get started on traffic fix
After determining that transportation is this area’s number one problem, we got some suggestions on how to fix Tampa’s traffic problems. Ideas were abundant, including these:
- Better enforcement:
- ticket slow drivers in passing lanes
- Pass on the left
- Use blinkers
- Crackdown on speeding/reckless driving
- ticket red-light runners
- Stricter standards on licensing:
- The only minimum standard is a written test with a 70% passing score(correct me if I’m off on that please) and a practical “standards” test by an overworked, underappreciated government employee. Should the standards of driving be set higher, I think so.
- How about making it a privelidge to drive, instead of a right? How about if you could only drive if you followed the rules?
- Improve existing engineering:
- Two-way Florida and Highland
- 15-35mph range in speed limits on the Interstate is a big source of the problems
- Implement a dynamic/”smart” traffic light/traffic management system (traffic flow through lights at speed limit)
- Expand and improve existing transit
- to serve all citizens (not just those without cars)
- Transit incentives, park-and-ride lots
- 24 hour service
- New mass transit
- Light Rail. Light Rail. Light Rail
- Light rail/Monorail system around downtown, westshore, airport, south tampa, seminole heights, usf
- REGIONAL TRANSIT(Pinellas, Pasco, Hillsborough), get the people from the Burbs to the jobs (Westshore, Downtown)
No one mentioned employer-related solutions. Telecommuting would get cars off the street, as would employee busing (think MacDill AFB or Tampa General). Tax breaks could be given for % of employees that don’t drive.
Growth was mentioned, and the two issues go hand-in-hand, but we’re here to tackle transit first.
The new poll is up. Which solution would be your first step? And feel free to discuss below.
Tags: tampa, traffic, transit, transportation
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March 27th, 2007 at 12:50 pm
We need the Florida Highway patrol to take more of an active role with our highways and interestates. In California, it’s hard not to run into California Highway Patrol guys and gals riding around and keeping traffic flowing. Here? FHP only seems to show up AFTER something happens. Let alone ticketing or enforcing road rules.
March 27th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Better Enforcement? Well for starters let’s understand that slowing traffic down does not improve traffic flow. Quite the opposite. So cracking down on speeders and red-light runners — while it absolutely WILL make traffic safer — will simply cause traffic to back up.
Licensing? First of all, you have to realize that Florida has a law that recognizes the rights of people from other places to drive on our roads. Last year, 84.6 million people came to Florida. And because Florida does not have any real mass transit to speak of, almost all of them ended up on our roads. How on earth could licensing have any impact on THAT?
Engineering? If you make Florida & Tampa/Highland two-way, you will slow down traffic on those streets. Again, slow traffic is good for safety, bad for traffic jams. Intelligent design can help to a point… Look at what other cities do: reversible lanes on surface streets. In Washington, some 6-lane streets are 4-2 in the morning and 2-4 in the afternoon. But then, Florida driver can’t handle simple roundabouts — another great idea to remove traffic lights and replace them with traffic circles. So I doubt they could handle a DC-type solution.
There are TWO solutions to improving traffic:
1. Get cars off the road (i.e. Transit, Light Rail, Telecommuting, Staggered Hours, etc).
2. Build more/wider roads.
Nothing else will work….
March 27th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
“Nothing else will work”
Since when has building wider roads worked? They end up jammed up just as much, with the same idiots behind the wheel who speed, drive wrecklessly, etc…
Oh, and more roads simply leads to more sprawl. Leading to more traffic down the road.
Everything tommy mentioned has to be done together. Not “this won’t work but maybe this will…”
There is one other thing Tommy didn’t mention that is not directly on the roads that will effect traffic: encouragement of core area growth. White collar businesses go to the sprawl office parks more often than the corporate centers of cities now throughout the area. There seems to be little to no encouragement of bringing businesses (and office workers) to core areas where you can live closer to work. St. Pete has few corporate businesses downtown while Tampa has just started dipping into downtown residencies with condo towers and buildings.
March 27th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Tommy — this is a great approach and I’m impressed with your solicitation and presentation of the ideas.
Just one thought about verbage, in NY and NJ they call: “Implement a dynamic/â€smart†traffic light/traffic management system (traffic flow through lights at speed limit)”… Green Corridors.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Tampa General has a commuter bus that picks up employees at Ybor City at the Fernando Noriega parking garage on Palm Ave.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
Speeding traffic, or slower than normal traffic increases the differential between vehicles, and creates more pulse traffic, because a set of brake lights at 90 is going to elicit a much greater reaction than at say 65 or 70. So getting people to drive the speed limit will effect smoother, and resultantly faster traffic on the whole. Red light runners create additional traffic because now the timing of the lights is off because green for one direction is now a few seconds behind due to the 3 or 4 cars that blow the red, or worse, the intersection itself is blocked because drivers don’t allow enough room to clear the intersection when the light turns red.
More and/or wider roads is nothing more than a band-aid giving the appearance of a solution. They can’t be widened or enough additional asphalt laid to keep traffic flowing when there are single occupant vehicles commuting in from sprawling suburbs. Just look at Los Angeles. Inner city neighborhoods would have to sacrifice even more of their character and quality of life for more or wider roads because the available land just isn’t there. Improving traffic isn’t just about shoving more and more cars through bigger and bigger pipes. Creating safer driving also contributes to improved flow because accidents snarl traffic. Here’s a solution that I neglected to mention. There should be a sight barrier in the median on the Interstates. There is no reason an accident on the Northbound side causes major slowdowns on the Southbound side unless equipment from that side is necessary. As for the Florida/Highland. That was a selfish, quality of life addition. I recognize that it would slow traffic through that corridor. I mentioned the only real solution is fewer cars on the road. Something that could address one of the biggest traffic issues in South Tampa certainly would be flexible start times at MacDill, as would other employer-side efforts.
March 27th, 2007 at 2:52 pm
WP — i agree with your point about single occupant vehicles — HOV lanes work great — we should introduce something like that here.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
All good solutions, but the ultimate solution to our traffic problems is to take more cars off the roads. Telecommuting and mass transit are one way; more and better bike lanes are another. And while we’re on the topic of bicycles, who was the brainless wonder who decided that a bike and a car should be legally equal? If you gave a bicycle the same legal status as a pedestrian, you’d make it safer for more of them to be on the streets. And I don’t know about you, but I would love to be able to bike downtown from where I live (Seminole Heights) without worrying about getting mowed down by some stress puppy clutching his Starbucks frou frou Frappucino.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I agree in spirit Chris(btw, Seminole Heights here too, biking downtown from here would be pretty scary), but even the pedestrians around here seem to have a year-round season on them(where does one purchase a license? Is there a bag limit?) That goes back to stricter enforcement of what laws we have in addition to changing the laws to affect a pro-bike/pro-walking city.
March 27th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
“Since when has building wider roads worked? They end up jammed up just as much, with the same idiots behind the wheel who speed, drive wrecklessly, etc…”
Case in point: Bruce B Downs - I remember when that road was easy, fun driving. The developers filled in the density (after all, the big wide road could handle all those new residents, right?) and it takes 20 minutes to get out of Tampa Palms at rush hour.
March 28th, 2007 at 7:51 am
I believe in Light Transit. In some communities however, the cost of a bus ticket has become so high that it discourages people from riding. So yes to Light Transit if it is priced right. Idea. What about introducing a city or county license for vehicles? In Chicago, you have to get a city sticker and put it in your window. The money for such a license could be devoted to light transit alternatives. It makes some sense to me. Let those who drive automobiles, trucks, etc. subsidize the costs of light transit. After all society has been subsidizing them for a long, long time. My two cents.
March 28th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
John & WP: I agree that there is a finite width to roads and that is can not be a long-term solution. Atlanta will have 23-lane highway. Tampa could never build something that wide. However, building lanes DOES HELP. Case in point: I-4. From the junction to Orlando, traffic moves a heck of a lot better than it ever did. When it’s finished I-4 will only backup because I-275 South has a bottleneck at the river. Widening of roads ALWAYS works in the short-term.
Lee: HOV lanes worked so well in Orlando that they took them out. The reason HOV lanes won’t work is because people refuse to car pool. We like our convenience.
Meredith: When Bruce B Downs is widened in the next few years, you will notice a difference.
Also, please note that my first option was to get cars off the roads. I have long been a proponent of rapid/mass transit. But, just like growth management, the local yahoos don’t seem to understand how to do this correctly.
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Let me throw something else out there… and I mean “out there.” Why don’t we focus on developing driver-less cars?
Sure, it’s science fiction, but this is existing technology. It involves a significant investment by local governments to make the switch, and adds to the cost of a vehicle. But the freedom to get in, punch a button for your destination, then sit back relax and let a computer drive you would be outstanding.
Imagine a long string of cars all cruising at 70 mph, inches from each other, with no need to hit the breaks!
There’s more to this, and there are challenges to overcome (running out of gas, breakdowns, flat tires, etc)… but they are not insurmountable.
March 29th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Jim, I saw a test track with 4 ford Tauruses doing exactly that about 8 years ago in San Diego — it is cool stuff.
We have such a disfunctional State House — they spend thier days trying to destroy the localy controlled cable franchising system, force women to wait 24 hours for an abortion and come up with idiotic ways of spending our tax surplus (namely, this County by County system of Sales Tax Vs. Property Tax)…the only way we are going to get good government is if the elected officials have their priorities in the right place.
Obviously we need a solution to this inter-related problem of transportation/transit systems issues that becomes worse and worse as uncontrolled growth continues.
They only have 2 months — and it seems our Tampa Bay Reps spend most of their time on the Big Business Agenda than the actual needs of this area’s residents.
March 29th, 2007 at 5:14 pm
Jim J. I disagree with more asphalt as a viable answer in that expanding lanes or building additional roads only
helps encourage additional development, and as such it is no solution, merely a bandaid. Most highway projects are at or over design capacity before they’re even completed. Does anyone really believe that that beltway proposal would do anything to decrease traffic? Widening BBD or building an alternate route out of New Tampa is only going to encourage additional development north and east. I know growth is a separate
topic, but in reality unless we actively manage growth, transportation will always lag behind.
I read an article in PopSci a few years ago regarding the automatic
highway/driverless cars, it’s interesting but I fear it conflicts with
the “freedom of the road” paradigm of our automobile culture and might take a long time to be accepted.
April 1st, 2007 at 6:28 pm
My job recently changed from 5 eight-hour workdays to 4 10-hour workdays. My gas bill was cut by a fifth and I am one less car on the road during rush hour one day a week.
I think one immediate fix would be to give incentives to employers for doing things such as staggering work hours and work days, letting employees telecommute, etc. Also, they should get incentives for building employee housing near the jobsites or providing mass transportation.
I also think another way to approach it is to have stricter standards for getting your drivers license. No offense, but I have seen traffic jams caused by people who obviously have no clue about how not to be a menace to traffic flow. My particular fave is the people who insist on turning left in the middle of the block - without a turn lane - on South Dale Mabry in the middle of rush hour traffic and don’t realize they have created a half-mile back-up behind them with gridlocked intersections. Do they not teach people in the licensing courses to go around the block instead or to turn at the next intersection that has a turn lane and come back up a side street? Do they not hear the slamming brakes behind them? Not notice the cars crazily swerving because there is a car stopped in the middle of the road? And then there’s the possibility of an accident and then it’s all gone to heck.
It’s called Himes, folks, it’s not that hard.
April 5th, 2007 at 9:08 am
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