What are you doing about problematic traffic?

[Charles]

Originally Posted by Steve97415

Well a lot of people are doing that, but...it still begs the question of what you are going to use for transportation in the new area. A lot of people are just falling back on automobile reliance in the less-congested new area and making it more congested. The cycle simply starts all over again.

Still drive a 16 mpg 5000 pound 4WD 1998 F-150 Supercab. Wife drives a 2008 6200 pound 15 mpg 4WD Sequoia. (But, we have four kids, and they are in that car a lot; So, when there are six of us in it, we are getting 90 people-miles/gallon. That's more than one guy in a geo metro.) I live 18 miles from my job, takes 23 minutes (and that is far for Huntsville). Cycling is too far; carpooling is too constraining; there is no public transportation for my route; my job is can't be done at home.

And because F still equals ma, I won't drive a small car.

Do you have any suggestions?

I'll refer to my cheap, fast, correct analogy.

I can deliver any transportation system you want; pick two of three design goals: cheap, fast, and correct.

If it is cheap and fast, it won't be correct.
If it is fast and correct, it won't be cheap.
If it is cheap and correct, it won't be fast.

[City Boy]

Bart

[Steve97415]

Originally Posted by Charles

I'll refer to my cheap, fast, correct analogy.

I can deliver any transportation system you want; pick two of three design goals: cheap, fast, and correct.

If it is cheap and fast, it won't be correct.
If it is fast and correct, it won't be cheap.
If it is cheap and correct, it won't be fast.

That's actually a syllogism for producing information-based outcomes. A similar paradigm has been used for urban design though, based on the three parameters of low-cost, convenience and sustainability.

1. If it is low-cost and sustainable, it won't be convenient (walking, bicycling).
2. f it is convenient and sustainable, it won't be low-cost (well-designed, full-service transit).
3. If it is low-cost and convenient, it won't be sustainable (that's where we are now with car-dependent roadway networks...and many areas are reaching the outer limits of sustainability).

I think that any reasonable person would deduce that #3 is the least desirable of all possible outcomes.

We're currently mired in an economic meltdown caused, in large measure, by convenient, low-cost leveraging of credit that was unsustainable. Have we learned nothing from it?

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Steve97415

What are you doing to help alleviate traffic congestion?

Ten years ago we moved downtown within easy walking distance of our offices. A couple of years later our car was totaled by a red light runner and we did without one for four years. My wife retired and I changed offices but still walked or took light rail, depending on the weather, the mile to the office. In '07 we bought a new Honda Accord (24 mpg city, 34 mpg highway). That was 18 montrhs ago and the car still has only 9,750 miles on it. You do the math. I changed office locations again and my one-way walk increased to two miles each morning and then the same back at the end of the day. I also walked to other offices, lunch, etc. Now I'm retired also and couldn't care less about traffic but still walk a lot.

I think we've done our part.