FReep This Poll! What Is The Best Way To Reduce Traffic Congestion?

North County Times/The Californian ^ | September 19, 2007 | North County Times/The Californian

[DogByte6RER]

FReep This Poll!

What is the best way to reduce traffic congestion?

* Widen and/or build more freeways.

* Add more carpool only lanes.

* Improve mass transit options.

* Encourage working from home.

* Limit new housing development.

Go to the North County Times/The Californian link provided. Scroll down a bit and look for the poll on the right hand side.

Vote your choice.

Poll should remain active until Thursday (09/20/07) evening.

[DogByte6RER]

Current poll results:

Widen and/or build more freeways - (30 Votes, 26%)

Add more carpool only lanes - (2 Votes, 2%)

Improve mass transit options - (25 Votes, 22%)

Encourage working from home - (9 Votes, 8%)

Limit new housing development - (50 Votes, 43%)

[DogByte6RER]

Related news article:

“Area traffic accelerates well past nation’s going rate”

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2007/09/19/news/top_stories/1_1_000_18_07.txt

[Red in Blue PA]

Why is this poll being Freeped? As I am sure the members here will have a myriad opinions on this.

[DogByte6RER]

ping

[DogByte6RER]

I would like to see some of the FReepers’ viewpoints on this one...

[Red in Blue PA]

I chose: Limit new housing development.

I live in an area in which the quality of life has been devastated by new housing everywhere.

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

Mass transit combined with congestion charges make the most pure economic sense.

Highway space is a limited and expensive good. Building more for the limited period during the day when people are using full (or more than full) capacity is a very poor economic choice. Most highway capacity is unused for most of the time.

Therefore encouraging people to use unused capacity or discouraging use when capacity is full via higher costs is a legitimate and economically conservative way to solve the problem. Mass transit also makes economic sense as a good use of public money as an alternative to those who cannot afford high congestion feed.

More highways mean higher long-term taxes due to maintenance costs. The alternatives pay for themselves.

You cannot be a fiscal conservative and favor more highways that are empty most of the time (for those of you who wish to contradict, please be aware there are 24 hours in a day).

[Alberta's Child]

I don't like any of those.

Nothing would be more effective at reducing congestion than the privatization of all highways -- or at least the implementation of a mileage-based system for raising revenue instead of the current fuel tax.

[CodeToad]

Reduce traffic? How about stop building highly dense cities?

[showme_the_Glory]

Work at home.

[Alberta's Child]

Good post.

I've long suggested that highways should be built the same way railroads were laid across the country -- with FREIGHT MOVEMENT considerations being the primary factor in decision-making, and PASSENGER MOVEMENT being accommodated as a secondary factor.

[Alberta's Child]

Believe it or not, dense cities often have less traffic congestion than sparse ones.

If you look at the figures published annually by the Texas Transportation Institute that are used to document congestion for each of the nation's major metro areas, you'll find that the cities with the worst congestion are those where a very large portion of the workforce is commuting to places OUTSIDE the central core. This is why Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Seattle and Atlanta always show up at the top of the list, and New York City -- which historically has had a bad reputation when it comes to traffic -- ranks somewhere down in the 70s.

[TLI]

or at least the implementation of a mileage-based system for raising revenue instead of the current fuel tax.

Sure, just as soon as all vehicle registration, licenses, taxes, fees, fuel taxes, etc, etc are completely eliminated. Then we could go to a mileage based system. If not, you are just proposing new taxes.

[Alberta's Child]

Sure, just as soon as all vehicle registration, licenses, taxes, fees, fuel taxes, etc, etc are completely eliminated.

Right.

[Snardius]

The number of automobiles will expand to fill the space provided...

[Fresh Wind]

Raise speed limits. On average, each car will spend less time on the road, so overall traffic volume will be reduced.

[US at Risk]

I'd like to see more mass transit and rail transportation. These work great for commuting and for intermediate-distance trips between cities.

We've subsidized the automobile long enough.

[ßuddaßudd]

Stop illegal immigration and deport existing illegal aliens.
It would sure remove a lot of people off the road in my locale.

[numberonepal]

The only way to truly reduce congestion is for every car to cruise at exactly the same speed. Cars could cruise inches from each other in this scenario. Look around next time you are in traffic at the distance between cars (usually a safe distance mind you). That’s a lot of space to fill up.

I’m just speculating that some kind of pull system (like in a car wash) would work best. The downside is that most folks would be very wary of giving up control of the vehicle.

[andy58-in-nh]

Front-mounted twin .50 machine guns on my SUV would act substantially to clear traffic out of my way.

Absent that, more people ought to be able to work from home given the often inexpensive technology that currently exists to allow it. I'd do it two or three days a week if they let me. Right now, I do it about once a month.