Posted on 09/02/2008 6:49:33 AM PDT by Vigilanteman
(LifeWire) - Lost time and endless aggravation are two of the
biggest drawbacks of a grueling commute by car. But gridlock on
the way to work also harms the environment by pumping extra
pollution into the air and wasting precious fuel.
How wasteful and time-consuming a commute becomes depends in part
on how slowly traffic moves and how long it is stalled, says
David Schrank, an associate research scientist at the Texas
Transportation Institute, part of Texas A&M University in College
Station.
Things start to get inefficient only when highway traffic begins
to bog down, he says. "You're not wasting fuel until you drop
below 60 mph, but when you get to stop-and-go traffic, you're
really wasting fuel as you accelerate and decelerate."
Schrank is part of the team that conducted the institute's latest
annual Urban Mobility Study, examining the fuel (and time)
commuters waste because of congestion. The study, based on 2005
data (the most recent available), measures how many hours and
gallons of fuel are wasted per individual commuterwhether that
commuter is traveling by car, rail, bus or other form of
motorized transportationduring peak commute times.
Overall, traffic congestion costs the U.S. economy $78 billion a
year, wasting 2.9 billion gallons of fuel and robbing commuters
of 4.2 billion hours, the study found. Here are the top 10 most
wasteful cities in the country for commuters, based on fuel
usage, according to the institute:
(Excerpt) Read more at climate.weather.com ...
I had the misfortune of driving from the north suburbs to downtown Atlanta a few months back.
My current commute is four miles. Lucky me!
I-95 is OK, unless there is construction (which seems to be everyday in Filthadelphia).
It is illegal to make a right turn on a red light in New York City. We call it the “tourist tax.”
Come across the Delaware to NJ. We have jughandles AND traffic circles!
On the east cost, we always say "95". My buddy's been out your way for two months and he says "the" now.
I found the Kennedy even worse than the Dan Ryan, especially before noon. All the trucks and cars between O’Hare and downtown, while the blue line whizzed by.
I haven’t seen the word “Negro” used in English since the movie trading places!
California is a trailblazer! (and that ain't a good thing!)
Check out some of the articles at FR linked here (SB 375 and other acts)
Like I said, the commie bureaucrats have been quite busy.
I'm in Los Angeles. Speaking for myself, I always say "The 405," etc. It comes from growing up here and habits adopted long before I ever referred to those freeways by their numbers. It was "the San Diego Freeway" or "the Santa Monica Freeway" or "the Harbor Freeway," "the Pasadena Freeway," etc. In other words, I was referring to "the Freeway"--the name of it was just an adjective. As things grew, the common name for the freeways just got replaced by a number in my vocabulary. Now it's "the 405," "the 10," "the 110," etc.
I never really thought about it before, but I never say "the 1," meaning "Pacific Coast Highway." Since I have always known that as "Highway 1," I never put a "the" in front of the phrase--it seems awkward.
Probably because there are so many freeways and numbered highways....If you'd tell someone your'e going to take the freeway in an easterly direction, for example, you'd probably be asked "which one?", to which you'd need to specify either "The 10" or "The 605" or "The 105".
Far as I know, though, we don't precede counties or area codes with "the"....
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