Anthony del Nunzio of Pinellas Park writes:
I have always been annoyed with the phantom tie-ups.
In my experience, a slight bend in the road, an uphill section—so lowered visibility to the front is less than drivers’ expectations—followed by a slight easing up on the accelerator, and you have slowdown and a backup.
This has been going on forever. I was thrilled when cruise control found it’s way into automobiles thinking traffic would flow more uniformly, but in congested areas I’m sure most drivers cancel it.
When involved with the phantom slowdowns, I always think back to many years ago in New York City’s tunnels where personnel working within the tunnels would lean over their walkway rails and wave motorists along to speed up traffic to clear the tunnel. It worked great half the time, waking you up to move along.
Maybe roadway overhead message boards can accomplish something similar.
The shockwave article ran today in The Tampa Tribune. Check it here:
http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB3KHH92JE.html
.... The new roundabout at Tampa Bay Boulevard and Lois Avenue opened to through traffic today. Work on the roundabout began last July 2005.
The design, with three separate approaches, was managed by the city of Tampa’s Transportation Division. It was designed to improve traffic flow while enhancing safety for both motorists and pedestrians. This project was done in cooperation with Hillsborough Community College, which donated the land for the project.
The $893,000 intersection project will assist motorists during Raymond James Stadium and Legends Field events, as well as the daily commute to and from the college, city Transportation Manager Ray LaMotte Jr. said.
The project also adds landscaping and irrigation within the circle, sidewalks and additional street lighting around its perimeter.
I said you’d be the first to hear about it when I received updates on the MacDill Avenue and Azeele Street intersection project. Now I can make good on my word.
As mentioned in an earlier column, the crossing is slated for improvements that include resurfacing, repainting and the addition of left turn lanes on all four approaches. Plans are drawn and ready, but the city got tangled up in some tricky land acquisitions.
Chief project designer Thomas Capell – to whom I send my apologies for previously misspelling his last name as “Catell†– gave me a call last week with the latest news.
He said the city has made headway with landowners who hold adjacent properties, and efforts to obtain the necessary land are “now on track.â€
“If they stay on course, we should be able to bid the project by May or June,†he said. That lands construction within the second half of 2006, hopefully.
Hang in there.
Negotiating city traffic sure looks and feels more dangerous than a Sunday drive in the country, but no less than the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, in a study released last month, says that motoring through rural areas is a whole lot more deadly.
Forty-two percent more fatal crashes occur in rural parts of the nation than on busy urban highways - think the Tampa Bay area’s interstates.
The study looked at fatal crashes from 1994 through 2003, and found that rural crashes are more likely likely to involve: multiple fatalities, rollovers and motorcyclists being thrown from their bikes, not to mention encounters with wildlife.
Making matters worse, it takes a lot longer for emergency medical crews to make it to the scene.
The Associated Press quotes Jeffrey Michael, senior research director for the NHTSA as saying “rural driving is far more risky,” appearances to the contrary.
In one year, 2003, Montana led the nation with 95.4 percent of its fatal crashes occurring along rural roads, followed by Maine, South Dakota and South Carolina. You may figure: Sure, they have a whole lot more country than city in those places - but there is a whole lot less traffic in rural areas, too, and far fewer crashes.
So, when they’re bad in the country, they’re really bad. And help is not necessarily on the away.
... if you find yourself in downtown Tampa and your car is out of gas, has a flat tire or a dead battery - or you can’t find your car, you’re lost, or it’s a bit late and you’re concerned about walking through a dark parking lot or garage - there’s help available.
They’re called the “Tampa Downtown Guides.” They wear blue shirts and pith helmets—no, they’re not escapees from Busch Gardens—and they’ll get you on your way, for free.
There are seven of them, and they work the area from I-275 south to Harbor Island and from North Boulevard on the west to Channelside on the east. They’re available Monday through Friday 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturday from noon to 8 p.m., and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
They work for the city through the Downtown Partnership. Last year the Tampa Downtown Guides assisted 35,000 people, mostly with directions, answering questions, playing street-level ambassador, according to the Guides’ supervisor, Ray Bertram.
They also gave jump starts to 394 motorists, changed 115 tires, escorted 45 people, helped with 34 car alarms, found 31 lost vehicles, and made 29 gas runs.
But perhaps their biggest contribution was their mere presence on the streets downtown. With radios or cell phones, they provided additional eyes and ears for the Tampa Police Department, deterring and occasionally thwarting crime.
“We try to help with almost anything,” Bertram said, “but the one thing we can’t do is help with lockouts. Dropping slim jims in there with side air bags—it can cause problems.”
Not to mention liability for helping the wrong person break into a car.
It’s not just our families, our relationships with our friends and home maintenance that suffer from too much time spent on our long commutes, our home communities may be hurting most of all, according to a series of studies.
They call it “social capital,” and it’s an accepted concept for social scientists: It means that the wealth of a community is not just measured in dollars in the city treasury, it’s also measured in how many people vote, serve on volunteer boards, give blood, tutor school children who need it, participate in the PTA; volunteer at the hospital; serve in civic groups, man crisis lines and much, much more.
Long commutes also take people away from their friends - and inhibit their making friends or cultivating them - and that frays our connections among each other, which in turn hurts our peace of mind, our feelings of well-being. It strands us when we need help - with a repair, commiseration, someone to share the good news with, a babysitter, pet-sitter, support in a job search, an in with organizations, referrals to professionals, reliable service people… The list is endless.
That’s our personal “social capital.” Run short, and it seriously effects our own happiness, our health, our ability to succeed. The community is the first to feel its effects, then it’s our families.
Most service organizations, home-owners’ association boards, volunteer leaders don’t know why someone no longer participates, even in the area’s so-called bedroom communities - places which too many residents desert each workday, for a long day away.
If you know someone in that situation, or are that someone, I’d like to hear from you, to learn how it works, how it feels, and see if anything can be done about it. (E-mail ; if you can, pls include your telephone number.)
Ballast Point residents have voiced many concerns about the southern intersection of Bayshore and Interbay boulevards, where an oddly angled crossing, heavy car volume and absence of traffic-controlling devices combine to create a dangerous situation.
The roads actually intersect at two points – one to the north where Bayshore meets Interbay and forks off at an angle, and one to the south where they cross paths again.
In my observation, that southern stretch of Bayshore tends to either be backed up or run too fast, depending on the time of day. Steve Reynolds, a board member on the Ballast Point Neighborhood Association, said it’s “scary to see the risks people will take†to cross there.
The northern intersection of Bayshore and Interbay, where Interbay splits off toward Ballast Point Park, already has a traffic light.
Residents would like to see one installed at the southern intersection, and from what city of Tampa Transportation Division Manager Roy LaMotte tells me, it seems they’re going to get their wish.
Mike, in Riverview, comments:
I see these ‘phantom jams’ all the time. Seems they mostly happen around merge areas. Reason is most people are too rude to let someone merge so they try to speed past them or cut others off to avoid having to slow down. This creates a ripple effect that causes the slowdowns to the cars further back. The mergers are sometime to blame themselves by not quickly and speedily moving into traffic. If traffic is heavy but still moving at a quick pace I find that I can merge at or around the posted speed for the roadway. 1/23/06
Good point. And in fact the experts agree, noting that it just takes one panicky driver on the highway to see another driver merging at the speed limit to nervously slow down, sometimes rapidly jamming the brakes, and sparking the chain reaction that can lead to a “phantom jam.”
Or, a driver merges going way too slowly, forcing the brake lights behind him to light up, beginning the potentially highway-clogging process.
Once, many years ago, there was a system of long, moving green tubes of light at the Ashley Street on-ramp to I-275, mimicking spaces between cars on the highway above them. The idea was for cars to pull alongside one of the green bars, maintain that speed, and when they reached the highway at that speed, that right-sized space would indeed be there for them.
That was true unless at the last minute the car behind the space, driven by some yahoo, floored his accellerator in an effort to close the gap for personal (competitive? testosterone-related?) reason. At any rate, too many people didn’t trust the contraption, and crept up to the level of the highway, and stopped _ or nearly stopped _ thereby requiring a huge gap they could enter while accellerating from zero to highway speed. It should be much better there now…
But Mike’s right. Entrance ramps _ and sometimes backed-up exit ramps _ are often the catalysts.
Today is Ride Free Day for HARTline’s express buses.
For regular bus riders - or if, say, you become one after your sample ride downtown from New Tampa, Westchase or maybe Seffner today - the sweetest deal around is the Emergency Ride Home program of Bay Area Commuter Services (BACS).
It’s designed for commuters who get to work by any means other than driving alone: riding a bus; carpooling (which means sharing a vehicle with at least one other person, even a wife or roommate); van-pooling; or even walking or biking. And you qualify if you just do it two days a week.
Folks have the understandable fear that if they try an alternative to driving to work - to save money, ease their traffic-troubled minds, contribute a tad less pollution to the atmosphere - they’ll be stranded if they get sick at work, have a family emergency, or have to work late.
But the Emergency Ride Home program guarantees a free cab ride home - up to eight times a year, up to $100 a ride. It requires signing up, but there is no charge. For details, check out BACS” web site at http://www.TampaBayRideshare.org, or call: (800) 998-RIDE (7433).
HARTline’s express buses are mostly newer buses, with air conditioning, comfortable seats, many even have Wi-Fi connections for your laptop. And it’s nice to have a chauffeur. And BACS takes the worry out of leaving the car at home.
They call the device an “iPark Personal Parking Card” and it’s designed for people who can’t be bothered - or can’t remember - to carry a whole passel of quarters with them. Heck, two hours’ parking downtown costs 12 quarters these days.
The things are essentially prepaid debit cards, and about the same size but a tad thicker, with a hook to hang them from a rear-view mirror.
Most of the early users are either delivery people who must make quick, frequent stops in front of downtown businesses, or lawyers who don’t know how long they’ll be away from their cars and grow tired of the $25 overtime parking tickets.
The user just parks, turns on the device, indicates the zone in which they’re parked - currently either downtown or Ybor City - and hangs it from the mirror, ignoring the meter. Parking enforcement officers are trained to check for the devices before issuing a ticket.
When leaving, just turning off the device displays the zone, charge, and the card’s balance.
There is a $20 deposit to obtain the things from the parking enforcement office in the Fort Brooke Garage, 107 N. Franklin St. - it’s suggested you call the office, 274-8182, first - and it may be charged for $50 or $100 worth of parking, plus a $5 charging fee.
The only savings is that you just pay for the time you’re actually parked, and you won’t get any more parking tickets - if you remember to turn the thing on.
...parking at meters in downtown Tampa is free north of Kennedy Boulevard between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m. weekdays and all day Saturday and Sunday.
... Parking in metered spaces downtown is free north of Kennedy Boulevard from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. weekdays and both weekend days? Neither did I, but I’m new to Tampa, if not The Tribune.
... The metered parking downtown north of Kennedy Boulevard is free from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. weekdays and both weekend days? I didn’t, until it was pointed out at a midday traffic forum Wednesday. But then, I’m pretty new to Tampa, if not to The Tribune.
Have you ever been driving along, minding your own business, when up ahead you see brake lights and you’re forced to slow markedly or even stop, as a traffic jam piles up behind you. Of course, we all have.
But then, when you finally get to the front of the pack, cars are just speeding up and going on their way. What’s that all about?? Yep, I’ve had that happen, too, on I-75 in both directions and on I-275 south over the Sunshine Skyway.
If it’s happened to you, too, it seems we’ve fallen victim to what traffic engineers and scientists know as a “"shockwave,’’ “"ghost jam’’ or “"phantom jam.’’ They’re pretty common in the Tampa Bay area. On Monday, in a Tampa Tribune article, local and national experts explain what happens to cause the things, and a few things we can do to avoid them.
Hint: They have a whole lot better grip on the causes than they do on the cures. But it’s nice to know what’s behind that bit of weirdness.
Sure, bus rides are free on Monday, and anyone living near one of the express routes _ see http://www.hartline.org _ might want to give it a try. Remember, anyone commuting twice a week or more on HARTline _ or by walking, cycling, car- or van-pooling _ is eligible for eight free cab rides home each year if they have to work late or have a personal or family emergency, courtesy of Bay Area Commuter Services. (See: http://www.TampaBayRideShare.org)
But on Tuesday commuters will have to cough up more money to ride the most HARTline buses.
The cash fare is $150. One-day local ride fare is $3.25 and a 20-day local ride ticket is $30. The 31-day unlimited local ride ticket is $50.
The express fare goes to $2.50, with a 20-ride express local ticket at $50, 31-day unlimited ride ticket, $80. The Hillsborought/Pinellas express ticket is $85. There are a lot of other increases, check http://www.hartline.org.
If you take them up on their offer, let me know how it goes.
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