The New York Times looks at the extensive highway work project expected to cause major disruptions this week.
You would think that Los Angeles, of all places, would know how to handle a catastrophe. But in just over a week, 11 miles of Interstate 405 — the north-south spine of the .Read more...
Google has been in the new with their robot car that uses software and a set of cameras to act as the driver. Fast Company looks at “How Google’s Robot Cars will Revive Sprawl”.
Google’s test cars had traveled 140,000 miles with only one accident. (A car was rear-ended while stopped .Read more...
Eric A. Morris looks at the strange things that cause traffic:
It’s hard to calculate precisely, but estimates I’ve seen suggest that incidents account for perhaps 50 percent of all roadway congestion. The most common incidents (80 percent) are breakdowns, stalls, flat tires, empty gas tanks, etc. In transportation lingo these .Read more...
Los Angeles is considering pulling the plug on their red light cameras (RLC’s). Freakonomics blogger Eric A. Morris weighs in:
Do we need RLCs? First off, yes, there is a problem. Intersections are dangerous places. The Federal Highway Administration has estimated that red-light running caused 676 deaths and 113,000 injuries in .Read more...
USA Today discusses the growing trend towards flashing yellow left turn signals to improve safety and keep traffic moving.
The Federal Highway Administration estimates that the signals — which allow drivers to make a left turn after yielding, even when the light is red for traffic going straight and cross traffic has .Read more...
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website maintains important information about transportation safety. In particular, there is a valuable introduction to EDR’s (or Event Data Recorders). Here is an excerpt:
What is an EDR? What is its purpose?
An Event Data Recorder (EDR) is a function or device installed in a .Read more...
Tom Vanderbilt writes at length about merging philosophy in his book, Traffic. It seems that the Illinois Department of Transportation is now experimenting with some new ideas in merging.
The Quad-City Times writes about the new Illinois DOT signage:
There’s a new sign in town, and it may just change everything.
The Illinois .Read more...
Traffic guru Tom Vanderbilt discusses Twitter and traffic at Salon.com:
On an early Friday morning rush hour last month, a Seattle-area web designer named Michael Micheletti was driving his BMW, “check engine” light blazing, to his dealer to be serviced. In some kind of disharmonic convergence, the car gave out a .Read more...
Humorist P.J. O’Rourke takes aim at bicycles:
The bicycle is a parody of a wheeled vehicle—a donkey cart without the cart, where you do the work of the donkey. Although the technology necessary to build a bicycle has been around since ancient Egypt, bikes didn’t appear until the 19th century. The .Read more...
Great traffic infographic via How We Drive.
Traffic from Ken Hoyle on Vimeo.
This time lapse video from Ken Hoyle shows Orlando, Florida traffic and landscapes. Orlando’s metro population is now over 2 million residents.
