Isn’t the point of the congestion fee to relieve congestion? Each person that says “this fee is stupid & I’m not paying” is one less vehicle in the area.
That is indeed the goal, but there is still a PR battle to be had on the issue.
To my knowledge this is the first time that congestion pricing has been implemented in North-America, and how people react to this will decide whether other North-American cities are willing to take the risk and do the same thing. Over the next couple of months there will likely be a lot of opinion pieces and articles that try to make you think that the congestion pricing is a failure and should be reversed.
I hope they don’t react the same way they did when roundabouts (rotaries/traffic circles) were introduced.
Another thing that is only a problem in America and works well in many other countries.
Runabouts can be very awesome, but can anyone explain to me what the hell is going on in the UK where (in some places) they’ve added a bunch of traffic lights to their roundabouts? In my (admittedly limited) experience, they make them substantially worse, but perhaps I’m missing something?
From my understanding there are two main beneftis:
Capacity
Safety
Roundabouts work great, until the amount of traffic becomes to big. Then it actually starts causing problems.
At that point you can put in a regular intersection with traffic lights, which actually works better than a roundabout does in high traffic environments. But you do lose out on the traffic safety benefits, with head-on collisions becoming possible again.
A roundabout with traffic lights increases the capacity of the intersection while still reducing the risk of deadly accidents.
It’s also a lot cheaper than upgrading to the next step, which is building an interchange.
Signalised roundabouts are also quite prevalent in the Netherlands, and I can speak from experience that they generally work quite well if the lights are adjusted properly.
Note: I’m just some random guy, I’m by no means an expert on the matter.
This is just my understanding of the benefits of lighted roundabouts.
Isn’t the point of the congestion fee to relieve congestion? Each person that says “this fee is stupid & I’m not paying” is one less vehicle in the area.
Sounds like a win.
That is indeed the goal, but there is still a PR battle to be had on the issue.
To my knowledge this is the first time that congestion pricing has been implemented in North-America, and how people react to this will decide whether other North-American cities are willing to take the risk and do the same thing. Over the next couple of months there will likely be a lot of opinion pieces and articles that try to make you think that the congestion pricing is a failure and should be reversed.
Edit: typo
I hope they don’t react the same way they did when roundabouts (rotaries/traffic circles) were introduced. Another thing that is only a problem in America and works well in many other countries.
Runabouts can be very awesome, but can anyone explain to me what the hell is going on in the UK where (in some places) they’ve added a bunch of traffic lights to their roundabouts? In my (admittedly limited) experience, they make them substantially worse, but perhaps I’m missing something?
From my understanding there are two main beneftis:
Roundabouts work great, until the amount of traffic becomes to big. Then it actually starts causing problems.
At that point you can put in a regular intersection with traffic lights, which actually works better than a roundabout does in high traffic environments. But you do lose out on the traffic safety benefits, with head-on collisions becoming possible again.
A roundabout with traffic lights increases the capacity of the intersection while still reducing the risk of deadly accidents.
It’s also a lot cheaper than upgrading to the next step, which is building an interchange.
Signalised roundabouts are also quite prevalent in the Netherlands, and I can speak from experience that they generally work quite well if the lights are adjusted properly.
Note: I’m just some random guy, I’m by no means an expert on the matter.
This is just my understanding of the benefits of lighted roundabouts.