Secrets of the City

Saw it. Heard it before. Still don’t believe it.

MNDOT’s “zipper theory” only works when people are willing to let you merge at the end of a lane. In many cases, they are not, and you have to try to merge into faster moving traffic from a dead stop.

“The Twin Cities have some of the worst traffic jams in the country.”

Based on what? I feel like yelling at the top of my lungs IT’S NOT THAT BAD HERE! Tons worse, lots of places.

That said, it’s the only place I’ve lived that have what I call “death spirals” where traffic enters and exits the highway in the same .125 mile strip. Those are hard to negotiate, such as 35W South and 35th St.

This idea that MNsotans don’t know how to merge: What data is this based upon? And based on that data, what states really excel at merging?

MNDOT’s “zipper theory” only works when people are willing to let you merge at the end of a lane. In many cases, they are not, and you have to try to merge into faster moving traffic from a dead stop

So, what your saying is that we should all ignore an empty lane for sometimes a couple of miles just so we don’t piss people off who don’t understand the logic in the first place. Screw them. If they want to waste time in the lemming line that’s fine but don’t whine about it. Last minute mergers are actually helping the flow of traffic. Take the road less traveled.

If you want to really experience traffic go drive in NYC, Chicago, Atlanta, LA. Minneapolis is a cakewalk.

That story’s stupid.

unpolitical?

Driving through Atlanta at mid-morning had me pooping in my jeans. Those folks is crazy.

Atlanta’s the worst I’ve encountered. Unmanaged there be there.

And I still wonder why MNDOT hasn’t come to the conclusion that everything would be faster if they just stopped giving five miles’ worth of notice on every merge — just give 200 yards (more than ten seconds at 60MPH), then start closing in with the cones.

miserable places to drive a car:
-boston
-los angeles

Where to vote

For your polling place, contact your city, county or the secretary of state’s office, or check myVote at http://www.startribune.com/politics. Contact the secretary of state’s office at 651-215-1440 or 1-877-600-8683. Also http://www.sos.state.mn.us.

Ask any engineer that understands fluid dynamics and the “zipper theory” is the one that moves traffic the best. What we should do is spend some of the money raised by the transportation amendment to educate drivers.

Whoops wrong thread.

People merge fairly well here. We just want to be the best at everything and we aren’t obviously at merging and it makes us sad.

Go back to the City of Brotherly Love, Philly, and take your cheesesteak-fueled road rage with you.

nah, we should spend most of the money from the transportation amendment on offering drivers alternatives like public transportation where their idiocy and coffe/makeup juggling won’t kill other people.

At the other extreme from Atlanta, there’s San Jose, where the freeway traffic moves at 0.8 mph. It gives you a great opportunity though to check out, in great detail, the latest models of BMW, Ferrari, Corvette and Hummer that are crawling along beside you in the next lane.

At the other extreme from Atlanta, there’s San Jose, where the freeway traffic moves at 0.8 mph. It gives you a great opportunity though to check out, in great detail, the latest models of BMW, Ferrari, Corvette and Hummer that are crawling along beside you in the next lane.

Hey plain midwest passive-aggresive Bob, who is the rager here?? See you at the back of the line.

By the way, I like cheesesteaks but I’m not from Philly.

Those cloverleaf in & out simultaneour merges in this metro are fookin awful. The ones that come to mind are 100-394, 100-62, 169-394. Why would you force those merging in and those exiting into the same 1/16 mile strip of pavement @ the same time…just plain stupid. Was there some sort of cost savings?

I preferred driving in Detroit, where the only traffic rule I lived by was “never stop for long enough to get carjacked”. It took me 3 months after I left to quit soft-rolling through red lights @ night.

Now I used to think that I was cool
Running around on fossil fuel
Until I saw what I was doing
Was driving down the Road to Ruin

“Traffic Jam” by James Taylor

What we should do is spend some of the money raised by the transportation amendment to educate drivers.

If we allow this amendment, what’s to stop more of them? Running Minnesota like California isn’t a good idea (amendments to the highest bidder).

To the anonymous user who questioned above: unpolitical is a word.

“Not politically structured, oriented, or focused; not interested in politics.” – American Heritage

Unpolitical? Every thread will turn political today.

“
Shelby to Kill Us all With Flying Blimp
Posted November 7, 2006

WCCO: Everybody run.
» Categories: transportation shelby blimp death destruction| Author: ds

93,999,123 Comments:

Pawlenty does meth w/ Molnau while getting gay massages from Tom Prichard!
»» Submitted by anonymous at 6:06 AM on November 7

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Klobochar caused crime in Minneapolis … cause she ran a Northside gang!
»» Submitted by Klobo at 6:09 AM on November 7

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etc

I always go in the open lane as far as possible before merging before construction zones, but I receive my fair share of abuse for it. Fingers, honking, sometimes people even straddle the lanes so that others can’t get around. I’ve found this mainly happens in Minnesota, both in the city and out in the country, and not in Chicago or Atlanta or L.A.

!. By my last guess, I’ve driven rental cars in 32 (large) cities this year, including L.A., Miami, Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, Houston, Seattle . . . . The Twin Cities traffic is amongst the least jammed I’ve seen.

2. Don’t remember where, but several places have great signage for lane closures – like “lane closed ahead, DO NOT MERGE UNTIL INSTRUCTED!”, with a “MERGE NOW!” sign at the end. Compared to the way we do it here (”lane closure somewhere within the next eight miles, maybe”), traffic just zips through.

.

A thoroughly unscientific poll of the native Minnesotans in my household (sample size: 1; margin of error: +/- 4%) demonstrated conclusively that Minnesota drivers are not taught to merge. In Maryland, where I learned to drive, merging skills were right up there with signaling lane changes, parallel parking, and making tidy 90-degree turns without first cranking your steering wheel in the opposite direction. But all the training in the world could not have prepared me for MN’s mercilessly short entrance lanes (Hwy 280, I’m talking to you) and the “sightlines optional” on-ramps. If you can’t see the traffic you’re about to merge with–and/or you don’t have enough room to accelerate to a compatible speed–it doesn’t matter how skilled you are.

Please don’t.

I’m with champs.. if MNDot didn’t give so much notice, the goodie-goodies wouldn’t start their merge 2 miles before a merge point. The point is: if everyone did the same thing, we would merge more smoothly. Pick a point- and put up a sign “Merge here.”

The worst example I can think of is the 280 exit off of 94 W during evening rush hour. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to drive around people just stopped at an arbitrary point in the right lane waiting to merge before passing the 280 exit. I don’t care if they have never learned how to merge. Someone should have told them not to stop on an Interstate if there is no traffic ahead. Maybe it is a passive-aggressive way to get some insurance money.

and making tidy 90-degree turns without first cranking your steering wheel in the opposite direction

HA! Ain’t that the truth! eshaffer is my driving-comment hero for today. Long live drivers trained elsewhere!

Solution?

Flying Cars Damn It!

Minnesotans don’t know how to drive. Merging is just one of many problems.

The left lane is NOT for CRUISING, it is for PASSING. So if you’re PACING the car beside you, you are driving ILLEGALLY.

And put down your goddamn phone, for cripes sake.

If anyone drives along 94W near the Hennepin/Lyndale exit, you’ll see they are trying to encourage people to learn how to merge. They’ve put down DOUBLE WHITE LINES to stop people from trying to merge onto 94 right away, but people don’t seem to look at the road lines or seem to care. A trooper could sit along that stretch of the freeway and give out tickets all day. That has to be one of the spots that gets backed up the most during rush hour.

The big problem with the 94W double-white-line area is that people go SO DAMN SLOW on the onramp and in the merge lane that many get frustrated and want to get going so they ignore the line. I personally find merging at 40mph to be scary, so I move at the earliest opportunity.

“Zippering” only works if the merging traffic matches the freeway speed.

Minnesotans need education on the location of the gas pedal.

One of the problems with Minnesota drivers, are the roads. It is the roads that get people driving the way they do. With all of the clover-leafs in the metropolitan area, it makes it difficult to merge with any consistancy.

Clover-leaf = combined on and off ramp.

You have to try and speed up, watch for cars slowing down to exit, and merge into traffic. All of these should be eliminated.

After that, elliminate all of those on-ramps that come from the right. If you think people merging from the left is bad, think about merging from the wrong side.

Then get rid of the traffic lanes that mysteriously end. If you have ever wondered why people drive down the middle lane on 94, it is because lanes end all over the place. Snelling, Kellogg, etc. People get in a lane they know doesn’t end in 4 miles.

Fix the roads, and it will show benefit in people’s driving.

I believe it. Ever try to get on 394 West from that entrance behind the Basilica? (I’m blanking on where it is. I think it’s Hawthorne Ave.) People just come to a dead halt as soon as they get past the median to hop over into oncoming traffic. Before I found a less crazy entrance (Dunwoody, baby), sometimes the best part of my day would be zipping around all those fools, using the merge lane to its full extent, and ending up ahead of them, successfully merged.

Also, you haven’t seen traffic until you’ve seen the 405 in Los Angeles. Eight lines at a dead halt, any time of day or night. Ugh.

Whoops. That’s eight “lanes”, not eight “lines.” Cripes.

Well, I’m happy to have started this MNspeak meme. You can see how passionate everyone is on the subject.

DouglasG: it’s possible to make better junctions if you limit the number of possible connections or with at least one undivided highway, but that would be unacceptable at places like 35W & 494. The cloverleaf interchange, with some variations on the shape, is really what we’re stuck with.

Trying to get on the interstate going 30 when the traffic is going 60 doesn’t work people, you are increasing your chances of getting into an accident, especially getting rear-ended by me. And for christ sake, if someone is trying to merge and no one is next to you move to the left lane.