Initial Financial Failure of SR91 Hot Lanes in LA

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   I never said Jeff Frederick actually listened to me [:D] -- who listens to a cartoon sponge, for cripes sake?

	Seems to me none of the state delegates CAN do anything.  JF is just like the rest, only more so.  Having met him, though, I doubt he harbors secret thoughts about anything.

	And of COURSE what I am referring to is government, you silly.  Government is The People getting together to do things.  It is the ultimate social organization.  That is exactly what I was describing.  Glad you got it.

	This thread has gone far agley.

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SpongeBob Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 06 Oct 2004 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote SpongeBob Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Initial Financial Failure of SR91 Hot Lanes in LA Posted: 22 Sep 2006 at 9:51am
	I never said Jeff Frederick actually listened to me [:D] -- who listens to a cartoon sponge, for cripes sake? Seems to me none of the state delegates CAN do anything. JF is just like the rest, only more so. Having met him, though, I doubt he harbors secret thoughts about anything. And of COURSE what I am referring to is government, you silly. Government is The People getting together to do things. It is the ultimate social organization. That is exactly what I was describing. Glad you got it. This thread has gone far agley.

NoSUV Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote NoSUV Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 21 Sep 2006 at 3:53pm
	Sponge - most of the activity to which you refer came from public involvement with government activity. If you don't get involved with the government, you deserve the activity you get. Frederick is one of the delegates refusing to come up with funding for a transportation plan. He must secretly want the private enterprise to bail us out.

SpongeBob Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 06 Oct 2004 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote SpongeBob Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 21 Sep 2006 at 3:14pm
	Actually, I talked to Jeff Frederick about the fabled Eastern Bypass in person last summer, but only briefly. The Bypass is not my idea, of course -- it has been around for decades. And my descendants will eventually drive (or hover) on it. Is there a problem with paying into the social pot to get some things done that none of us could do individually? Long ago, your ancestors joined their neighbors to build small bridges to make it easier to get their goods to market. We do it still. And ungrateful twits have been dragged along by the ears, whining and mewing, the whole way. Self-interested anti-social types are merely an annoying drag on the momentum of the rest of us. But we'll let you use the fruits of our labors.

NoSUV Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote NoSUV Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 21 Sep 2006 at 12:32pm
	Which of you has written to your delegate to recommend the bypass? Or are you hoping he will figure it out on his own? Make sure you tell him to increase your taxes appropriately.

SpongeBob Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 06 Oct 2004 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote SpongeBob Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 21 Sep 2006 at 9:46am
	These are all valid ideas, worthy of discussion, SlugJo, and raymond is correct about the in/out commute problem. Remember when the Post wrote that, per capita, we are about six bridges short in this area? We funnel all the local traffic into four crossings and all the long-distance traffic onto two. Bottlenecks. I'm a big fan of an eastern bypass and I'd like to see the carpool lanes extended to F'burg. I think the fines could be higher, but they did just raise them. As for the hours being extended... we've never had a thread on that, to my knowledge. Maybe we should. [;)] NoSUV is boring to debate because he really offers no challenge. I just don't agree with the philosophy of letting morons air their views uncontested.

slugjo Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 14 Aug 2006 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote slugjo Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 9:42pm
	Here is my constructive suggestion, even though I know this is not an effective forum for actually doing anything, and all there are here are the sluglines.com personalities and the trolls. (I think it is all hopeless, and I am going to get out of here at the earliest possible time.) We don't need HOT, as follows (just thinking outside the box here): 1. Re-stripe the express lanes to 3 lanes from Potomac Mills to Springfield. 2. Make HOV violation prohibitively expensive (i.e. loss of license as soon as possible in the progression of sequential violations). 3. Extend the express lanes to Fredericksburg. 4. Build an I-95 bypass from the New Jersey state line to Richmond, with no off-ramps, to off-load a lot of the thru traffic (18-wheelers and tourists) (I know, nobody in MD or VA will want to pay, even though it would solve all their commuting problems). 5. Extend HOV hours on the express lanes to reflect the actual "rush hour." And finally, don't engage NoSUV in discussion. He or she argues from a position of ignorance and denial, and is not capable of evaluating the validity of his or her argument.

n/a Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 17 Dec 2001 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote n/a Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 4:06pm
	As I posted before, studies have shown that the reason for our traffic congestion is that although we have a comparable volume of traffic on the roads as other metro areas, all of our commuters travel from the burbs to one place (DC) in the morning and from one place (DC) out ot the burbs in the evening. For example, NY has terrible traffic, but people commute all over the five buroughs, from many places to many places, and the population of Manhattan does not increase that much in a work day. DC, however, begins with a population of about 600,000 residents and grows by millions of workers each workday. Our roads handle a much larger volume of traffic in one direction each morning and in reverse each night. And BTW commute time is only one measure of traffic. Get smart people! There is not one magic bullet for our commuting problems. They are unique and complicated. We need to do many things to contribute to our solution. HOV lanes, carpooling, mass transit are all good choices. SOV/HOT commuting is not.

SpongeBob Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 06 Oct 2004 Location: VA Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote SpongeBob Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 3:41pm
	No, wishing them away wouldn't work. We can't seem to even wish YOU away. But, as for proposing ideas to improve the whole system, we have posted many here. All the ideas essentially work to encourage ride-sharing, or discourage solo driving, or spread congestion out over time. You never seem to answer them, NoSUV. Wonder why? Hmm. And you never offer any ideas of your own, either, do you? Hmm. What DO you do, NoSUV?

NoSUV Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 14 Jan 2005 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote NoSUV Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 3:06pm
	Bob - the problem is the documented 2nd worst congestion in the region. Apparently, the system here, overall, is a failure. Anytime you have a failure, you look to make changes. While YOU may think the NoVA region is massively successful with HOV, others might think that having the 2nd worst congestion points to a different conclusion. Have you proposed anything that has a prayer of being successful for the regular lanes? Wishing that all of the drivers would carpool hasn't seemed to work...

Bob Members Profile Find Members Posts New Slug Joined: 14 Dec 2001 Status: Offline Points: 0	Post Options Post Reply Quote Bob Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: 20 Sep 2006 at 2:15pm
	One of the real problems with HOT lanes on 95 is that the "experts" continually point to the success of other lanes around the country. Problem is, there is no analog for us, since we are massively successful as an HOV lane. Of course, any failed HOV, such as in Denver, will be a ringing "success" as at HOT lane. How could it not be? I will repeat, what is being proposed here has no analog anywhere in the world. I would be glad to look at any documentation, but I have seen nothing else that isn't a rinky dink failed HOV lane that has been converted, usually for about a 10 mile length.