Traffic on Freeways

[NWGirl74]

Originally Posted by dots45

Its one thing to be stuck at 5pm during the week and another to run into heavy traffic at noon on the weekend. That's what bothers me more.

This has been annoying me lately too. Where the heck is everyone going at 10:00 on Saturday morning that has I-5 S stop and go coming out of Vancouver? It should be a breeze at that time of day!

Originally Posted by bler144

The way people drive also doesn't help, though I find the impact of that more outside the metro.

The trend I'm noticing lately in lighter traffic times is 2 lanes moving smoothly and one going 45. I notice this as I'm always stuck in the lane going 45.

[Leisesturm]

I once read somewhere that L.A. was aomwrhing like 25% parking lots and 40% roadway. And it isn't enough!! It never is enough. L.A. also has unarguably the worst air quality in the country. The only place worse is NYC. The reason in both places is cars! A 35 y.o. born and raised in NYC has an actual age of 55 because they have breathed in the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes every week since birth. The reason is cars. So, lets do it. Lets build out our road infrastructure to levels that will satisfy a majority of PDX natives. Lets get our air quality down into the FFF range along with NYC, L.A. and Beijing, China. That's progress.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

Works for me!!!!

Especially since absolutely no other automobile technology exists other than super inefficient gasoline/diesel combustion engines.

Besides, the rainy season is coming and it will wash all that gunk right out of the air into the Willamette where it belongs.

[Leisesturm]

I don't know about L.A. but I know it rains a lot in NYC. Maybe as much as PDX, maybe more (PDX's rain is very overrated). It does little to make the air quality acceptable. I was reading about this French bridge. Long span suspension. Super high tech. Like computer controlled traffic management etc. The entire project was less than 100 Million and was actually completed. The short span Columbia River Bridge project is over 1 Billion and has not been completed. I imagine 100M has already been spent just on the feasibility studies. I don't expect to see or hear of so much as a single mile of roadway added to Portland's infrastructure in my lifetime. There will not be another lane added to the I-5 bridge. The bridge is not the problem. Traffic starts backing up long before the bridge and it is not because the bridge is a bottleneck. The bridge has just as much capacity as other spans in the area. The entire road system feeding the bridge is inadequate to handle the needs of motorists. You would need to do much more than just widen the bridge to solve issues. But there is L.A. as an example. 60% of its ~145 sq. mi. devoted to the movement and storage of millions of motor vehicles and it is not nearly enough.

[pdxMIKEpdx]

I don't expect to see or hear of so much as a single mile of roadway added to Portland's infrastructure in my lifetime.

Neither do I.
Nothing that will make a difference, anyway.
But, cycling and public transit aren't the blanket solution/answer for everyone.

I don't expect anything to replace cars as people's main mode of transportation in my lifetime either.
Especially in Portland, where a myriad of alternatives exist.

It's because none of them are as simple or as practical, or as long range as automobiles, especially in the deep, dank, cold wet throws of winter, when for example, I'll bet 90% of the "good weather cyclists" retreat back to the warmth, dryness, safety and efficiency of their cars.

But I plan on hearing the complaining and bellyache-ing for a long long time to come.

Portlanders will just have to shut up and deal with it, I guess, and wait for molecular transporters or stargate technology to be developed.

In other thoughts, Portland isn't NYC or LA, and will never grow to the size of NYC or LA, so what's wrong with improving our road capacity to handle 10-20 years of growth?

How much can Portland realistically grow and expand in 20-30 years?
We are kind of hemmed in by mountains and rivers, so the only way to go is south.
Maybe in thirty years when the northern Willamette Valley is wall to wall people, a good decent efficient public transit system may just work.

[borntorun1180]

So many great points, Portland just wastes money on choo-choo trains and useless bike lane rather than fixing actual traffic messes because the majority of Portlanders drive and will continue to drive. They need to be expanding their highways, and building new as well as upgrading their highway system throughout the metro. Eliminating lights on 99E and 99W to turn them into more like highways should be a priority.

[Nell Plotts]

I just don't think there are cost effective solutions to the freeway space problem. Perhaps there could be traffic planning adjustments that would facilitate the movement of traffic.

[KJoe11]

Originally Posted by jjpop

ODOT confirms that Portland freeways are above capacity: It's not your imagination: Portland highways are at or above capacity | OregonLive.com

Here's the real problem: Nobody wants to pony up the dough to do anything about it:

The reason wants to "pony up" any money is because their complete lack of faith in the government institutions. In the past when "Amerika" was "America", if a bridge or road needed to be built, they just went out and did it.

[Pretzelogik]

Originally Posted by jjpop

I think most people agree the traffic is bad here in Portland. Read a few other threads and you'll see it is the source of a lot of conversation.

When the big ones hit, Portlanders just have to presume that work will be closed, stores will be closed, electricity will be out, and bridges will be down. Worry? I guess, but more about family safety than whether I'll be able to make it to work.

Bad traffic is what happens when all the bucks are spent on da MAX and little to none on road improvements.

[borntorun1180]

Originally Posted by Pretzelogik

Bad traffic is what happens when all the bucks are spent on da MAX and little to none on road improvements.

Exactly, imagine the amount of improvements and new highways they could have built with how much they spent on the MAX that only serves a small percentage of the metro, it would have been so much easier to get around in Portland. Clearly morons have been running this city for decades.