{"id":80,"date":"2003-10-26T18:05:45","date_gmt":"2003-10-26T23:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wordpress\/2003\/10\/alternative_solutions_to_traff\/"},"modified":"2003-10-26T18:05:45","modified_gmt":"2003-10-26T23:05:45","slug":"alternative_solutions_to_traff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2003\/10\/alternative_solutions_to_traff\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternative Solutions to Traffic Congestion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s <i>Washington Post<\/i> has an article on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/articles\/A15965-2003Oct25.html\">quick, inexpensive tweaks to ease traffic congestion<\/a>.  Some ideas, taken directly from the story: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Fixing confusing road signs that cause motorists to swerve from lane to lane;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Making intersections safer for pedestrians so people will feel more comfortable walking instead of driving;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Crack down on double-parked vehicles that create bottlenecks;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Remind highway drivers that the left lane is for passing;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> Make it easier for commuters to work at least some days from home;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Eliminate more street parking on busy thoroughfares during rush hours;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Retime signals to keep vehicles moving from one green light to the next;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Add a lane to intersections that back up from cars waiting to turn;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Fill gaps in sidewalks and bike paths so people can avoid driving a half-mile to the grocery store;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li> Invest in longer-lasting pavements so that roads are ripped up less often;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Having a public education campaign to teach drivers how to keep traffic moving while they merge.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Knoxville doesn&#8217;t have traffic  on a scale remotely close to the nightmare around Washington, D.C.  But we do have traffic issues.  And, as in metro Washington, the debate on how to address the problem has been dominated by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.southknoxbubba.net\/skblog\/archive_2003_10.php#2146\">political clout of those supporting massive highway projects<\/a>.  That&#8217;s unfortunate, because some of these ideas are viable remedies to ease local commuter pain.<br \/>\nTake, for instance, the last point: an education program to teach drivers how to keep traffic moving.  I don&#8217;t know how effective that would be in practice, but in theory it&#8217;s a great idea.  It really frustrates me every time I get bogged down in traffic crawl only to discover that the apparent cause for the slowdown was a vehicle parked on the side of the road.  Why?<br \/>\nGranted, none of the above ideas will ultimately solve the ills of increased traffic volume.  But they will help.  And they&#8217;re being drowned out by the clamor of check-writing lobbyists.<br \/>\nAccording to the TDOT website, there is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tdot.state.tn.us\/tdotsmartway\/timeline.htm\">one good project in the pipeline<\/a>.  Knoxville is slated to have 73 closed circuit television cameras installed along the interstate next spring, which I presume will be part of a webcam system similar to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cctv.tdot.state.tn.us\/cctvnash\/\">Nashville&#8217;s<\/a>.    This won&#8217;t make the traffic tie-ups more enjoyable, but it will make them easier to avoid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/2003\/10\/alternative_solutions_to_traff\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to Alternative Solutions to Traffic Congestion\"><p>Today&#8217;s Washington Post has an article on quick, inexpensive tweaks to ease traffic congestion. Some ideas, taken directly from the story: Fixing confusing road signs that cause motorists to swerve from lane to lane; Making intersections safer for pedestrians so people will feel more comfortable walking instead of driving; Crack down on double-parked vehicles that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-80","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"h-entry","8":"hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brianarner.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}