacity, which itself has been of almost no effect on freeway gridlock.

Since you live in Oceanside and just to give you an idea of what it means, a 7,800/day average traffic count is less than half that of Oceanside Blvd west of I-5 in Oceanside.

 

[GDaddy]

Office vacancy in the Downtown SD area is 14% right now. That's 50% higher than the vacancy rates for the next 3 largest office markets in the County and double the rate or more of several of the suburban markets in the County. If it wasn't for County, State and Federal government functions being based downtown that vacancy rate would be a lot higher.

Not every cubicle farmer employer wants to be Downtown, so as far as *adding* more employment centers it's not going to go where the transit has been aimed at. .

 

[keenfish]

Invasian


freekin Asians are multiplying at an alarming rate - and tons getting in free from China as part of our debt payoff

we're fcuked

If it weren't for the Asian invasion no one would be buying all those new houses in Irvine.

I welcome them! :grin2:

 

[LogHauler]

The problem is not that there are too many drivers. It's that there are too few bad drivers being shot. If everyone concentrated on keeping the flow moving smoothly, it would. But too many people concentrate on getting their own selfish asses ahead. That's what causes others to hit their brakes and brake lights are what cause traffic jams. Got that? Brake lights cause traffic jams... not vice versa.

Think about it.

 

[FecalFace]

Mass transit is expensive

So? Do you expect return on investment when you make your backyard all nice for yourself or do you do it because it makes your life better?

I can think of so many useless things that are expensive and not make anybody's life better but that we happily put on the taxpayer's bill with zero complains from the right, i.e. another fighter jet that we will never use.

Rebuilding infrastructure should have a higher priority than military investment that makes only small amount of people rich and employed.

 

[ringer]

I love North County, I really do. I visit often there, to the abodes of close family and friends. But that 5 is backed up almost all of the fukin time, once you hit southbound at Oceanside or northbound just north of La Costa (and that is just during off-commuting hours). It will never get better.