Dr Gridlock Today Online

Here are some Spongey selections of Dr. Gridlock's greatest hits and misses from today's WashPost online chat. I'm skipping all the high-bred business to focus on HOT. AKA Ron Shaffer,Dr. G sometimes even makes sense!

Reston, Va.: Why is the only solution to this areas' congestion problem building more restricted lanes? How about building more lanes that everyone can use. For the most part this area is not conducive to carpooling. It's a nice idea but most people don't work regular schedules and don't live near people that work at the same office. This area needs to take a hard look at N.J. which eliminated HOV lanes because of these very issues. These HOT lanes will not help solve the traffic problems.

Ron Shaffer: There isn't enough right of way or money to keep expanding our interstate highway to meet demand.

Virginia's HOV system is considered one of the best in getting motorists to car-pool to work.

The only way yet proposed to widen interstates (The Beltway; I-95) is to have a private enterprise build them, to be repaid through tolls.

Given the status quo, versus expansion of HOT (toll) lanes, I'd like to see how the latter works out.
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Manassas, Va.: Considering that no technology exists to count bodies in cars at highway speed, and neither Clark nor Fluor have included separate HOV-counting lanes or facilities in their "HOT" proposals, why should carpoolers expect they are going to continue to get a free ride on the i95/395 corridor after these projects are in place? (THIS WAS THE SPONGE'S QUESTION! Look! Look! I'm famous!)

Ron Shaffer: The technology has to be there to make this work.

(OK, since it ISN'T there... um, why are we doing HOT lanes?)
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Germantown, Md.: I see the Hot lanes as just a theft of public money. The funds are there or at the least the revenues are there to do the highway improvements yet Virginia is hopping on this cash cow and leaving the taxpayers holding the bill. From what I understand less than 30 percent of the revenues generated by the fuel tax is actually spent on Highway improvements. All this will do is force those who cannot afford it to sit in worsening traffic while the rich whiz on by.

Ron Shaffer: Because private enterprise builds toll lanes that are used to repay the construction of those lanes--that's theft of public funds? Drivers will have a choice to use them or not.
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Woodbridge, Va.: Dr Gridlock, I have been slugging into D.C. for almost 20 years now. Virginia state officials are the most stubborn bunch of self serving politicians I have ever seen. The HOT lane proposal is a joke. Why don't they get it. If they want to talk to people who really know what is going on, talk to the slugs!! We know traffic patterns. We know how these lanes have been innundated in the past few years by hybrids. Thousands of us have written them month after month, only to get the same form letter back. Have you seen the HOV lanes lately?? Every morning they are almost as bad as the main lanes. Why won't they take the hybrids off?? Are they just stubborn, or are they unable to admit they were wrong about letting them on in the 1st place?? Now they want to make these lanes HOT. Do they want to destroy the best transportation idea in the country. 35,000 sluggers a day, each way!! Do they want 70,000 more single trips on the highway each day? That's what they will get if they don't get they hybrids off the HOV lanes and make it worthwhile to use them. So what will it take for them to wake up?

Ron Shaffer: I feel your passion. You don't want something threatened (slugging) that works so well. However, by widening the HOV-3 lanes, and charging a toll for those less than HOV-3, I'm not sure that slugging is doomed.

If the HOV lanes because too crowded, the tolling authority could raise the tolls until enough people dropped off to make the express lanes flow again.

Remember, without HOT lanes, I'm not sure we will see any improvements to Interstate Highways in Northern Virginia.
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Woodbridge, Va.: How do you think the HOT lanes will affect the system of Slugging in the I95 Corridor? With HOV already clogging up with hybrids, carpoolers and law enforcement officers I think the congestion will just get worse and slugging will fall to the way side. This is one of the most economically endowed areas of the country, you can't tell me that the lanes won't be crowded with these well endowed commuters?

Ron Shaffer: I don't see HOT lane traffic overwhelming slugs. I don't think local officials will let that happen because:

(1) Sluggers are their constituents and

(2) The system works so well it would be a black eye (and bad PR) for the HOT lanes if sluggers were to suffer
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Springfield, Va.: How will the same overworked and undermanned police responsible for enforcing HOV restrictions be able to enforce the HOT lanes? How can they tell if a car paid the toll with an electronic transponder or is just cheating?

Ron Shaffer: I'm finding this out. It will have to be with some kind of electronic detection system, and tickets by mail coded to a license plate...
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If you want the rest o' the story: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2005/06/17/DI2005061701033.html

Settle down, Robert. Spewing anger won't get us anywhere; I've already tried that.

If your position is the obvious answer, if what you are saying is beyond a doubt true, if your solution is foolproof and makes a nice dessert topping as well, then others will come to you in the end.

This is the wisdom of the sea: Make Friends, Not Enemies. Help people understand, don't mock their ignorance. Explain things nicely to people, don't whack them over the head with a haddock.

Gridlock (a state of mind, perhaps?) suffers from the same problem as other well-meaning people around here: they've been told something so often they think it is true: HOT lanes = good!, and No Way Out but HOT!

So we have to educate them why that is not going to work. Gently, my friend, gently. Or they will become even harder to convince.

Dr. Gridlock used to run a pretty good column. Lately, though, I think he's turned into a bit of a wimp. He frequently doesn't answer the question, spews the Post's party line, or refuses to consider viewpoints other than his own (the example that comes to mind most readily is that when people raise traffic issues as to the proposed site for the new Nationals ballpark, rather than addressing the substance of the questions he just says that he doesn't think the ballpark will be built).

I think some of his points quoted above are valid, though.