Commuters' Wasted Time in Traffic Costs $121 Billion

[Quill Depot]

I'm not talking about you, just strap-hangers and rail enthusiasts, and their differences. I felt your post was relevant to what I was saying.

[realizm]

I know that, I am simply speaking my mind.

[kentsfield]

Highway congestion can be prevented if people actually knew how to freakin' drive.  But coming as a New York driver's perspective, we're pretty reckless and impatient.

 

Public transportation may be a solution, it isn't THE solution though.  Seriously what are buses going to do?  Create more traffic.  Though creating rail lines may in the long term turn down traffic.  Still I'd say 75% of people would still favor cars over public transportation..(Or at least 75% of the people I know.) 

May reduce traffic? May? According to the MTA, numerous highway lanes would have to be constructed to handle the LIRR's volume. Also nice job omitting the time cost of parking. 

[CenSin]

Going from Coney Island the logical route would be Belt Parkway to the Van Wyck Expressway, not Belt Parkway, > Gowanus/BQE >, GCP/LIE.

 

Also evening rush hour traffic is usually headed southbound on the portion over 3rd Ave, but once you get to the Gowanus canal both directions are screwed up to the LIE.

 

Right, even if the Van Wyck is backed up you can take the service road, or even head up Pennsylvania Ave to the Jackie Robinson which bypasses the congested portion of the Van Wyck.

We were picking someone up along the way. The local streets were congested as well. Passing over the Van Wyck Expressway on Roosevelt Avenue, I could see that there was a lot of traffic in the northbound direction as well. In other words, traffic traffic everywhere.

[CenSin]

skip manhattan to boot. Getting to flushing is now so easy.

This speaks volumes about the current state of affairs. It's really hard to argue the advantages of personal transportation versus public transportation when most of the infrastructure and funding is skewed towards personal transportation.

 

Imagine we turned the tables: all the highways would have to take a detour through Manhattan with only one bidirectional "highway" (one lane in each direction) going between Brooklyn and Queens. Meanwhile, the subways have numerous 6-lane stretches with radial and circumferential routes as well as spurs (where all the major non-highway thoroughfares would be such as Atlantic Avenue or Northern Boulevard).

 

I guess what I'd like to say is, for all the crap that hobbles public transit, it does a good job. So yes, it does suck. But how about those highways and roads?

[Joel Up Front]

This speaks volumes about the current state of affairs. It's really hard to argue the advantages of personal transportation versus public transportation when most of the infrastructure and funding is skewed towards personal transportation.

 

Imagine we turned the tables: all the highways would have to take a detour through Manhattan with only one bidirectional "highway" (one lane in each direction) going between Brooklyn and Queens. Meanwhile, the subways have numerous 6-lane stretches with radial and circumferential routes as well as spurs (where all the major non-highway thoroughfares would be such as Atlantic Avenue or Northern Boulevard).

 

I guess what I'd like to say is, for all the crap that hobbles public transit, it does a good job. So yes, it does suck. But how about those highways and roads?

 

This is no better than a subway fantasy.

[Nexis4Jersey]

Dude what the hell does this have to do with NYC? This does jack shit if MTA doesn't enhance or add their own services and non-manhattan bound LTD or expressbus lines. Cmon man.

really from where to where may I ask? Last time I had a transit trip that long was when I was going to somewhere in philly from my house in brooklyn. Whatever google told you must of been a really err stupid route or something beyond nuts.

Congestion affects the whole region , it needs to be tackled on a Regional Scale....

[peacemak3r]

May reduce traffic? May? According to the MTA, numerous highway lanes would have to be constructed to handle the LIRR's volume. Also nice job omitting the time cost of parking. 

 

The time cost of parking is easily equaled to the amount of delays the MTA has to go through during a day of service.  Further more, if you had the entire NYC take public transportation rather personal, you'd forever have delays, delays and delays.  Also the time cost of parking is very small in the outer boroughs, but if you are impatient, you'd lack that knowledge.  Even in the busy Manhattan borough is fairly easy if you know how to READ signs and know which areas are meter-less.  Thanks for the smart-ass comment attempt though, it was flattering.

 

I guess what I'd like to say is, for all the crap that hobbles public transit, it does a good job. So yes, it does suck. But how about those highways and roads?

 

There are many cons with driving/highways/roads, don't get me wrong.  Pot-holes mainly, weekend drivers, stupid drivers, ADD drivers, inconsistent lights, draw-bridges, construction are a few of them.  As everything else, not one thing is 100% perfect.  But most of the problems will conclude in the drivers around you, and I can personally say that 80% of the people on the road can't drive or has ADD. (No offense, but this is from personal experience.)

 

Same goes for the mass transit around here.  Delays, occasional investigations, people under the tracks, stalled trains, the list goes on.

 

But mainly, no one but a few is getting the point.  There are routes where driving is better than mass transit and there are routes were mass transit is better than driving.  But people keep reading and posting as if we're trying to say driving is better than public transportation-100%.  Get that point out of your head because we're not saying that.

[kentsfield]

You aren't very good at math are you peacemaker. You just attempted to say that 100 percent automobile usage would fare better than 100 percent mass transit usage. How is that not saying driving is better. You have little concept of how effectively heavy rail copes with high load factors. High loads do not significantly cause delays on rail.  In Mumbai, India the roads are fully saturated and a result the Mumbai Suburban railway has 7 million rides a day. They are way over design capacity with a nearly 24 hour crushload and a yearly fatality rate in the thousands. Yet people still ride it in great numbers because above else the railway is the only form of transportation in mumbai that is capable of delivering reliable trip times. Enough with the chestthumping over your so called  "streetsmarts" and the boasting over your claimed driving prowess because those are band-aids over the real problem-roads are simply not scaleable infrastructure. The only routes you've cited as driving being better are just not highly traveled, How many people honestly commute from Coney Island to Flushing. its nonsense. It doesn't exist because its not good regional planning. Go learn what a logical disjunction is and elementary statistics before you make a bigger embarrassment out of yourself chumley.

[peacemak3r]

My math is bad and your grammar is horrible, I guess we're even here, even with your countless editing.

 

 

 

You aren't very good at math are you peacemaker. You just attempted to say that 100 percent automobile usage would fare better than 100 percent mass transit usage. How is that not saying driving is better. You have little concept of how effectively heavy rail copes with high load factors. High loads do not significantly cause delays on rail.  In Mumbai, India the roads are fully saturated and a result the Mumbai Suburban railway has 7 million rides a day. They are way over design capacity with a nearly 24 hour crushload and a yearly fatality rate in the thousands. Yet people still ride it in great numbers because above else the railway is the only form of transportation in mumbai that is capable of delivering reliable trip times. Enough with the chestthumping over your so called  "streetsmarts" and the boasting over your claimed driving prowess because those are band-aids over the real problem-roads are simply not scaleable infrastructure. The only routes you've cited as driving being better are just not highly traveled, How many people honestly commute from Coney Island to Flushing. its nonsense. It doesn't exist because its not good regional planning. Go learn what a logical disjunction is and elementary statistics before you make a bigger embarrassment out of yourself chumley.

 

First off, your grammar is horrid, so before you tell me to go back to elementary statistics, why don't you go buy Hooked on Phonics.

 

Secondly, judging from another's logic, you must be one of those die-hard life-style type of people.  Let me break down the last parts of my post because I'm sure you skipped it.  I never said driving is better than mass transit or vice-versa.  I said, there are routes where one is better than the other.  But your child mind probably can't process that.

 

Thirdly, how would you know where people would travel to and where they'd start?  Is your street-smarts telling you to ask that question because you don't know and I do?  Please show me a statistical page showing the amount of people traveling from one destination to another.  When you show me a page that describes every possible location to another and the amount of people that fits, I'll shut up then.

 

And about routes that aren't taken much?  I'm only using the examples given by the thread, but you obviously skipped all that.  Maybe reading is not your strong point.

[realizm]

Woah. Peacemak3r just walked in the building causing massive wreck, total complete wrath and irreversible destruction. Holy shit.....

[jgood6195]

Shut up, you live in Canada... but it's true

I have to agree with you on that one.

 

Woah. Peacemak3r just walked in the building causing massive wreck, total complete wrath and irreversible destruction. Holy shit.....

Get some popcorn and get ready for some fireworks!

[jgood6195]

You aren't very good at math are you peacemaker. You just attempted to say that 100 percent automobile usage would fare better than 100 percent mass transit usage. How is that not saying driving is better. You have little concept of how effectively heavy rail copes with high load factors. High loads do not significantly cause delays on rail.  In Mumbai, India the roads are fully saturated and a result the Mumbai Suburban railway has 7 million rides a day. They are way over design capacity with a nearly 24 hour crushload and a yearly fatality rate in the thousands. Yet people still ride it in great numbers because above else the railway is the only form of transportation in mumbai that is capable of delivering reliable trip times. Enough with the chestthumping over your so called  "streetsmarts" and the boasting over your claimed driving prowess because those are band-aids over the real problem-roads are simply not scaleable infrastructure. The only routes you've cited as driving being better are just not highly traveled, How many people honestly commute from Coney Island to Flushing. its nonsense. It doesn't exist because its not good regional planning. Go learn what a logical disjunction is and elementary statistics before you make a bigger embarrassment out of yourself chumley.

Well, if you are complaining about the poor roadways and/or heavy traffic tieups so much, why don't YOU get the captial to maintain them? Until then, shut your mouth and stop talking out of your a**.

[ttcsubwayfan]

Well, if you are complaining about the poor roadways and/or heavy traffic tieups so much, why don't YOU get the captial to maintain them? Until then, shut your mouth and stop talking out of your a**.

Quite right. That kind of money is available to anyone, after all.

[realizm]

I think stormfront.org members are in town. You should see what I am going through in the LAPD thread.

[kentsfield]

The time cost of parking is easily equaled to the amount of delays the MTA has to go through during a day of service.  Further more, if you had the entire NYC take public transportation rather personal, you'd forever have delays, delays and delays.  

 

 but a few is getting the point.  There are routes where driving is better than mass transit and there are routes were mass transit is better than driving.  But people keep reading and posting as if we're trying to say driving is better than public transportation-100%.  Get that point out of your head because we're not saying that.

Right here. Exclusively auto transportation or exclusively public transportation. Exclusive public transportation  you claim will have numerous delays. But apparently exclusive auto transportation will fare better when it would clearly have difficulty scaling to handle a massive upshoot in cars. This is also an example of exclusive logical disjunction for you. Take note also that your grammar here aint so great either. 

My math is bad and your grammar is horrible, I guess we're even here, even with your countless editing.

 

 

 

 

First off, your grammar is horrid, so before you tell me to go back to elementary statistics, why don't you go buy Hooked on Phonics.

 

Secondly, judging from another's logic, you must be one of those die-hard life-style type of people.  Let me break down the last parts of my post because I'm sure you skipped it.  I never said driving is better than mass transit or vice-versa.  I said, there are routes where one is better than the other.  But your child mind probably can't process that.

 

Thirdly, how would you know where people would travel to and where they'd start?  Is your street-smarts telling you to ask that question because you don't know and I do?  Please show me a statistical page showing the amount of people traveling from one destination to another.  When you show me a page that describes every possible location to another and the amount of people that fits, I'll shut up then.

 

And about routes that aren't taken much?  I'm only using the examples given by the thread, but you obviously skipped all that.  Maybe reading is not your strong point.

I am  not a die hard life style type of person. I equally consider the modes of walking, driving and rail and I pick the appropriate choice. The only mode of transport i shun are buses. 

 

For your third point, its not hard to figure out behavior patterns just by glancing at wikipedia. I don't need wikipedia to tell me  Flushing and Coney Island are  residential neighborhoods with commercial activity mainly being service oriented businesses There never will be a big draw for Coney Island-Flushing transportation because at each end point there is very little impetus to draw them together. Ridership records from the MTA show the big office destinations.

 

On capacities the L train alone can handle over 40000 passengers an hour. Even the biggest bridges in NYC would be lucky to handle 10000 passengers. You can get that 40,000 passenger an hour figure by multiplying

TPH*Train Car Capacity*Train Length.

[peacemak3r]

1 - Right here. Exclusively auto transportation or exclusively public transportation. Exclusive public transportation  you claim will have numerous delays. But apparently exclusive auto transportation will fare better when it would clearly have difficulty scaling to handle a massive upshoot in cars. This is also an example of exclusive logical disjunction for you. Take note also that your grammar here aint so great either. 

I am  not a die hard life style type of person. I equally consider the modes of walking, driving and rail and I pick the appropriate choice. The only mode of transport i shun are buses. 

 

2 - For your third point, its not hard to figure out behavior patterns just by glancing at wikipedia. I don't need wikipedia to tell me  Flushing and Coney Island are  residential neighborhoods with commercial activity mainly being service oriented businesses There never will be a big draw for Coney Island-Flushing transportation because at each end point there is very little impetus to draw them together. Ridership records from the MTA show the big office destinations.

 

3 - On capacities the L train alone can handle over 40000 passengers an hour. Even the biggest bridges in NYC would be lucky to handle 10000 passengers. You can get that 40,000 passenger an hour figure by multiplying

TPH*Train Car Capacity*Train Length.

 

On answer one, read the sentence again. "But people keep reading and posting as if we're trying to say driving is better than public transportation-100%." Maybe I should have reworded the 100% for your understanding, I was cutting corners there.  Also notice the bold section, AS IF, meaning we aren't promoting it but people think we are.

 

On answer two, whose checking out Wikipedia? You?  Because my observations are from people I know in the area and co-workers from that area.  Yeah you're right on the ridership from Coney-Island to Flushing might not be staggering but, doesn't that make my point that driving there is better than MTA in the first place?  Jesus.

 

On answer three, we're talking about how long it takes from one place to another and you're talking about how much one transportation method can carry.  Are you even in the same discussion anymore?

[Joel Up Front]

I'd be embarrassed if I was caught trying to use the word "chumley" as an insult.

[realizm]

Woah. Peacemak3r just walked in the building causing massive wreck, total complete wrath and irreversible destruction. Holy shit.....

 

Now he is following up with total carnage, baptism by fire and total wanton devastation.  And he just laid the smackdown. Oh man this is better then watching an action movie! Lol

 

Edit: Still loling losing my breath OMG let me get away from this computer, woah! *cough*. Wow...

[kentsfield]

Yes. Speed is highly tied to capacity. Saturation at 6,000 vs 40,000 passengers makes a large difference. Queuing will begin much faster on a road. Queuing is not good for speed. That is why people are dependent in mumbai are dependent on the Bombay Railway. Its faster and more dependable than driving through their congested roads. 

 

"Further more, if you had the entire NYC take public transportation rather personal, you'd forever have delays, delays and delays." 

 

This. Right here. keyword  "Rather" This implies you think all public transport would handle a higher load factor with inferior performance to all private transport. This suggests you think private transport can handle capacity and reliability better as well as the qualities you've indicated before in the thread: speed, monetary cost, and  convenience. That sounds like every applicable consideration in transportation.

Excluding those factors how is it possible to suggest that there would still be cases where a car is not the ideal "100 percent better" choice? 

[kentsfield]

Now he is following up with total carnage, baptism by fire and total wanton devastation.  And he just laid the smackdown. Oh man this is better then watching an action movie! Lol

 

Edit: Still loling losing my breath OMG let me get away from this computer, woah! *cough*. Wow...

Go back to your router box at your min wage IT job. When you're listing off performing menial lower high school math as a highlight and accomplishment of your professional career, you've got no room to talk.

[realizm]

Go back to your router box at your min wage IT job. When you're listing off performing menial lower high school math as a highlight and accomplishment of your professional career, you've got no room to talk.

 

Oh damn did the zookeeper accidentally let you out of your cage at the Bronx Zoo gorilla exhibit again? Oh wait a minute, I get it this post must be an experiment by the US Government to see if monkeys can actually type comprehensive and grammatically correct phrases. Obviously this ridiculous asshattery of a post I am actually responding to is a miserable fail. Now go crawling back into your cubby cage at the zoo, sucking on your left thumb while scratching your hairy ass and have some bananas.

[Gorgor]

Yes. Speed is highly tied to capacity. Saturation at 6,000 vs 40,000 passengers makes a large difference. Queuing will begin much faster on a road. Queuing is not good for speed. That is why people are dependent in mumbai are dependent on the Bombay Railway. Its faster and more dependable than driving through their congested roads. 

 

"Further more, if you had the entire NYC take public transportation rather personal, you'd forever have delays, delays and delays." 

 

This. Right here. keyword  "Rather" This implies you think all public transport would handle a higher load factor with inferior performance to all private transport. This suggests you think private transport can handle capacity and reliability better as well as the qualities you've indicated before in the thread: speed, monetary cost, and  convenience. That sounds like every applicable consideration in transportation.

Excluding those factors how is it possible to suggest that there would still be cases where a car is not the ideal "100 percent better" choice? 

 

And why should we care at all about Mumbai?

 

Driving is always faster from getting from point A to point B.  Parking may take time (or not) depending on where you're going, but a car will always get you from A to B faster than any train will.

 

If anyone disagrees with this statement then please speak up and pose a scenario in which it is false.

[kentsfield]

Oh damn did the zookeeper accidentally let you out of your cage at the Bronx Zoo gorilla exhibit again? Oh wait a minute, I get it this post must be an experiment by the US Government to see if monkeys can actually type comprehensive and grammatically correct phrases. Obviously this ridiculous asshattery of a post I am actually responding to is a miserable fail. Now go crawling back into your cubby cage at the zoo, sucking on your left thumb while scratching your hairy ass and have some bananas.

Nice try but you're the guy with a soulless dead end job.  Have fun waking up in the morning with nothing to live for and no reason to live. 

[realizm]

Nice try but you're the guy with a soulless dead end job.  Have fun waking up in the morning with nothing to live for and no reason to live. 

 

And what did you do for a living? Clean cesspools? Yeah that profession makes room for plenty of advancement in the field. No wait a minute i'm talking to a primate as part of that experiment to see if they can measure up to proper understanding of the English language, I forgot already. Sorry about that.

 

If I may ask: Did that veterinarian test too many drugs on you before you escaped that zoo to post here today? Because it really shows in your posts in this thread.