You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[troutman]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Lately............

Jesus I miss the 90's.

Anywhere in the city in 15 mins.

Traffic is a ####ing mess now.

Roads have not kept up with population

Vancouver, Toronto, LA laugh at our traffic complaints.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

Lately............

Jesus I miss the 90's.

Anywhere in the city in 15 mins.

Traffic is a ####ing mess now.

Roads have not kept up with population

There were a few times I had to run some errands during the Covid lockdowns. I can’t remember any other time when there was no accident on Deerfoot, no congestion, just cruising all the way along from one side of the city to another. It was surreal.

[btimbit]

Originally Posted by Wormius

There were a few times I had to run some errands during the Covid lockdowns. I can’t remember any other time when there was no accident on Deerfoot, no congestion, just cruising all the way along from one side of the city to another. It was surreal.

Aw man I loved it. Commute to work was nothing

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by troutman

Vancouver, Toronto, LA laugh at our traffic complaints.

I will gladly drive in Vancouver and LA over Calgary. The traffic is heavy, but there is far less dumb drivers. Everyone seems to know their part. LA is crazy, double the cars of calgary on the freeways, following distances are about 1/3, and yet you can still flow around at 90 km/h. Here you have someone stopping in the middle lane to get to the exit.

I feel more at risk in Calgary.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

The amount of people that think they can change lanes in a roundabout and then give you the finger after you honk at them is staggering. Truly unbelievable.

Can you explain this?

In an actual roundabout the inside lane has the right of way over the outside lane an can turn to exit in front of the outside lane when ever they want. They have the right of way.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

Skip the dishes, Amazon and Uber

Why do you blame these things. In general they take people off the roads and replace with drivers who drive all the time. In general that should be an improvement.

[Zary's-Mustache]

Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube

It comes and goes in waves like this. Every September / October are also terrible like this, if not worse as people return from summer vacations and go back to school. Then the volume will lighten up in November / December and stay lighter through to April or so, but you have to deal with weather-related issues. Then in May / June the better weather brings more people back to the roads and people start driving faster / more recklessly and causing more accidents that back things up. Then in July / August things lighten up again as kids are out of school and people go on holiday.

Rinse and repeat.

Source: driving in rush hour in this city for the past decade.

I disagree. This is worse than ever before.

Source: driving in this city for last 23 years.

[Lubicon]

Originally Posted by Zary's-Mustache

I disagree. This is worse than ever before.

Source: driving in this city for last 23 years.

I'm still undecided. Not sure if traffic volumes, at least on my commute DT are any higher than pre Covid which is my gauge of reference. It does change significantly depending on the day of week, much more than it used to. But part of me things the 150 000+k new people in Calgary since Covid has to be having an effect too. But drivers here have always been bad in my opinion, speaking from the 27 years I have lived here.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by GGG

Why do you blame these things. In general they take people off the roads and replace with drivers who drive all the time. In general that should be an improvement.

Also I bet Amazon actually reduces total KM driven. When the Amazon truck drives from the warehouse to my neighbourhood it makes like 50 stops in quick succession. Likely most of those stops would have been a separate trip to a store previously, so one giant van has taken dozens of separate car trips off the road.

[opendoor]

Originally Posted by GGG

Can you explain this?

In an actual roundabout the inside lane has the right of way over the outside lane an can turn to exit in front of the outside lane when ever they want. They have the right of way.

You can exit, but you can't change lanes.

It doesn't happen super often, but occasionally I'll see someone enter the roundabout in the left lane and then try to pre-emptively switch to the right lane partway through when taking the 3rd exit. When they should really just take the 3rd exit from the inside lane.

The main problem is people don't really know how they work (and North American ones are pretty poorly designed). So if the inside lane has a car in it that's clearly not exiting right there but the outside lane is clear, people will often enter the roundabout in the outside lane instead of yielding. Once that happens, and you have 2 cars going nearly side by side who entered in different places, the inside car is at risk of getting hit if they take their exit normally, even if both cars are following the rule about what exit they can take (i.e. right lane can take 1st or 2nd exit while left lane can take 2nd or 3rd exit).

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by GGG

Why do you blame these things. In general they take people off the roads and replace with drivers who drive all the time. In general that should be an improvement.

Amazon Prime: Takes more cars off the road!.

That should be their slogan.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Also I bet Amazon actually reduces total KM driven. When the Amazon truck drives from the warehouse to my neighbourhood it makes like 50 stops in quick succession. Likely most of those stops would have been a separate trip to a store previously, so one giant van has taken dozens of separate car trips off the road.

Ya and people don’t buy a phone protector for 7 dollars because it will arrive the next day, then buy paper towels the next day, then some triscuits on sale the next. Then some batteries because the remote doesn’t work, then a brake pad the next, then some perfume, then an order from Valbella, then groceries.

Absolutely preposterous it reduces traffic.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by fotze2

Ya and people don’t buy a phone protector for 7 dollars because it will arrive the next day, then buy paper towels the next day, then some triscuits on sale the next. Then some batteries because the remote doesn’t work, then a brake pad the next, then some perfume, then an order from Valbella, then groceries.

Absolutely preposterous it reduces traffic.

OK, But how much of that stuff got bought anyway before?

Maybe the triscuits, batteries, and paper towels previously got purchased at a grocery store during a shopping trip that's still happening so no savings.

The perfume and phone case were a trip to the mall, figure that's one trip saved because they would have been combined. And the brake pads were a separate trip to Napa.

If those 7 trips from the Amazon warehouse stop 2 shopping trips, it's probably a net reduction in km driven. Because each of those 7 trips had 50-100 other items delivered all close by.

So those 7 warehouse trips might save like 100 shorter individual trips. I think at worst it's break-even from a traffic point of view.

The traffic is getting worse because the city is very fast.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by GGG

Why do you blame these things. In general they take people off the roads and replace with drivers who drive all the time. In general that should be an improvement.

Not a chance they reduce the overall volume on the road.

In the case of skip there would be a driver on way or another if you wanted to get a bite to eat but it also has the added traffic due to people previously not having so many options of getting food delivered at home which is going to add traffic when they order delivery instead of making something themselves at home.

Uber makes it less likely that people will take transit or opt to have drinks at home rather than go out because they don’t have to worry about the hit or miss availability of cabs, especially in the more suburban areas.

Both Uber and skip are jobs that basically anyone with a license and clean abstract can at least try with very little barriers. While some of the more experienced drivers for both aren’t much of an issue safety wise the lack of vetting certainly doesn’t guarantee that all drivers have enough experience to be considered as safe just because they’re “driving all the time”. Skip and Uber drivers would be on the honour system in most cases when it comes to reporting accidents so even if the company would(and I think they do) remove or discipline drivers who get into accidents while on the clock it’s damn near impossible for those companies to enforce that policy consistently.

Amazon is probably the most obvious culprit in adding traffic and dangerous conditions to the roadways. People are still making designated trips to stores or stopping at stores on their commutes home(ie not driving additional KMs), but when they do they generally don’t want to make multiple trips. There are literally people who order a couple of items a day over multiple days(meaning multiple trucks and deliveries over multiple days) from Amazon when they would otherwise be able to get all of those items at 1 store or mall in 1 trip in 1 day in many cases without even needing to make a designated trip.

Amazon’s distribution network and general business model adds a lot of additional strain because of things like the sheer volume of employees they have coming and going at their fulfillment centres during shift changes(like 500+ at a time) and their Amazon flex drivers who use their own personal vehicles that are jam packed with parcels often in a manner that is more likely to cause collisions and in turn make traffic worse. If you’ve ever seen a small civic with the front and rear passenger seats stacked to the roof with unsecured Amazon parcels chances are that’s an Amazon flex driver. (Or potentially a very successful porch pirate if they’re not wearing a safety vest)

[mrkajz44]

Originally Posted by puckedoff

The infantilization of the world continues. Why sit at a light with no one around? They added the light (1) for the lowest common denominator driver and (2) for times when it is busy, it need not apply when you are the only car on the road.

I mean, I can see that others don't agree, but I clearly stated why you sit at the red light. If you get used to going through on a red light, you are much more likely to mess up one time. A small distraction is all it takes and the a collision on running a red would likely cause serious damage. It's not worth it to risk that to avoid waiting at a light for less than 2 minutes (at longest - it's probably actually less than a minute)

Sent from my VOG-L04 using Tapatalk

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

I will gladly drive in Vancouver and LA over Calgary. The traffic is heavy, but there is far less dumb drivers. Everyone seems to know their part. LA is crazy, double the cars of calgary on the freeways, following distances are about 1/3, and yet you can still flow around at 90 km/h. Here you have someone stopping in the middle lane to get to the exit.

I feel more at risk in Calgary.

TIL you can use the left turn lane as a merge lane.

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

OK, But how much of that stuff got bought anyway before?

Maybe the triscuits, batteries, and paper towels previously got purchased at a grocery store during a shopping trip that's still happening so no savings.

The perfume and phone case were a trip to the mall, figure that's one trip saved because they would have been combined. And the brake pads were a separate trip to Napa.

If those 7 trips from the Amazon warehouse stop 2 shopping trips, it's probably a net reduction in km driven. Because each of those 7 trips had 50-100 other items delivered all close by.

So those 7 warehouse trips might save like 100 shorter individual trips. I think at worst it's break-even from a traffic point of view.

The traffic is getting worse because the city is very fast.

They wouldn’t have been bought at all. 7 trips vs 1 even if we bought that back then. Maybe if you remembered it when going near a perfume store. It’s so accessible and cheap means it is now being warehoused here for instant delivery. Zero chance those logistics worked in the past.

I wouldn’t buy fart spray and chips ahoy back then if it took 4 weeks and 10 times the price. Half the vehicles on the road are Amazon trucks.

Do people actually think ordering on Amazon is better or at worst equal for the environment.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by fotze2

I wouldn’t buy fart spray and chips ahoy back then if it took 4 weeks and 10 times the price. Half the vehicles on the road are Amazon trucks..

Not online - but you'd have bought the fart spray at San Francisco in the mall and the Chips Ahoy at a grocery store. And you'd have driven both of those places in your car.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

TIL you can use the left turn lane as a merge lane.

All lanes are Merge lanes...if you're brave enough...

[fotze2]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

Not online - but you'd have bought the fart spray at San Francisco in the mall and the Chips Ahoy at a grocery store. And you'd have driven both of those places in your car.

I just wouldn’t have bought them back then. You don’t have to plan anything. Sit on the crapper, see toilet paper us low, clickedy click , crap tickets arrive the next day in a giant cardboard box.