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Virginia's $40 Toll Road Better Be the Future of Driving
- bob_theslob646 9y ago>The scourge we know as traffic costs the American economy about $125 billion to traffic per year, according to traffic analytics company Inrix. I never understood how they got these numbers.
- em3rgent0rdr 9y agoI don't know how they got those numbers either, although I could speculate on a simple way to do a back-of-envelope calculation by Multiplying the following: * commuter average hourly wage * time spent in traffic (basically time the commute took in traffic minus the amount of time the commute would hypothetically take if drove at the speed limit) That's easy although imperfect...might also want to account for other things like delayed meetings due to traffic.
- tomohawk 9y agoThe Northern Virginia traffic situation is more the result of a failure to follow the projections put out in the 60s and build the required roads for the expected growth. I66 was recommended to be a minimum of 4 lanes each way at the time, but only half of that was put in. The number of roads and lanes on those roads is totally inadequate. The main driver was that Southern Virginia had the political power at the time and refused to allocate money for roads in the north, preferring instead to build multi-lane highways to nowhere in the south. It's all different now with the explosion of the size of the federal government increasing the population of the north so that they're now in the driver's seat - 30 years too late now that the growth has occurred. They did build the amazing HOV lanes on I95/I395 that manage to fit 2 lanes of traffic into the same space where 6 lanes could have been built. The 2 lanes change direction mid day further inhibiting traffic.