Hehe, just found this-

Replacing stop signs by yield signs can also improve traffic flow without, in many locations, any safety downside, but that is hardly ever done either. In fact there are so few yield signs in my neck of the woods that drivers seem not to understand them. This is especially apparent at my town's one traffic circle. The place is festooned with yield signs, but it's a happy day when anyone yields to anyone. (Traffic circles are also great improvers of traffic flow, but are hardly ever seen in the U.S.A. — except, for some reason, in Massachusetts.)

Now, I greatly enjoy Mr. Derbyshire's writing, and on many subjects agree with him...

but...

Maybe he's got his cause and effect backwards?

Traffic is a bit like economics: you get totally different results if you go off of what is reasonable, what would be to the best interests of drivers in the long run, and what people actually do.


Kind of like how communism or socialism would be the most rational, charitable option for a social system-- except that people are involved.

Traffic circles are by far the best way to deal with most four-way stops-- except that they involve people.  Know those people who will burn rubber when the light goes green, even though-- half a block a head-- there are cars piled up at a red light?  That is who else is in the traffic circle.  And that's ignoring those with actual malice against your vehicle.... (Yes, I have known people who drive beaters expressly so they can bounce off of other vehicles.  Most of them don't have licenses, because they never did.)

Oh, another funny quote:

In 2000 … governments collected about $102 billion in gas taxes and user fees but spent about $124 billion in capital, maintenance and law enforcement — a subsidy of $22 billion. The roads were used for about 2.6 trillion passenger miles for a subsidy of .5 cents per passenger mile. Total [mass] transit subsidies were about the same, $23.5 billion. But transit was used for only 50 billion passenger miles, resulting in a whopping 49.2 cents of subsidy per passenger mile traveled.

I find it funny because Washington State is having a big to-do about..."re purposing" some lanes for mass transit only.  Not building new lanes to take pressure off, but repainting the lines.  Because that will cut down on congestion, right?

Don't know about New York, but I know that "transportation dollars" have a high tendency to go to bike paths, bike lanes, re-painting existing roads to "encourage eco-friendly practices" and is used as a petty-cash fund-- ignoring that transportation tends to be viewed in terms of how many jobs it can provide, instead of, oh, making the roads work well.


Honestly, I don't have much of a problem with the notion of paying for the public resources used, I just think 1) they should be fairer, and 2) thirty-six cents a gallon should be able to manage roads that don't develop inch-deep ruts three months after instillation.