Traffic Congestion and Highway Construction

[Third Strike]

1 hour ago, Skyybutter said:

Great resource. Personally I say go ahead and widen 77 from Statesville to Charlotte with 5 lanes in each direction. It's either now or later. Go ahead and take care of it. 

The same goes for 485. 5 lanes each way inner and outer. Enough of pretending the growth isn;t going to happen. IT IS and we have to plan out 30 years. 

Well, that's pretty much the plan for I-77, except four lanes are going to be toll lanes, and the other six lanes will be general purpose. The max you'll ever see on I-485 is eight lanes, with a mix of some toll lanes in southern Charlotte. Honestly, after "modernizing" I-77, US 74, and the outer parts of I-85, I hope mass transit becomes the new focus for the entire region, and just not Charlotte. I don't want Charlotte to become like Dallas and Houston, where roads are like ten lanes on each side, but congestion is still a problem.

[Spartan]

On 9/9/2016 at 6:07 PM, Third Strike said:

Well, that's pretty much the plan for I-77, except four lanes are going to be toll lanes, and the other six lanes will be general purpose. The max you'll ever see on I-485 is eight lanes, with a mix of some toll lanes in southern Charlotte. Honestly, after "modernizing" I-77, US 74, and the outer parts of I-85, I hope mass transit becomes the new focus for the entire region, and just not Charlotte. I don't want Charlotte to become like Dallas and Houston, where roads are like ten lanes on each side, but congestion is still a problem.

This. The idea of adding free general capacity lanes at this point is ridiculous. We know for a fact that widening interstates doesn't solve congestion in the long term. It can provide temporary relief, but the capacity just gets filled up with the additional sprawl that is created. If you charge people directly for the extra capacity (ie: toll lanes) instead of through taxes it can more effectively combat sprawl, and it can allow government to direct its resources towards other things like transit and making capacity improvements by adding new streets or improving the functionality of existing roads and intersections.

[iamheaven18]

I think we need more middle ring circumferential thoroughfares to be built soon, to alleviate traffic growth .

[Windsurfer]

9 hours ago, iamheaven18 said:

I think we need more middle ring circumferential thoroughfares to be built soon, to alleviate traffic growth .

Good luck getting that built through Myers Park.

[tozmervo]

Route 4 still sorta kinda exists...

[NY+SC=NC]

Route 4 could be a good route, but it would have to be elevated or buried. So in other words, it's not gonna happen. Atleast imho

[Spartan]

I was thinking more about building out the roads on the thoroughfare plan and then finding ways to create more 'shortcuts' between neighborhoods and commercial uses that are currently disconnected or not connected at all by streets.

 

[kermit]

Is there any evidence from anywhere that more roads reduce congestion in the long-run?

[cltbwimob]

22 hours ago, kermit said:

Is there any evidence from anywhere that more roads reduce congestion in the long-run?

I think in general it is probably true that  more and ever-expanding roads do not necessarily reduce congestion in the long run especially in the context of freeways.  However, in Charlotte's case, much of the congestion that occurs on the major arterials is precisely because we do not have a robust grid of more connected streets.  Instead what we have are dead end roads everywhere that isolate neighborhoods from each other and necessitate that connectivity be achieved via the major arterials.  This puts unnecessary strain on the arterials and requires them to be upgraded and widened in effort to solve the congestion problem which, as you implied, is an exercise in futility in the long run.  If, on the other hand, there was a robust street network that seemlessly connected our neighborhoods, then it could absorb some of the traffic and reduce the need for ever-expanding roads.  As one urban planner said when referring to street grids "there are infinite ways to get from one side of a checkerboard to the other".  So in this light, I think more, well-connected roads can be a good thing.  At a minimum, we should connect some of the many dead end roads we have littering our close-in neighborhoods. 

[cjd5050]

On 9/23/2016 at 0:47 PM, kermit said:

Is there any evidence from anywhere that more roads reduce congestion in the long-run?

You are 100% correct that more roads or bigger roads not only don't solve the issue of congestion but actually make it worse.  But one can also say that funding in schools doesn't solve the education problem.  More funding in social services doesn't solve poverty and more war/defense spending doesn't solve peace.  

Yet we continue to do the same things and expect different results.  Why is that?  I think it's because we don't live in a vacuum and can't deal in absolutes.  I think we need to evolve as best we can but under the premise that sometimes you need to take a step back before you can take two steps forward.  We need to implement solutions outside classroom theory and accept that perfection is not obtainable.  But you still try.  

Cutting off the car and demanding that people adapt or suffer is the same as cutting off social services and demanding that people figure out poverty.  You just don't do it for countless reasons.  

You take what you have and try to move the ball forward as best you can.

[asthasr]

I think it would be more sensible, forward thinking, and achievable to actually connect the roads. Especially in areas undergoing heavy development, like South Park, a grid could be organically grown while not abusing the power of the city or state. In many places there are practical extensions to streets that could be built on a single home's footprint, or maybe two on culs-de-sac, bringing an improvement for both neighborhoods' connectivity. Include traffic calming measures (narrower streets, higher level treatments) and the residents' justified concerns about high speed through-traffic simply won't happen.

[Spartan]

On 9/23/2016 at 0:47 PM, kermit said:

Is there any evidence from anywhere that more roads reduce congestion in the long-run?

Actually, yes. You can look at the City's congestion ratings for intersections inside of Route 4 and compare them to those outside of Route 4. There is a higher density of intersections in the older parts of the city, and the overall congestion, delay, and width of the roads are typically less than the newer parts of the city. 

More importantly, it's just common sense. Widening a road only allows more traffic to use that road. Building parallel roads allows more people to travel in the same direction while providing network redundancy. If there is a crash or a road closure in a gridded system, the overall impact to traffic is less because it's easy to just go over a couple of blocks and continue on your way.

My argument is not that we shouldn't invest in roads - just that we need to focus on network improvements, not just capacity improvements. That being said, in a growing city there will be needs to widen roads from time to time. This fact is especially true in the more suburban areas where they essentially have rural road designs.

 

[allthingsplanes]

I have a random question regarding the I-77 widening.  Why did they start up around mm 22 with the construction instead of starting down around mm 20 where the southbound portion opens up to 4 lanes?  What would be the rationale for starting where they did?

[southslider]

^If the new governor cancels the contract, the existing construction will provide a head start on adding one lane to Mooresville, plus one HOV lane to Cornelius.

[Spartan]

On 10/10/2016 at 2:48 PM, allthingsplanes said:

I have a random question regarding the I-77 widening.  Why did they start up around mm 22 with the construction instead of starting down around mm 20 where the southbound portion opens up to 4 lanes?  What would be the rationale for starting where they did?

Because this is a design-build project, the contractor is going to do things in whatever way they deem most cost effective. That may mean some things that don't logical. I don't know what the reason is, but if you trust the core concept of design-build then you have to trust that there is a good financial reason financially.

[Edgar Newborn12]

On 9/22/2016 at 7:10 AM, iamheaven18 said:

I think we need more middle ring circumferential thoroughfares to be built soon, to alleviate traffic growth .

I totally agree with you!

[Third Strike]

3 hours ago, Edgar Newborn12 said:

I totally agree with you!

I remember someone here saying that the Route 4 corridor was once proposed to be an urban loop for Charlotte back in the day, but I could never find any evidence of that being the case. Regardless, it's truly impossible now for Route 4 to be upgraded to a freeway. Too expensive, too much residential, and the citizens from East and South Charlotte would be up in arms. The Billy Graham segment is really the only part of the road that could be upgraded. A better idea is creating a spur of the Blue Line into SouthPark, with a possible connection to the airport. 

[Spartan]

21 hours ago, Third Strike said:

I remember someone here saying that the Route 4 corridor was once proposed to be an urban loop for Charlotte back in the day, but I could never find any evidence of that being the case. Regardless, it's truly impossible now for Route 4 to be upgraded to a freeway. Too expensive, too much residential, and the citizens from East and South Charlotte would be up in arms. The Billy Graham segment is really the only part of the road that could be upgraded. A better idea is creating a spur of the Blue Line into SouthPark, with a possible connection to the airport. 

I don't think Route 4 was never going to be a freeway - it was just a connected route that looped around the entire city based on its size at the time.

[tusculan]

2 hours ago, Spartan said:

I don't think Route 4 was never going to be a freeway - it was just a connected route that looped around the entire city based on its size at the time.

I think Route 4, which mostly follows the old outline of the City from 1970, should have an inter-median light rail. Could connect to the Derita station whenever the Red Line gets moving...the Sugar Creek BLE station....Gold Line at Central....Silver Line at Eastway....then jog south to South Park for the other Cats Bus hub, then back to meet the Blue Line Woodlawn station and then out to the airport/airport station. In fact, if it only stopped at these 8 or even 10 locations plus had signal priority by being in the median, this could be far quicker than driving in traffic to go around the middle of the city.

[Nick2]

I feel like it was originally planned to be an urban loop interstate. Just simply looking at the routing and design makes me think this.

[kermit]

Its tangential to this discussion of a new inner loop road but relevant to the discussion. Exposure to traffic noise has been tied to high blood pressure. Their are a tremendous number of public health risks associated with car culture so keep in mind the true cost of roads far exceeds their capital costs.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/25/study-links-blood-pressure-risk-to-road-noise?CMP=twt_gu

Edited October 27, 2016 by kermit

[jjwilli]

So how do I get the city to build a sound wall between my neighborhood and I-77 then? For some reason there is no sound barrier between the Wilmore neighborhood (Spruce St is shown below) and I-77 right outside of uptown. This includes area even includes the Wilmore Park.

State won't do it because there is no construction on that portion of 77. Any possibility of convincing the city to?

[southslider]

^Sound walls generally follow newer widening projects. So older areas cut by highways decades ago will lack walls, despite newer areas, even built after the initial highway, seeing walls upon being widened.

Edited October 25, 2016 by southslider

[Spartan]

1 hour ago, jjwilli said:

So how do I get the city to build a sound wall between my neighborhood and I-77 then? For some reason there is no sound barrier between the Wilmore neighborhood (Spruce St is shown below) and I-77 right outside of uptown. This includes area even includes the Wilmore Park.

State won't do it because there is no construction on that portion of 77. Any possibility of convincing the city to?

 

When I-77 widened (from uptown to SC) they will have to install sound walls. I doubt you'll be able to get the city to do that, but if there's a chance I'd start by talking to your council representation and getting your neighborhood organization behind it.

[Nick2]

Go door to door asking for donations?