Quote:
Originally posted by Snakeeye@Sep 7 2004, 06:07 AM
A road like Deerfoot in a major American city would be an eight or ten lane road - or larger. The problem is simply congestion. Too many cars for the road to handle. At that point, all it takes is one idiot driving too slowly to mess everyone up.
The City of Calgary website has traffic volume maps dating back to 1963. It's amazing to compare how the city has grown and changed in the past 40 years:
Transportation maps
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That's exactly it.
Not enough lanes to shunt those choosing to drive slower off to the right and out of the way.
I was in San Antonio last week a city of about 1.2 million, and, while it doesn't have the equivalent of an LRT, it has a massive traffic distribution system. There were only a couple of times I couldn't drive 70 mph virtually anywhere, including right up to the downtown exit ramp. Not only does it have numerous freeways heading to all points of the compass out of the downtown but it also has several high volume ring roads encircling the downtown, the middle of the city and the edge, all interconnected.
Calgary really doesn't compare even though its not much smaller in size.
Cowperson