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[USA] United States | Interstate Highways

4M views 14K replies 859 participants last post by  Nexis 
#1 ·
What is your opinion of them? We were discussing them in class today. I think they are pretty innovative idea. Charging a user to bypass traffic congestion. The lanes pay for themselves through toll revenue. They get the maximum use out of a HOV lane, which can coexist with the HOT lane traffic. One example of this is in Houston. The HOV restriction is for 3 or more people, however you can pay a toll and need only 2 people. HOV to HOT conversion is relatively inexpensive. The San Diego I-15 HOT lane conversion was only $1.5 Million, which is pretty cheap for a highway project.
Some people are opposed to them, calling them "Lexus Lanes", because it would give wealthier people an advantage over others.

 
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#682 ·
Some places have a LOT of highways for not a whole lot of people.

North Dakota and South Dakota have 9,097 Km of Federal Highways (not even just roads or state highways) and only 1,397,044 people served by those highways. Many of them are just through interstates.

The central area of the US has 5,796,725 people and 19,957.47KM of Federal roads (obviously a lot more state and county roads).

That's quite a few miles of roads for not even 6 million people. A lot of the money to upkeep roads in the urban centers gets taken away to maintain the endless roads through our countryside.





These are always fun days!!!!

 
#684 ·
I'd agree with this, they're not the best, they're not the worst. A car I've driven in has never been DAMAGED just from driving down the road. I think we just went and built a LOT of paved roads for how many people we have to pay for them. We can't treat them all with extra love and care.
Better surfaces for the roads can be achieved, however, that has to be achieved at the cost of higher taxes, though for more right wing people like me, those funds can just can taken from social programs and be transferred to infrastructure spending, so in the end taxes would not increase, also, a better solution might be to include road funding in the tax bill rather than in gasoline taxes, since including them in the tax bill that a person gets would theoretically allow for more funding flexibility.
 
#685 ·
Explosion Collapses Major SF Bay Area interchange

Tanker fire destroys part of MacArthur Maze
2 freeways closed near Bay Bridge


(04-29) 09:24 PDT OAKLAND -- The heat of a dramatic gasoline tanker fire destroyed an overpass and closed two major roadways in the MacArthur Maze at the East Bay access to the Bay Bridge early this morning.

A section of the roadway taking traffic from the Bay Bridge onto eastbound Interstate 580 fell onto the connector that brings East Bay traffic from Interstate 80 to Interstate 880 southbound toward Oakland and San Jose.

Lanes of 580 near the East Bay Municipal Utility District sewage treatment plant at the maze are draped like a blanket over the northeast edge of the freeway below with the corner tip touching the ground below that.

Traffic is being routed several different ways around the scene and tie-ups are likely to worsen as the day wears on.

"We're screwed, huh? That's going to be rough on everybody," said Joe Dorey, 55, an engineer who lives in Oakland.

The tanker, which was traveling from I-80 full of vehicle-ready gasoline, seems to have disappeared. One Caltrans worker at the scene held up his thumb and forefinger an inch apart to describe how big the tanker is now.

The driver, who got out of the truck on his own after it overturned, hailed a taxi to a nearby hospital, where he is in critical but stable condition with burns.

One section of roadway has fallen away from the main structure and another may yet fall this morning.

Below the two stretches of roadway is a Caltrans property full of equipment being used to rebuild the Bay Bridge.

So far this morning, traffic on all the affected roadways remains light, but major backups are expected today and for the foreseeable future.
 
#692 ·
Damn, the asphalt looks more like rubber on the fourth picture :eek:

Today early in the morning I went to Fremont from Sacramento to pick up my fiancée, and we already came back. For some strange reason I decided to make a round trip via Stockton and Tracy instead of Oakland, and now it appears I avoided a major delay.
 
#694 ·
There was a goodly sized article on the front page of my local paper this morning. While the local angle isn't necessarily important, the article does bring up a rather interesting point about the economic ramifications of such an important connection.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003686711_freeway30.html

When the earthquake toppled the freeway, what sort of economic and communting problems were experienced at that time? The earthquake of course had a winder damage footprint, so affected more people, it might have some bearing onto the problems that will be seen after this accident.
 
#695 ·
With gas prices rising and breaking record highs this season (currently $3.25 average for my hometown) the political feasibility of more gas taxes is highly problematic. Washington has already locked in a stepped gas tax increas in the next couple years, so were kinda stuck, but I doubt we'll see new gas taxes any time soon.

We'll have to come up with a different way to fund our highways. The Seattle metropolitan region could directly tax itself to build a host of new projects. Portland has been doing this for quite some time, though they've historically been anti-highway.
 
#700 ·
This is really a wake-up call to the entire West Coast. Our transportation system, for the most part, is not up to natural disasters. Remember the LA Northridge quake in '94? Tremendous freeway damange. Same with '89 in the Bay Area. In Seattle, the Alaskan Way Viaduct was damaged by an '01 quake. These roads needs to be replaced or strengthened or disaster will be in our future.
 
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