Whoopsie! Sydney's road planners just discovered induced demand is a thing, after opening a new motorway.
For those outside Sydney, the New South Wales state government recently opened a new spaghetti intersection just west of Sydney's Central Business District.
It was supposed to solve traffic. Instead, it's turned into a giant car park:
"For the third straight day, motorists and bus passengers endured bumper-to-bumper traffic on the City West Link and Victoria Road. A trip from Haberfield to the Anzac Bridge on the City West Link averaged an agonising 44 minutes in the morning peak on Wednesday.
"Several months ago, Transport for NSW’s modelling had suggested traffic from the interchange would add only five to 10 minutes to trips on Victoria Road through Drummoyne and over the Iron Cove Bridge during morning peaks.
"Those travel delays have now blown out."
So what do motorists say when their shiny new road that was supposed to solve traffic instead turns into a massive traffic jam?
'Dude! Just one more lane!'
From the article:
"[Roads Minister John] Graham and his Transport boss Josh Murray appear reluctant to do what many motorists reckon is the obvious solution.
"That is, add lanes or make changes at the pinch-points that are causing the pain. A three-lane to one merge point from Victoria Road onto the Anzac Bridge, along with two lanes merging into one on the City West Link, are proving to be painful bottlenecks."
As much as I like Olivia Chow as a possible mayor for #Toronto, one issue is a deal-breaker: the tearing down of the Gardiner Expressway.
I live in the east end of the city, and the boulevard option doesn't deal with the traffic as well. In fact, a lot of die-hard NDP neighbors said they will vote for someone else based on this one issue.
Here are the issues:
Most of these neighbors rely on using the Gardiner to get across town when public transit is not feasible. Parents taking their kids and gear across the city; people with mobility issues; leaving the city from the east end requires driving across town; deliveries; picking up bulk items from downtown shops or buying furniture from Kijiji; commuting to jobs across town that start at unusually early times, or are located in places poorly services by TTC (or it takes 2 hours by TTC vs 20 minutes driving). All those cars downtown and on the Gardiner aren’t people driving a few blocks – people are going serious distances.
While reducing car use in the city is laudable – it’s unrealistic, especially as huge numbers of new condos (complete with many new car owners living downtown) will be moving in over the next few years. It’s a numbers thing: even if the percentage of people driving downtown decreases, the absolute number will increase simply because there are more people and more cars.
On the east end, traffic is already terrible off Lakeshore. Exiting at Carlaw continues to be crowded and a mess. There are no really good ways (and too few) ways to leave the Lakeshore there and go north.
The plans I believe Ms Chow is referring too for tearing down the current construction-in-progress doesn’t have a good plan for cars exiting the Gardiner either – it will be an awful mess. I’m not convinced it can deal with the predicted volumes of traffic. It will become another Carlaw or worse.
And what about seamless connection to the DVP?
A couple of years ago, there were community surveys regarding the current plan – I filled one out. It has community support.
Tearing it down is also a huge waste of money – of which my tax payer money has gone into.
A Chicago #Cop Is Accused of Lying Under Oath 44 Times. Now #Prosecutors Are Dropping Cases That Relied on His Testimony.
Former #Chicago officer Jeffrey Kriv faces charges for #perjury and #forgery after getting out of dozens of #traffic violations by claiming his girlfriend had stolen his car.
Now, cases that stem from #arrests Kriv made are in jeopardy.
August 2017 solar eclipse traffic, in a nutshell... apparently turned some routes into hours and hours long traffic jams. #solar#eclipse#solareclipse#traffic
Während ich von der jüngsten Welle von Neuanmeldungen bei #Mastodon in den Zahlen von @heiseonline ja nichts sehen konnte, sieht es seit gestern so aus, als würde der #Traffic von #Twitter nun merklich zurückgehen.
Muss man natürlich noch beobachten. Aber es ist wohl nicht nur ein Eindruck, dass es auf Twitter merklich ruhiger geworden ist, seit #Threads (nicht in der EU) verfügbar ist.
LA Marathon is this weekend in LA... Not the right time to go to downtown LA, Silver Lake, Hollywood, Westwood or anywhere in between for non-Marathon related stuff. #traffic#LosAngeles#Hollywood
Tomorrow #Threads is coming to #Europe, and I'm more than a little bit curious, how it will play out.
That's where we stand @heiseonline regarding #Traffic from #X/Twitter and its main competitors right now. It's more quick and dirty than my other ones.
Keep in mind, that there's a substantial amount of traffic from #Mastodon, that we currently don't see (because of the #preview cutting of the URL): I'm pretty sure, that Mastodon has already overtaken #Twitter. #Bluesky is far, far behind.
My new hobby is walking down my residential street where people drive too fast and crossing at every intersection just when a car is coming in order to force them to stop.
Every single Caltrans camera between Thousand Oaks and LAX is "Temporarily Unavailable", in case you are wondering. It appears their traffic camera network is not waterproof. #CAwx#traffic
The ban, effective from 10:00 PM to 6:00 AM, applies to all motor vehicles except traffic service vehicles (this includes residents, taxis and others according to the law)
First discussed in June and implemented only three months later.
The district was a common scene for illegal night races between sports cars
And the troglodytes win. With help from the media - Guardian INCLUDED. No one ever looks at the very successful roll out in the Scottish Borders (Conservative council). Grumbles maybe, but I know of no one who wants to go back from safer, more pleasant towns and villages. But what can you expect from a Starmerite?
#SteveWinwood + #Traffic's performance of "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" in 1994 from "The Last Great Traffic Jam" (2005).
In 1978, when I hosted 10PM-2AM on a no-format, #QuadFM station in tinytown #NC, I'd put this track on—15 minutes—and "step out back for a smoke." My show's sole sponsor was #JOB Rolling Papers.
So WestConnex was totally going to solve traffic in Sydney by adding more lanes for cars. Just a few teething problems on the Rozelle Interchange and it'll all clear up, they said.
I wonder how it's going?
"Gladesville and Drummoyne locals say gridlock is worsening in their suburbs following changes to improve traffic flow through the notorious Rozelle Interchange, with drivers using local streets as “rat runs” to dodge congestion."
Massive traffic accident on the 101E (south) in Calabasas, multiple cars involved, at least one vehicle on its roof, other vehicles off the side. (no doubt as a result of the intense rain band moving through). #traffic#SanFernandoValley#CAwx#LosAngeles