What a nightmare. I drove to work on I-87, the Adirondack Northway, a few weeks ago. I got on at exit 14 in Saratoga Springs and got off at exit 6 near the Albany airport. I was working at a company on British-American Boulevard off of Route 7 in Latham.
I haven't had to use the Northway to commute to work in quite a few years. In fact, the last time I used it to get to work was in 2000 when I lived near exit 8.
I was amazed at how many cars had only one person in them. In the five days that I drove on the Northway, I only saw one car with two people or more in it on the way to work. Doesn't anybody carpool? With the price of gasoline so high and the Great Recession gripping the country for the past year, I didn't expect to find traffic as usual on the Northway.
I think I saw one bus too. I know that there must be more buses somewhere, but I only saw one. Maybe it was just the time I was commuting. I left my house around 6:55 am to be at work in Latham by 8:00 am.
There has got to be a better way. I still can't understand how the Northway comes to a complete halt around exits 9, 8A and 8. I know that there are a lot of cars entering the roadway at 9, 8A and 8, but they are entering the right hand lane. Why doesn't the left lane and center lane keep moving?
I'm assuming that since I am stopped and all the cars that I can see in front of me are stopped, that some car ahead of me that I can't see and is "leading the pack" down the Northway, has come to a complete stop. Why? How can that be?
There are no traffic lights, stop signs, yield signs, pedestrian crossings, or anything else to cause a car to come to a complete stop. It just doesn't make sense.
I would love to spend a morning in a helicopter and look down on "the mess." Maybe then I could get a better understanding of what is happening. I have heard that the twin bridges crossing the Mohawk river present some sort of an optical illusion to some drivers. That could explain some of the slow down. I also know from experience that there is a hill after crossing the Mohawk and that most cars lose speed going up the hill because their drivers fail to accelerate to compensate.
I have come to the conclusion that it is just incompetent drivers causing the problem. People who, among a lot of other things, won't keep right and pass left. Some will just sit in the left hand lane, not passing anyone and clogging traffic. People who can't be bothered to use a turn signal. People who still talk on their cell phones while driving. Here is a link to the
website of the Car Talk guys (http://www.cartalk.com/content/features/Drive-Now/ - broken link) that you have probably heard on the radio. Their website has a wealth of information about why you should not talk on the phone, hands-free or not, while you are driving a car. It's incredibly dangerous.
I was also surpised at how fast people were driving. The speed limit is 65. If you drive 65, even in the right hand lane, people are whizzing by you at 75, 80 or 85 miles an hour. What's the rush? Seventy is a nice comfortable speed. Your chance of having an accident at 75 and 80 miles per hour is greater and the higher speed makes the results of the accident deadlier. Slow down and live.
I thought by now, near the end of the first decade of the 21st century, that more employers would allow more employees to work from home. If people worked from home two days a week, that would cut down on traffic on the Northway by 40% on any given day. No more painfully slow, stressful commute.
There would be less stress, less accidents and theoretically, cheaper insurance rates because you are driving your car fewer miles. You would spend a lot less money on gasoline and wear and tear on your car. Even if the price of gasoline is high, you won't need to buy as much. I drive an old Honda Accord. My commute was 39 miles each way. I burned quite a bit of fuel to get back and forth. The job that I was doing was hands on. I was physically connecting and disconnecting equipment. It wasn't something that I could do from home.
Many people work on a computer when they get to work. With broadband cable or DSL, inexpensive computers and cheap phone calls, you should be able to do the same job working from home. Everybody wins. If you want, for $50 you can setup a camera on your computer so your boss can actually see and talk to you when it is necessary.
I hope I don't have to make that commute again any time soon.
John Tedder's Random Notes
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