Pineapple Express: Someone Is Wrong on the Internet?

[Dannyalcatraz]

I DID have to stop on a highway entry ramp once in a construction zone in San Antonio on loop 410, and the merge lane was blind, uphill & ridiculously short. I was driving an inexplicably underpowered Cadillac land yacht rental, and as I crested the approach, there was a speeding semi to my left.

If I hadn’t stopped, my rental would have been sandwiched between the truck and a temporary concrete barricade.

 

[Pedantic]

Unfortunately that doesn't always work. I've got an on ramp, on my way home from work, that hits The Gardiner Expressway as a new lane, continues for a few hundred metres, then ends by exiting out to another surface street. With a lane closed each way for construction, at the moment, traffic is always backed up through there. Rush hour, in Toronto, is basically 4:00am to 11:00pm. If I don't get over to the main lanes as soon as possible, I'll likely be slogging it all the way along Lakeshore Blvd. instead, when I'm forced off The Gardiner.

That's a slightly different scenario, where a lane is used for both entry and exit. That's arguably a failure of highway design, not of the drivers involved. In a better world, you'd split that in half, forcing a merge in, then opening an additional exit lane (though of course, much highway infrastructure is already built with exits too close together to make this possible).

 

[Ryujin]

That's a slightly different scenario, where a lane is used for both entry and exit. That's arguably a failure of highway design, not of the drivers involved. In a better world, you'd split that in half, forcing a merge in, then opening an additional exit lane (though of course, much highway infrastructure is already built with exits too close together to make this possible).

It was fine when the highway was built, but there wasn't any real consideration for how being Toronto would ultimately grow to be. This is exacerbated by the current construction making it so that stop and go traffic is essentially stop and stop traffic. Then again, Toronto has been stated to have the worst traffic in North America and yes, that includes Mexico City.

 

[Pedantic]

Sounds a lot like the Los Angeles problem, where the highway was built for significantly slower speeds and less traffic than it now has to accommodate, leading to very similar situations.

I'm not terribly pro car to begin with, but it makes me especially sad that we're dealing with poorly thought out infrastructure for them despite prioritizing them over every other kind of transport.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I think the time I've been angriest behind the wheel of a car was when I was behind someone at rush hour who eased down a cloverleaf ramp, got to the bottom, and stopped. There was no way they were going to be able to get up to merging speed before they ran out of merge lane, and there was no way I was, while they were in front of me.

Note to self-

Add to research notes for forthcoming magnum opus... Snarf's Fieldguide to Spotting Bards in the Wild

 

[Ryujin]

Note to self-

Add to research notes for forthcoming magnum opus... Snarf's Fieldguide to Spotting Bards in the Wild

Note: Bards never stop.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

No disrespect but some folks are trying too hard to get just right.

(Said while drinking cheap macro brews and making foam terrain for the game)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Note: Bards never stop.

The 44 Magnum is the most powerful handgun in the world and will blow your head clean off, you've gotta ask yourself a question: 'Do I feel lucky?' Well, do ya, bard?
-Snarf, on days that end in "y."

 

[Ryujin]

Sounds a lot like the Los Angeles problem, where the highway was built for significantly slower speeds and less traffic than it now has to accommodate, leading to very similar situations.

I'm not terribly pro car to begin with, but it makes me especially sad that we're dealing with poorly thought out infrastructure for them despite prioritizing them over every other kind of transport.

When I lived in a suburb of Toronto, known as North York, we had government officials from countries all over the world coming to study our public transportation infrastructure. That was 1967-1972. I think that made the city's planners complacent. Little was really done to improve permanent infrastructure since then. A little bit of subway and some light rail, in the east end. You can see what I mean if you look up Toronto Subway on Wikipedia. The rest was filled in by busses. It's incredibly inconvenient to use the transit system unless you're within a fairly short distance from the subway system, or a GO (Government of Ontario) Train station.

I took the GO Train in to work for the first couple of years I worked in the downtown core, then walked up from the Lakeshore area to the Yonge and Dundas area (about 2.5 Km on foot). With the number of cancellations, the need to wait for trains, and having to work on their every 1/2 hour during rush hours only schedule I eventually gave up and just started driving. It doesn't cost me substantially more, per day.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

When I lived in a suburb of Toronto, known as North York,

I swear ... I read this, like, five times, and each time what I saw was this ...

When I lived in a suburb of Toronto, known as New York...


And I was thinking, "Wow. I thought New Yorkers were self-centered! Can't hold a candle up to those Great White Northers, eh?"