Subject: Observations From Road Trip

From: Corey Alambar <corwyn>
Date: 4 Aug 1995 09:52:45 GMT

Well, this was the weekend of SDCC, and another excuse to hit the pavement.
Traffic as alright, surprisingly, but that was as much planning as good traffic
management.  But soe observations:

The HOV lanes on I-15 between San Diego and Escondido:  This is a GREAT idea!
Instead of taking a lane away from us during prime hours, or just period, make
it a seperate highway that can be patrolled.  That way you catch cheaters
easier, too.

I-8 east of San Diego:  Well, aside from going through some desolate country,
this seems to be a pretty well-maintained road, though one must wonder if there
really was no way for them to make the slopes a little more gradual
(particularly that bridge over Pine Valley; it's what, almost 8% grade?)

152 between 101 and I-5:  This is probably the worst piece along the entire
trip.  The road is in somewhat poor condition and is not designed for the
volume of traffic it must handle, particularly once you get over the ridge and
in toward Gilroy.  When the freeway ends and it becomes a surface street, this
is a nightmare.  Also, there is a ten mile stretch (or so) where there are no
call boxes (it's east of the Santa Clara County line).  If your car breaks down
here (Never fails... Mine did), you've got a walk ahead of you.

Speed limits:  You'd think there weren't any.  On the trip down, I got passed
by a rig doing 90 (!!!!).  Almost blew me off the road.  Literally.  And I was
doing flow of traffic at 75-80.  And I notice that while the bay Area speeds on
freeways tend to be around 10 over the limit on average (65-70 is flow of
traffic), in the LA basin and San Diego, it seems to be closer to 70-75.  And
that 5 mph difference means a lot.

Now, what this trip taught me:

(a)  If going to san Diego from the north, the best route seems to be this:
I-5 to I-210 to 71 to 60 to 15.  Even noontime traffic wasn't bad, and coming
back during rush hour the traffic was heavenly by comparison to what it gets
like in Orange.

(b)  That HOV route idea:  I've seen something similar to this idea in downtown
Seattle, done for through traffic.  But a local had an idea, that makes sense,
so here's both ideas:
	(1) Make the HOV lane a semi-toll highway.  If you were in a true HOV
(motorcycle, car with  at least one passenger), then you use it for free.  But
locals ould purchase a pass (bought in month, quarter, or annually) that would
give access to this lane for any vehicle.  Thus you too could have the speed of
the faster lanes... For a price.  And make the pass a sticker that goes on the
back window, so if a cop tails you and you're cheating, you get nailed if you
don't have the sticker.  Yes, they could be counterfeited, but there are other
things, like the Pike Pass on the Oklahoma Turnpike, which is a small
electronic box that tallies your charges electronically (using a small
tranciever).  If you go through the Pike Pass gates without a tranceiver, you
are flagged and a cop pulls you over.  Simple.  Similar idea could work for
this kind of pike.
	(2)  The Seattle plan:  Given the distribution of industry around Seattle
(this also can pertain to Silicon valley and LA as well), sometimes people live
on one side of the city and work on the other side.  For an LA example, living
in Long Beach and working in Burbank.  Now, I-5 through Seattle has a third
stretch of lanes that are ultra-limited access.  Like the carpool lanes in LA,
only every 3-8 exits is accessible to this "through lane", which opens one way
for morning commute, and the other for evening commute.  Thus traffic that
isn't interested in the actual city exits can just zip right on through without
an issue, while traffic that needs the local exits takes up the freeway spots.

(c)  Speed Limits:  We've had this discussion before, again and again.  But the
fact is simply this:  Speed limit laws need to be revamped from the ground up.
Any law which is routinely broken by more than 80% of the people is obviously
something that needs to be looked at closely.  I experimented this weekend with
the 85% rule, where I drove at a speed where I passed a little more than 2/3rds
of traffic, and some others zipped by me.  I found the following:
	Bay Area (South Bay): 65 mph
	152: 65 mph uphill, 75 mph downhill
	I-5 north of the Grapevine: 80 mph (!!)
	LA Basin: 70 mph
	I-15 (60 to Escondido): 75 mph
	San Diego area: 70 mph
	I-8 (desert): 80 mph

Compare this to the speed limits for these areas.  something is GROSSLY out of
whack here.  While I won't admit to being scientific about this, this is
definitely something that needs to be thought about.

(d)  Connectivity of the Bay Area to SoCal - This is a major issue.  if one is
travelling north from the Bay Area to Portland, Seattle, etc., there are
several corridors out, including I-580 and I-80 to I-305 (I think?).  There is
nothing at all like this for traffic headed south.  If you are in the North
Bay, you could go I-580 to I-205 through Tracy (I think).  But there is no
highway access for the South Bay to get to SoCal and vice versa.  152 is
inadequate for serious trucking, and the 580 loop takes you up to 100 miles
outof your way (try going from Santa Cruz to LA sometime on freeways.  It's not
pretty, though 85 made it more reasonable)  What is needed is some kind of
freeway connection from 101 to % for the LA-SJ traffic flow, which, if traffic
on the 152 was any indication, is rather significant.  Options include trying
to cut another freeway across the ridge, which would be costly, or widening and
improving the 152 corridor, especially the section from 101 to Casa de Fruta,
which would involve chanigng ways of access for some of the farms and other
houses and businesses along the way.  Maybe running the freeway more directly
from the base of the ridge to 101 rather than the odd northern jog it currently
takes would be faster and easier on traffic.

i'm rambling, but these are a few thoughts/observations.  Any comments?

-Corey

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From: [email-masked] (John Keck)
Date: 4 Aug 1995 15:06:40 -0700

>it a seperate highway that can be patrolled.  That way you catch cheaters

It's a dumb idea.  It starts too far south and there's no way to change it.
I-15 north of Maramar is still a rush hour bottleneck.  Better to spend the 
money on commuter rail, like the Coaster on the I-5 corridor, and the S.D. 
Trolley elsewhere in town.

>(particularly that bridge over Pine Valley; it's what, almost 8% grade?)

Factoid: I read that that's the highest bridge on the interstate highway 
system, anywhere.  It's over 500 feet to the bottom of the gorge.  Pretty 
amazing they got a bridge in there at all, don't you think?

I drove from San Diego to the east coast (via El Paso) a few years ago, and
I think the hill from El Cajon to Pine Valley on I-8 (40 miles from the coast)
was the highest and steepest on the whole route.  It's rugged country. There 
are no passes south of Interstate 10 (Palm Springs).
-- 
jk
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan Keck   ALPHAREL/optigraphics, San Diego   [email-masked]

---

From: Steven Blackwelder <[email-masked]>
Date: 5 Aug 1995 01:06:40 GMT

Corey Alambar <corwyn> wrote:

>several corridors out, including I-580 and I-80 to I-305 (I think?).

I think the number of corridors from the Bay Area to I-5 north and I-5 
south is about the same. No big deal for me.

Drivers starting in the Bay Area who intend to use I-5 for destinations 
north of Sacramento should pass through Fairfield/Suisun on I-80 for 
maximum convenience, and there are several ways to get there depending on 
where in the Bay Area the trip starts. The only exceptions I can think of 
would be such trips starting east of Livermore along I-580, which should 
probably go on I-580 to I-205 to I-5, through Tracy and Stockton.

>There is
>nothing at all like this for traffic headed south.

Ooh! The rhetoric of passion! I think the existing southbound routes work 
well enough.

>If you are in the North
>Bay, you could go I-580 to I-205 through Tracy (I think).

Actually, that's an excellent route for more than just the North Bay. The 
highway number remains I-580 all the way to I-5, and it works well for 
trips to southern California starting in SF, the North Bay, the East Bay,  
Contra Costa and most of the Peninsula.

>But there is no
>highway access for the South Bay to get to SoCal and vice versa.
[snipped out comments about inadeqacy of 152 and distance from the South 
Bay to the 580 route]

More enthusiasm without appreciation for the fact. C'mon, 152 is only a 
few minutes of non-freeway driving, and it still saves time compared to 
US-101. Of course a freeway from Ca

And there's still US-101, which is at least two lanes each direction from 
SF all the way to LA, though it does take over an hour longer to drive 
than any I-5 route because of longer mileage and stricter enforcement of 
speed limits. The weather along it is less hot than I-5 in the 
summertime, something a driver must consider if the car has no air 
conditioning and daytime travel is necessary. It is also *much* less 
foggy than I-5 in the wintertime, something any driver who doesn't have 
navigational radar should consider. The Grapevine gets closed during 
several winter storms every year because of snow, whereas US-101's 
closures last winter near Ventura due to flooding and landslides were 
rarities. The scenery on US-101 is less boring too.

Given California's population and topography, I think we have excellent 
road connections between most *regions* of the state, except maybe into 
and out of the north and central coast counties.

Steve Blackwelder
<[email-masked]>