Comments on: Use Both Lanes

By: Roger

Roger — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 11:57:36 +0000

Next time you encounter one of these situations watch who the people want to merge in front of…. Yes always the big truck if one is available.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 27 May 2011 01:07:45 +0000

Andy, that’s a good idea about neither lane lining up with the final lane at the merge point.

I wonder if they could restripe the road to put the final lane of a two-into-one merge directly in the center for a while before moving it into the actual final lane position.

Making neither lane line up with the final one might stop the battle between the territorial “early mergers” and the efficient “throughput maximizers” that always seems to happen in the typical “Left Lane Ends — Merge Right” situation.

By: Derek

Derek — Tue, 24 May 2011 21:49:01 +0000

This wouldn’t be a problem if traffic were priced correctly. After all, traffic congestion is a type of shortages, and shortages occur, according to Wikipedia, “when the price of an item is set below the going rate determined by supply and demand.”

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 24 May 2011 19:25:48 +0000

I think the real key to it is the lane lines at the merge. Instead of having a through lane and a merging lane, neither should directly line up after a certain “you must alternate-zipper-merge here” point.

There’s one intersection in NH I came across often, and I think there was one small sign that said to alternate, and not once did I come across a situation where someone didn’t do just that. It was amazing what that small suggestion did for traffic there.