3 ms·

I live in Seattle, and traffic during rush hour here is a nightmare. There are perhaps 5 key routes of getting in and out of downtown. Last summer, one of thes

I live in Seattle, and traffic during rush hour here is a nightmare. There are perhaps 5 key routes of getting in and out of downtown. Last summer, one of these was blocked by an accident [1], leading to a complete gridlock on the highway for five hours, and downtown traffic was taking roughly ~30 minutes to travel a block. It would be relatively easy to cause five significant wrecks on each of these corridors. Rent a moving truck and crash it into several vehicles at high speed. Traffic would be so congested, it would take hours for emergency crews to get to the scene. If you did this during morning rush hour, I imagine you could shut down a lot of the city for the day. [1] http://westseattleblog.com/2014/06/4-miles-of-highway-closure-5-hours-of-gridlock-this-cant-happen-again/ http://westseattleblog.com/2014/06/4-miles-of-highway-closur...

Theodores 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests During the 1999 Battle for Seattle the city was brought to a halt. One key tactic was to persuade the taxi drivers to go on strike that day. Large crowds blocking the roads 'helped' too.
- briandear 11y ago
  And what did that accomplish? Plenty of people who needed to get to work couldn't. It isn't like the 'rich people' were harmed by that childishness. Those protests had the intellectual capacity of a Soviet 5 year old child.
  - fineman 11y ago
    And the Republicans never say anything more intelligent that Trump/Palin's last quote. Right? When you judge a group by the loudest, most extreme members, you get a parody of the group.
sliverstorm 11y ago
Or you could go the more subtle route, and acquire key positions in the city's traffic team and ensure the roads are never flowing as well as they could be.
- WalterBright 11y ago
  Seattle's traffic engineers already ensure crummy flow. Just watch how the traffic lights change for proof. The lights change without regard for the traffic at the moment. The city finds the funds to mount cameras on most of the lights and license plate recognizers, etc., but cannot seem to use the cameras to simply look at the traffic and calculate when to change the lights for max flow. Things could be a lot better without building or expanding any new roads.
  - gamegoblin 11y ago
    Agreed. In many instances, I have sat at a light, unable to move forward because the street ahead is full, for a full three light periods. It would necessarily have been better to have my light be red the entire time and allow the perpendicular street to have more flow. Instead, even though absolutely no cars were moving, the light happily stayed green for 30 seconds each period. Not only do the lights not react to the actual flow of traffic, but the dumb-timers they are on are poorly timed. One would expect, in a well-designed system, each light should turn green in a sequence defined by the speed limit and the distance between lights, so that in a main artery, large batches of cars can progress forward several blocks at a time each period, increasing throughput. Instead, even when I drive in the middle of the night along 3rd (a main north-south street downtown), going exactly the speed limit, I hit red and green lights more or less at random. I'll sit at a red one and watch the next light turn green, and by the time my light turns green and I get there, the next is already red.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
ohitsdom 11y ago
You wouldn't even have to cause a crash. All it would take is to stage a couple of car breakdowns at key points in one or several highways. Heck, even simultaneously driving slow on all lanes with conspirators just long enough to not get pulled over would start a chain reaction that could screw up traffic for hours.
- mindslight 11y ago
  The chaotic good in me has to wonder if you could take it one step further - do this every third day for a few weeks, then "claim responsibility" as some Islamic terrorist group. Get the city panicked and scrutinizing hard on anyone driving too slow, broken down on the side of the road, or in a minor accident. Get the invasiveness and paranoia high enough that everyone is forced to see the ridiculousness of it first hand, rather than blindly believing story time from the terrorists behind news desks.
  - iamdave 11y ago
    chaotic good Good god almighty, I read your post, chuckled slightly having fully understood the DND reference, then I read it again and damn. If there were ever a perfect descriptor for what you just described. Having lived in a city with unending traffic problems among a populace that seems hellbent on voting against it's own desires to fix said problems (Austin Texas), holy cow.
im3w1l 11y ago
Is it really a good idea to outline all the weak points on a public forum? (referring not just to this comment but to the group of similar comments)
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  Why not? They're public knowledge anyway. There's a lot more into attack than just knowing how to do it. Hell, I'm betting half of HN would know how to make a crude atomic bomb.

Theodores 11y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_Seattle_WTO_protests During the 1999 Battle for Seattle the city was brought to a halt. One key tactic was to persuade the taxi drivers to go on strike that day. Large crowds blocking the roads 'helped' too.

briandear 11y ago
And what did that accomplish? Plenty of people who needed to get to work couldn't. It isn't like the 'rich people' were harmed by that childishness. Those protests had the intellectual capacity of a Soviet 5 year old child.
- fineman 11y ago
  And the Republicans never say anything more intelligent that Trump/Palin's last quote. Right? When you judge a group by the loudest, most extreme members, you get a parody of the group.

sliverstorm 11y ago

Or you could go the more subtle route, and acquire key positions in the city's traffic team and ensure the roads are never flowing as well as they could be.

WalterBright 11y ago
Seattle's traffic engineers already ensure crummy flow. Just watch how the traffic lights change for proof. The lights change without regard for the traffic at the moment. The city finds the funds to mount cameras on most of the lights and license plate recognizers, etc., but cannot seem to use the cameras to simply look at the traffic and calculate when to change the lights for max flow. Things could be a lot better without building or expanding any new roads.
- gamegoblin 11y ago
  Agreed. In many instances, I have sat at a light, unable to move forward because the street ahead is full, for a full three light periods. It would necessarily have been better to have my light be red the entire time and allow the perpendicular street to have more flow. Instead, even though absolutely no cars were moving, the light happily stayed green for 30 seconds each period. Not only do the lights not react to the actual flow of traffic, but the dumb-timers they are on are poorly timed. One would expect, in a well-designed system, each light should turn green in a sequence defined by the speed limit and the distance between lights, so that in a main artery, large batches of cars can progress forward several blocks at a time each period, increasing throughput. Instead, even when I drive in the middle of the night along 3rd (a main north-south street downtown), going exactly the speed limit, I hit red and green lights more or less at random. I'll sit at a red one and watch the next light turn green, and by the time my light turns green and I get there, the next is already red.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

ohitsdom 11y ago

You wouldn't even have to cause a crash. All it would take is to stage a couple of car breakdowns at key points in one or several highways. Heck, even simultaneously driving slow on all lanes with conspirators just long enough to not get pulled over would start a chain reaction that could screw up traffic for hours.

mindslight 11y ago
The chaotic good in me has to wonder if you could take it one step further - do this every third day for a few weeks, then "claim responsibility" as some Islamic terrorist group. Get the city panicked and scrutinizing hard on anyone driving too slow, broken down on the side of the road, or in a minor accident. Get the invasiveness and paranoia high enough that everyone is forced to see the ridiculousness of it first hand, rather than blindly believing story time from the terrorists behind news desks.
- iamdave 11y ago
  chaotic good Good god almighty, I read your post, chuckled slightly having fully understood the DND reference, then I read it again and damn. If there were ever a perfect descriptor for what you just described. Having lived in a city with unending traffic problems among a populace that seems hellbent on voting against it's own desires to fix said problems (Austin Texas), holy cow.

im3w1l 11y ago

Is it really a good idea to outline all the weak points on a public forum? (referring not just to this comment but to the group of similar comments)

TeMPOraL 11y ago
Why not? They're public knowledge anyway. There's a lot more into attack than just knowing how to do it. Hell, I'm betting half of HN would know how to make a crude atomic bomb.