From: Bill Fuhrmann <bfuhrman@isd.net>
>I can't speak for Chicago, but the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area is #3 in
>the country for the number of ramp meter lights
2nd only to Los Angeles, I think.
>(probably #1 in lights per
>car).
By quite a bit.
>The lights here give plenty of room for anyone with half a car and
>half a brain to get up to speed, some never make it.
>
>We just went through a state legislature imposed test of shutting all the
>meters down. Preliminary results were that accidents went up, speed in
>congested areas went down and was more erratic, speed around the fringes
>went up. Rumor is that the other cities with the meters signed up to get
>the results before the tests even started.
Not a rumer. Was reported in the papers. Oddly enough, they tell me this
is the first such test anywhere.
The result is that we have the ramp-meters back on now. Their number has
been somewhat reduced, because the data show that some particular ones were
not helping. Senator Day's initial insistance that the were all a detriment
has received the resounding debunking many of us expected. Day vows that if
they try to turn on one that they have turned off, he will start up his
campaign agein. He also wants to eliminate the HOV lanes.
>When I moved here (about 20 years ago), I stayed in a hotel for a couple
>weeks. The magazine with information about the cities included a warning
>that the residents had a tendency to stop at the end of ramps. I think
that
>the reason was the poor ramp designs at the time. Many were old, short,
and
>had no visibility of the highway traffic.
Most of the ramps on highway 100 on the west side of Mpls were this way.
Also a particularly nasty one from northbound Lafayette to eastbound I-94,
which has been fixed up fine, now.
One really bad one that remains is southbound 61 to westbound 494 over the
"stinky bridge" by the stockyards in South Saint Paul.
>A small car with a V8 was handy
>for getting up to speed.
Like maybe a Cobra.
Once again, say the key to eliminating the traffic congestion is PRT, but
the politicians here and in DC insist upon blowing all the cash on LRT
boondoggles. See www.cprt.org
Phil Ethier Saint Paul Minnesota USA
1970 Lotus Europa, 1992 Saturn SL2, 1986 Suburban, 1962 Triumph TR4 CT2846L
LOON, MAC pethier@isd.net http://www.mnautox.com/
"It makes a nice noise when it goes faster"
- 4-year-old Adam, upon seeing a bitmap of Grandma Susie's TR4.
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