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SYSK Selects: How Traffic Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. Chuck Bryant here of Stuff you Should Know
0:04
Speaker 1: and welcome to the weekend. It's Saturday, and you know
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Speaker 1: what that means. It's time for another Stuff you Should
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Speaker 1: Know select episode where Josh and I picked our favorites
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Speaker 1: from the past one thousand plus episodes and repost them
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Speaker 1: and hopes that you might discover something old. Here we
0:20
Speaker 1: go something old? Is that a good way to sell something?
0:24
Speaker 1: That's why we call them classics and selects. July twenty nine,
0:27
Speaker 1: two thousand ten, was a very special day because that
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Speaker 1: is the day we released the episode How Traffic Works. Yes, traffic,
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Speaker 1: not drug trafficking, but traffic, car traffic. We all hate it,
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Speaker 1: but you know what, maybe you should understand it a
0:42
Speaker 1: little better. Really interesting, and I believe Josh even coined
0:45
Speaker 1: his own term. If I'm not mistaken for this one,
0:48
Speaker 1: a break a bubble? Dare I say? Does my memory
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Speaker 1: serve me? We'll find out by listening right now to
0:54
Speaker 1: How Traffic Works. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from
1:02
Speaker 1: House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
1:11
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark. With me is Charles Precious Bryant? How
1:15
Speaker 1: you doing, Precious? This is the podcast based on the
1:18
Speaker 1: novel Push by Sapphire. Yeah, that is absolutely right, word
1:22
Speaker 1: for word. Right, Jerry just got back because you did
1:24
Speaker 1: a spoiler. Yeah, for Precious I've known for spoilers, aren't I?
1:30
Speaker 1: At least two? It was Boiling Home. No, there was
1:34
Speaker 1: a there was um six ft under. There was another
1:37
Speaker 1: one I spoiled too, wasn't there? Yeah, there was one
1:39
Speaker 1: you spoiled That was a really old movie, and I
1:41
Speaker 1: was like, come on, that movie is like fifteen years old.
1:43
Speaker 1: There's a statute of limitation, was it, Buck Rubon's I Yeah,
1:46
Speaker 1: I think that was it? Yeah, me too, Chuck. Yes,
1:49
Speaker 1: have you ever been in traffic? That's the best I got.
1:54
Speaker 1: How do you set this up? Chuck? Do you like
1:56
Speaker 1: Steve Winwood? Yeah? You know I was going to make
1:58
Speaker 1: a Traffic the band comment. Have you ever seen the
2:00
Speaker 1: low spark of high heeled boys? Yeah? Yeah, that's it.
2:05
Speaker 1: I'm seriously, I'm like trying to do you know he
2:07
Speaker 1: was like when he first joined Traffic, thinks a he's
2:12
Speaker 1: a lothario. Yeah, and by that I mean in Prodigy. Yeah, yeah, Traffic.
2:18
Speaker 1: I've been in traffic, buddy, you Yes, I have actually
2:21
Speaker 1: been in traffic. Um, happens a lot because I don't
2:24
Speaker 1: ride Marta. You ride are fine, fine, crippled public transit
2:30
Speaker 1: system here in Atlanta. I'm never in traffic anymore. It's
2:33
Speaker 1: it's really been a huge difference in my life. Yeah. Well,
2:37
Speaker 1: I don't ride Marta because, um, I usually I tend
2:42
Speaker 1: to avoid the smell of urine, and UM, reading while
2:46
Speaker 1: moving makes me sick. So I'm you know, plus, I
2:49
Speaker 1: I value I used to value being able to smoke. Yeah, dude,
2:53
Speaker 1: I was just about to say that's why I used
2:54
Speaker 1: to drive. Yeah, and now I'm just like, I just
2:56
Speaker 1: do it out to have it. But I get caught
2:58
Speaker 1: in traffic a lot, and it stinks. I don't see
3:00
Speaker 1: you on a public transport. You're not You're not that
3:03
Speaker 1: kind of social No. That's the other thing too, It's like, oh, hey,
3:07
Speaker 1: we worked together, let's talk the whole time. No, I don't.
3:10
Speaker 1: I wear my sunglasses. It can be dark and raining,
3:12
Speaker 1: and I've told everyone here that if I have my
3:14
Speaker 1: shades on, that means the office is closed. Nice, the
3:17
Speaker 1: store is shut down. That's very nice, stor it looks
3:20
Speaker 1: super cool. Alright. So I'm a jerk that doesn't talk
3:23
Speaker 1: to coworkers. Now moving on, buddy, It's okay, Chuck. Do
3:28
Speaker 1: you remember when we recorded quicksand yes, do you remember
3:33
Speaker 1: how we said that there's like a finite amount of
3:36
Speaker 1: stuff out there about quick thing, because there's a finite
3:39
Speaker 1: amount to know. There's a finite amount to know about traffic.
3:43
Speaker 1: But there's tons of information out there. Yeah, lots of
3:46
Speaker 1: little side things to know for sure. Yeah, Because ultimately,
3:50
Speaker 1: traffic happens in two ways. One is, there is simply congestion.
3:56
Speaker 1: There's just too many cars on the road to carry
4:02
Speaker 1: to carry the flow of traffic quickly. Right. The other
4:06
Speaker 1: way is there is some unpredictable event that somebody's pulled over,
4:11
Speaker 1: somebody's broken down, there's a wreck, whether maybe an event
4:16
Speaker 1: that falls under congestion, police have pulled over a traffic
4:19
Speaker 1: a speeder. People always slow down for that, and that's it.
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Speaker 1: That's it. Those are pretty much the two broad categories
4:27
Speaker 1: that traffic can be created, right, um. And what happens
4:32
Speaker 1: in each of those events is somebody upfront puts on
4:36
Speaker 1: their brakes and that that one press of the brakes
4:42
Speaker 1: travels backward all the way through right when you have
4:45
Speaker 1: a bunch of different cars and different lengthes doing that
4:47
Speaker 1: at the same time, you have traffic you know what
4:50
Speaker 1: that's called traffic wave. Yes, that's true. It's a domino effect.
4:55
Speaker 1: It's very easy, it is. And I came up with
4:57
Speaker 1: my own idea of just scribing this. You're ready by okay,
5:01
Speaker 1: So what I came up with is called the traffic bubble,
5:04
Speaker 1: okay by Josh Clark. So the traffic bubble happens when
5:09
Speaker 1: somebody is driving along and presses their brakes for whatever reason.
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Speaker 1: And just imagine that when they press that break, the
5:16
Speaker 1: big bubble grows over the car, okay, And it starts
5:20
Speaker 1: very slowly traveling backward. And each car behind that car
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Speaker 1: that's that created the traffic bubble isn't allowed to accelerate
5:27
Speaker 1: again until the traffic bubble is passed through them, right,
5:31
Speaker 1: But then the further back the traffic bubble goes, the
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Speaker 1: more it dissipates, until eventually the people far enough back
5:38
Speaker 1: don't have to go through the traffic bubble and they're
5:40
Speaker 1: not affected by it. And does the bubble pass through
5:44
Speaker 1: the front cars to where they can then again accelerate.
5:47
Speaker 1: Is that how you see it as a moving bubble? Yeah?
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Speaker 1: Over the bubble travels backwards over the traffic, and then
5:52
Speaker 1: once it passes over you, you're allowed to accelerate again.
5:55
Speaker 1: I believe you're just going to turn my friends the
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Speaker 1: traffic bubble like that jerk science or no break bubble,
6:00
Speaker 1: that's what I called it. Okay, breaking bubble. Yeah, like
6:03
Speaker 1: a piping effect. I hate that guy and he hates you.
6:07
Speaker 1: I don't care so traffic Josh, you want, We might
6:10
Speaker 1: as well thrown a few stats here. Yeah, this one's
6:12
Speaker 1: that heavy. It is. This this article by our colleague
6:16
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland at tech Stuff. Yeah, the bald this podcast
6:20
Speaker 1: on staff here, Uh, what's a good stat here? The
6:24
Speaker 1: estimated traffic costs If you wanna talk about cost of
6:26
Speaker 1: traffic in about five years ago, they estimated about seventy
6:30
Speaker 1: eight billion dollars. And that's only fuel and waste of time.
6:35
Speaker 1: They don't take into account like pollution, environmental damage, health
6:38
Speaker 1: costs due to pollution. I mean it would really add
6:41
Speaker 1: up if you got to, you know, include those things. Yeah,
6:44
Speaker 1: and um with extra gas that was bought in two
6:48
Speaker 1: thousand seven, right, isn't that the year that studies connected
6:52
Speaker 1: or covered UM we in the US bought two point
6:56
Speaker 1: nine billion billion extra gallon of oil because of traffic,
7:02
Speaker 1: and the annual cost for each individual motorists in America
7:06
Speaker 1: was like seven ten bucks just sitting there, just from traffic,
7:10
Speaker 1: not from you know, the gas that you need to
7:12
Speaker 1: actually get from point A to point B, but the
7:14
Speaker 1: extra gas used from idoling. Yeah, crazy, yeah, And I
7:18
Speaker 1: believe l A tops it out obviously at about two
7:20
Speaker 1: weeks a year you potentially spend sitting in your car
7:23
Speaker 1: and traffic. Yeah. L A has um. There's this group
7:26
Speaker 1: called the Texas Transportation Institute, and I think they're out
7:30
Speaker 1: of A and M. Maybe they're awesome. They they they
7:36
Speaker 1: are like the leaders and studying and understanding and trying
7:39
Speaker 1: to mitigate traffic, right um. And they came up with
7:43
Speaker 1: this thing called the travel time index, right yeah. So basically,
7:48
Speaker 1: you take the amount of time it takes and it's
7:51
Speaker 1: specific to each city, and it's for each city. It's
7:54
Speaker 1: not compared from city to city. It's compared to a
7:58
Speaker 1: certain time in one city to another time in the
8:01
Speaker 1: same city. So in an off peak time, say you
8:04
Speaker 1: can travel the speed limit, it takes you one hour
8:08
Speaker 1: to get from point A to point B in Los Angeles,
8:11
Speaker 1: it would take one point nine two hours doubles your
8:16
Speaker 1: time basically during yeah, during rush hour, So it takes
8:20
Speaker 1: twice as long to get from point A to point
8:22
Speaker 1: B during rush hours compared to off peak. That's the
8:24
Speaker 1: travel time index. Yeah, and you know you have to
8:27
Speaker 1: do this anywhere you live where there's heavy traffic. But
8:29
Speaker 1: when I lived in l A, I used to have
8:31
Speaker 1: to always think, all right, well, this would take me
8:33
Speaker 1: forty five minutes normally. So and when you work in
8:37
Speaker 1: the movie business, you you can't be late. That's just
8:39
Speaker 1: not one of the things you do. You've got to
8:41
Speaker 1: be there on time or early. So you're like, well,
8:43
Speaker 1: it's supposed to take me forty five minutes, I'm gonna
8:45
Speaker 1: give myself like two hours. I gave myself more than
8:48
Speaker 1: double to get anywhere I needed to go. That's that's
8:51
Speaker 1: very smart. It's awful, is what it is. Yeah. L
8:55
Speaker 1: A's kind of bad, but chuck, we have it pretty
8:57
Speaker 1: bad too. Yeah, Land is really bad. We're among like
9:00
Speaker 1: probably I think the top three or four. I heard
9:02
Speaker 1: a year or so ago that Atlanta had toppled l A,
9:06
Speaker 1: but I never saw any citation. Well, all those it
9:08
Speaker 1: depends on how they are rating. It. Some they rade
9:11
Speaker 1: the differently, like the amount of time you spend in
9:13
Speaker 1: your car commuting or the amount of time you sit idling,
9:15
Speaker 1: So it kind of depends. But Atlanta's way up there, Boston, Seattle,
9:19
Speaker 1: San Francisco actually think is absent from that. Oh really,
9:23
Speaker 1: I think that they have made some moves that have
9:27
Speaker 1: kind of mitigated traffic and gotten them off some of
9:30
Speaker 1: the I know, the Big Dig was messing everything up.
9:33
Speaker 1: The Big Dig was just killing people. Yeah, and d
9:35
Speaker 1: C is awful. Have you ever driven around there? Uh? No,
9:38
Speaker 1: I haven't. You was talking about how especially during the summer,
9:41
Speaker 1: during the travel or the tourist season, it's just mind
9:44
Speaker 1: numbing it is. Yeah, I mean way out into the
9:47
Speaker 1: suburbs in Virginia and Maryland sitting there. Yeah. You know
9:50
Speaker 1: what they did in l A that I saw one
9:52
Speaker 1: time that I had never seen was I was going
9:54
Speaker 1: down the highway one day and I noticed everyone was
9:56
Speaker 1: slowing down. And I looked up ahead on the expressway
9:59
Speaker 1: and they were to California Highway patrol cars doing huge
10:06
Speaker 1: slow ses back and forth on the six lanes of expressway,
10:11
Speaker 1: not letting, like keeping everyone back like a nask, like
10:14
Speaker 1: a like a paste. Yeah, like a pace car. But
10:17
Speaker 1: you know they weren't driving straight. They were driving these
10:18
Speaker 1: big s. Is like, don't go buy me. I've never
10:21
Speaker 1: seen that before in my life. What would have made
10:22
Speaker 1: it even funnier is if they've been driving those ses
10:25
Speaker 1: with their hands out their window and their guns just
10:28
Speaker 1: shooting into the area while they were doing it. That
10:30
Speaker 1: would really say, don't drive past me. Yeah, that would
10:33
Speaker 1: have been great. And apparently that was they do that.
10:36
Speaker 1: It's a I don't know what they call it, but
10:38
Speaker 1: that's too slow everyone down. It's called being a yes.
10:46
Speaker 1: And on that note, my friend Derek has a joke
10:48
Speaker 1: about Atlanta traffic, and he's right, because Atlanta before their traffic,
10:52
Speaker 1: everyone's driving really really what fast. Yeah, that's one of
10:57
Speaker 1: the great characteristics about it LANDA as far as i'm can,
11:00
Speaker 1: you go as fast as you can. I mean, the
11:03
Speaker 1: average um flow of traffic, I would say it's about
11:06
Speaker 1: seventy miles an hour around here, and that's with like
11:09
Speaker 1: a lot of people all around you. Yeah, everybody's bumper
11:11
Speaker 1: to bumper going at least seventy and the cops don't
11:14
Speaker 1: pull you over unless you're going over seventy and even
11:17
Speaker 1: then like, it's usually like you're going eighty or ninety
11:20
Speaker 1: when you get pulled over because everybody else is going seventy. Right,
11:23
Speaker 1: And that's my buddy Derek's joke is in Atlanta, and
11:26
Speaker 1: it's really true. It's not a joke. Everyone drives as
11:28
Speaker 1: fast as they can every day until someone and then
11:30
Speaker 1: someone recks, right, and then traffic backs up every single day.
11:33
Speaker 1: That's Atlanta traffic. Are we done? So let's just sit
11:57
Speaker 1: here and do traffic stories about what what angers us?
12:01
Speaker 1: So check. There's a lot of smart people who study
12:04
Speaker 1: traffic because like you said, there's um, what was it,
12:08
Speaker 1: how much money in two eight billion just from fuel
12:11
Speaker 1: and wasted time? Because think about it, a person's time
12:15
Speaker 1: is money, right, And if you're sitting in traffic, unless
12:18
Speaker 1: you're one of those jerks like me who has an
12:20
Speaker 1: iPhone that emails while he's driving, then you're wasting money, right. Um.
12:26
Speaker 1: And actually there's this there's a group called Commute Solutions
12:30
Speaker 1: are out of Santa Cruz and they calculated the actual
12:33
Speaker 1: cost per mile of driving, not just traffic, but driving
12:36
Speaker 1: to each person is one point nineteen one dollar nineteen
12:40
Speaker 1: cents per mile. Yeah, and that includes everything I don't
12:45
Speaker 1: know how they came up with that number, but check
12:47
Speaker 1: it out. Well, if we're talking about highways and stats,
12:51
Speaker 1: we might as well talk about the same. Texas group
12:54
Speaker 1: did a study and um they found that traffic over
12:58
Speaker 1: the past years increased and by they predict it will
13:04
Speaker 1: go up another And here's what's remarkable. One only one
13:10
Speaker 1: of all our roads are highways, yet they shoulder half
13:13
Speaker 1: the traffic, half the car travel. Yeah. Crazy, it is crazy,
13:17
Speaker 1: And you don't usually think about when you think about traffic.
13:21
Speaker 1: I usually think about the highway myself, although I rarely
13:24
Speaker 1: get on the highway anymore. It's all surface streets that
13:27
Speaker 1: I take to and from work. Yeah, what do you go?
13:30
Speaker 1: Duid hills? Okay? I go basically up Piedmont um. But
13:37
Speaker 1: it's it's traffic every day. But I don't think of
13:39
Speaker 1: it as traffic. And I think of traffic, I think
13:41
Speaker 1: of seventy five at rush hour. And just like UH
13:44
Speaker 1: exit ramps backed up, the the thing is is our
13:49
Speaker 1: surface streets are also intended to handle overflow of highway traffic. Right,
13:55
Speaker 1: not just people who are backed up from the exit
13:57
Speaker 1: ramp back onto the street, but I mean people who
13:59
Speaker 1: are making a con just decision like me to find
14:02
Speaker 1: a different way that doesn't have anything to do with
14:04
Speaker 1: the highway. Right, And they found that if you want
14:07
Speaker 1: to widen a highway, I think we talked about this
14:12
Speaker 1: in like the urban planning one um that when you
14:15
Speaker 1: when you widen the highway, Um, there's something called latent demand.
14:20
Speaker 1: It's a theory that if you want in the highway,
14:23
Speaker 1: people like me are going to be like, oh well,
14:25
Speaker 1: now there's a leven lanes instead of five, so I'll
14:27
Speaker 1: just hop on the highway. And so the demand increases
14:30
Speaker 1: in step with the widening of the lanes. So it
14:33
Speaker 1: actually doesn't mitigate anything by adding more lanes to a highway, right.
14:37
Speaker 1: I think they said the only way that will work
14:39
Speaker 1: is if they outpaced demand with lanes, and that just
14:42
Speaker 1: doesn't happen. There's too many cars expensive, But that kind
14:47
Speaker 1: of makes sense to throw that money then instead into
14:50
Speaker 1: upfront costs for a light rail system, you know, hippie.
14:56
Speaker 1: Actually I'm still holding up for personal rapid transit. That
15:00
Speaker 1: was a palette in me podcast, but it was interesting.
15:03
Speaker 1: It's a good one. Uh RAMT metering. If if you're
15:06
Speaker 1: talking about solutions, that's another one. And they had these
15:08
Speaker 1: in l A. And they have them here in Atlanta. Now.
15:10
Speaker 1: It's where when you go to get on the highway.
15:12
Speaker 1: Now they have stoplights that just allow like one car
15:15
Speaker 1: through every few seconds. So you know, when you get
15:18
Speaker 1: on at Freedom Parkway, I used to fly around that
15:22
Speaker 1: curve it was fun and jump into traffic and squeeze
15:25
Speaker 1: in however I could. And that's you know, I was
15:28
Speaker 1: one of those jerks causing traffic. Well, I think anybody
15:31
Speaker 1: entering is that, because again with traffic, especially with just
15:35
Speaker 1: straight up congestion, there's just too many cars in one place,
15:40
Speaker 1: especially when you have a line of traffic and then
15:43
Speaker 1: more people directly adding to that lane. Yeah. Right, But
15:46
Speaker 1: RAMT metering really really works. They did a study in Minnesota.
15:50
Speaker 1: They have four d and thirty RAMT meters and in
15:53
Speaker 1: two thousand they shut them all down for seven weeks
15:56
Speaker 1: and during that time traffic accidents increased. And then afterward
16:00
Speaker 1: they re reinstituted it and they saw the capacity increased
16:04
Speaker 1: by fourteen percent, and they walked away from that project
16:07
Speaker 1: going like with their hands in their pockets. Yeah, like,
16:12
Speaker 1: we should probably not tell anybody about that. Yeah, I
16:15
Speaker 1: was trying to do a Minnesota accent. But that was
16:17
Speaker 1: pretty good. I couldn't do it. All I said was,
16:19
Speaker 1: oh no, it wasn't bad though. That's how they say it.
16:21
Speaker 1: H O V lanes is another thing that they've done
16:24
Speaker 1: pretty much countrywide. Carpool lanes as help. Yeah, I always
16:27
Speaker 1: forget when I have another person in the car, though.
16:31
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I'll get like halfway where I'm going and say,
16:33
Speaker 1: oh man, let's get in the carpool lane. Yeah, I
16:35
Speaker 1: have to say though. The h O V lane, to me,
16:39
Speaker 1: it's it's an extension of the fast lane. So you
16:42
Speaker 1: got the fast lane and then you have the h
16:43
Speaker 1: O V lane, And I hate it when it's the
16:46
Speaker 1: fast lane is just the fast ling. The HOV lane
16:49
Speaker 1: is like, I drive as slow as I want, but
16:51
Speaker 1: I have, you know, four people in my car. It
16:54
Speaker 1: makes it difficult. It's it's kind of like the h
16:56
Speaker 1: O V lane to me, is you have two or
16:59
Speaker 1: more people, you're willing to drive ten miles faster than
17:02
Speaker 1: anybody else on the highway. Agreed, And since we talked
17:05
Speaker 1: about pet peeves in our last podcast, My one of
17:08
Speaker 1: my largest pet peeves is when I'm sitting in traffic
17:11
Speaker 1: and I'll see people speeding by me in the h
17:13
Speaker 1: OV lane by themselves. Nothing bothers me more than people
17:17
Speaker 1: that think the rules don't apply to them. I hate that.
17:19
Speaker 1: I hate those people, or people who um use the
17:22
Speaker 1: shoulder and just drive along in traffic as far as
17:25
Speaker 1: they can to get like fifty cars ahead. Yeah. I
17:27
Speaker 1: almost got plowed over in l A one time. I
17:29
Speaker 1: was getting out to get in the regular exit lane
17:31
Speaker 1: and almost got creamed by a truck that was on
17:33
Speaker 1: the shoulder, and I screamed at him that he almost
17:36
Speaker 1: killed me, and he says, what are you a cop?
17:39
Speaker 1: That's l a for you. It was like, he literally
17:42
Speaker 1: almost killed me. What are you a cop? If you're
17:45
Speaker 1: a cop, you'd be making lazy ss is in front
17:47
Speaker 1: of try ands firing my gun into the air. Exactly.
17:50
Speaker 1: What else, Josh, Uh, there's matting lanes. We already talked
17:53
Speaker 1: about that, But there's that one. Then there's um probably
17:56
Speaker 1: the most uh contentious idea cones shim pricing, which is
18:01
Speaker 1: basically taxing people to drive. And there's a guy named
18:05
Speaker 1: Alistair Darling. I don't know if he's still the Transportation secretary,
18:08
Speaker 1: but he's something of a rock star in the transportation
18:11
Speaker 1: world because he was a huge proponent of this, and
18:14
Speaker 1: he said in England, yeah, he was the British Transportation secretary.
18:19
Speaker 1: He basically said, you know, cars exact a toll on
18:24
Speaker 1: the environment and on the road, um, just by driving
18:27
Speaker 1: on him, So we should charge people to drive on
18:29
Speaker 1: the roads. What he failed to mention is that we
18:32
Speaker 1: already do. There are things called taxes, and those are
18:35
Speaker 1: meant to pay for the roads. Right, he's forgetting about
18:38
Speaker 1: you know, all the other misused money. Um. But they
18:43
Speaker 1: did actually have one in Great Britain. Do they still chuck? No,
18:47
Speaker 1: I don't think they ever instituted. They had a pilot
18:49
Speaker 1: program from two thousand three to seven and it worked
18:54
Speaker 1: like a champ for him in London at least. Yeah,
18:57
Speaker 1: there was a thirty percent dropping congest shin decrease in
19:02
Speaker 1: in fossil fuel consumption, decrease in CEO two emissions. So
19:07
Speaker 1: like in London, Singapore, Stockholm, San Francisco, San Francisco, the
19:13
Speaker 1: Institute one No, San Francisco is studying a New York
19:16
Speaker 1: Bloomberg has proposed it and they've studied it. And I
19:19
Speaker 1: just pulled this from this week. Actually, Lord Adonis is
19:23
Speaker 1: actually he's the Transport Secretary unless it's a new guy.
19:28
Speaker 1: What was your guy? His name is Lord Adonis. Lord Adonis,
19:32
Speaker 1: the Transport Secretary came up with a new hotel student. Yeah,
19:37
Speaker 1: that's where Joshua be staying in New York under Lord
19:41
Speaker 1: uh he. It says it's ruled out the introduction of
19:43
Speaker 1: a national road pricing for the next parliament. But they
19:46
Speaker 1: uncovered that civil servants are still involved with the project
19:50
Speaker 1: and spending money on research even though they supposedly took
19:53
Speaker 1: it off the table. It was kind of a secret
19:56
Speaker 1: that they were still like tinkering with Oh. I thought
19:58
Speaker 1: you were like saying this these board paying for this
20:01
Speaker 1: research o their own paychecks. No, but they've sunk seven
20:04
Speaker 1: point two million pounds that I guess the public didn't know.
20:06
Speaker 1: They thought it was off the table. So they're kind
20:08
Speaker 1: of under some hot water, in some hot water. They're
20:11
Speaker 1: they're in some deep quicksand yeah, they said, Golden Brown
20:14
Speaker 1: and Alista Darling have been caught red handed planning a
20:17
Speaker 1: spy in the sky system A spy in the sky. Nice. Yeah, yeah,
20:22
Speaker 1: because I guess we should probably explain congestion pricing basically
20:26
Speaker 1: every car on the road. I guess when you would
20:29
Speaker 1: go get your vehicle tag or something. You also get
20:31
Speaker 1: a radio frequency identifier, right, and as you're driving, some
20:36
Speaker 1: satellite is tracking you, or you pass through some sector
20:39
Speaker 1: or something like that, and all of a sudden you're
20:41
Speaker 1: being you're in a toll area. And much like say, uh,
20:46
Speaker 1: one of those toll passes, UM, you are sent a
20:50
Speaker 1: bill or there's like you have to set up like
20:53
Speaker 1: a credit card or a bank account, attach that to
20:57
Speaker 1: your to your tag, and it just draws money from
21:01
Speaker 1: it based on however much you drive in there. In Singapore,
21:05
Speaker 1: when they first instituted, there's an actually UM they had
21:09
Speaker 1: a flat rate for downtown, which is the most congested
21:13
Speaker 1: during peak hours. You had to pay three bucks to
21:16
Speaker 1: just drive around downtown and you could drive around all
21:18
Speaker 1: you wanted. Uh. And as they as as they've gotten
21:21
Speaker 1: better at it, they're they're getting a little fancy schmancy
21:24
Speaker 1: with it, you know, like, UM, well, if you want
21:26
Speaker 1: to drive here, it's a dollar seventy five for twenty minutes,
21:29
Speaker 1: but you can back, you know, two blocks over and
21:32
Speaker 1: it's just fifty cents and so on. Well, that's one
21:34
Speaker 1: of the rubs that UM. One of the big things
21:37
Speaker 1: is in England at least in other places too. I
21:39
Speaker 1: think they've suggested paying more for peak hour so be
21:43
Speaker 1: flexible in your work schedule. But then, of course people
21:46
Speaker 1: that are a friend of the poor say that's progressive
21:49
Speaker 1: taxation because white color dudes can be all flexible and
21:52
Speaker 1: work from home, but the poor have to get up
21:54
Speaker 1: and go to work during peak hours. So you're they're
21:56
Speaker 1: basically paying for the road that the rich man drives on. Exactly,
22:00
Speaker 1: That's exactly right, And that's the big problem. I mean,
22:02
Speaker 1: aside from having to pay to drive with with a
22:06
Speaker 1: with a congestion tax. Yeah, um, what else can you do? Chuck?
22:10
Speaker 1: And also remember we were talking it's this isn't just
22:13
Speaker 1: highways surface streets to everybody. Don't get all anxious. We're
22:16
Speaker 1: talking about surface streets as well. Yes, uh, surface streets.
22:21
Speaker 1: You get a lot of suburban sprawl, you know, like
22:23
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, you've got like out in Roswell twenty
22:26
Speaker 1: years ago it was it was desolate cow patties and
22:30
Speaker 1: now it's all uh, you know, young families moving out
22:35
Speaker 1: there who don't want to be around urban types. Yeah,
22:37
Speaker 1: and you have a lot of a lot more cars. Um,
22:42
Speaker 1: you have again that that one of two ways that
22:45
Speaker 1: you can cause traffic. Just put more cars on a
22:48
Speaker 1: road than it than it's designed to hand and and
22:51
Speaker 1: out in the booneties like that. They weren't built for
22:53
Speaker 1: you know, they were built for farmland. All of a
22:54
Speaker 1: sudden they got these suburban people moving out there. And so, yeah,
22:58
Speaker 1: traffic lights is something they can do. Yeah, this one
23:00
Speaker 1: disturbed me. Um that even the So you have a
23:03
Speaker 1: traffic light that is on a timer, right, which is
23:09
Speaker 1: especially when they're poorly timed. Yes, Yeah, decator is awful.
23:14
Speaker 1: There's another one for the Piedmont Park parking deck and
23:17
Speaker 1: it just does whatever it wants, no matter what time
23:21
Speaker 1: and day, and if there's a car, they're not and
23:23
Speaker 1: people are just stopped in either direction, right, And um,
23:27
Speaker 1: that's a timed light, and time lights are awful, They're awful. Right.
23:32
Speaker 1: Then you have um sensored lights, which are awesome, right
23:35
Speaker 1: because you just come up in the way to your
23:37
Speaker 1: car triggers it good. Yeah, Or you have a mixed
23:41
Speaker 1: system that uses time timing and sensors and it changes
23:46
Speaker 1: depending on the kind of day where it is. It's
23:49
Speaker 1: like you can set up a citywide comprehensive traffic light plan.
23:52
Speaker 1: Some cities have this. Even the best mixed citywide comprehensive
23:58
Speaker 1: traffic light plan reduced is congestion by one. Really Yeah, yeah,
24:04
Speaker 1: Atlanta is bad about that. At least in my area
24:07
Speaker 1: there's and Jerry can confirm this, she kind of lives
24:09
Speaker 1: over near me. But there's all these scenarios where you'll
24:13
Speaker 1: you'll stop at a light that's timed to not the
24:16
Speaker 1: part of the smart light system is that they're all
24:18
Speaker 1: time to work together. So like if you sit here
24:21
Speaker 1: at this corner and you take a ride on red,
24:24
Speaker 1: there's not another red light waiting on you, and then
24:25
Speaker 1: that turns green, and then thirty more feet there's another
24:27
Speaker 1: red light. They should be timed out to where they
24:30
Speaker 1: were green. In l A, It's like, I mean, that's
24:33
Speaker 1: the one thing I will say. There's a lot of traffic.
24:35
Speaker 1: It's just because the people they do the best they can.
24:37
Speaker 1: You look down. They have these long, long, long straight
24:40
Speaker 1: streets in Hollywood, and late at night you'll be sitting,
24:44
Speaker 1: like on Hollywood Boulevard at a red light and you'll
24:46
Speaker 1: see wink winkink blank, You'll see like eight lights turn green.
24:50
Speaker 1: All in that New Balance commercial, Yeah, with that woman
24:54
Speaker 1: running and she pushes herself to make all the lights. Yeah,
24:57
Speaker 1: doomed a failure, but still it was a nice effort.
25:00
Speaker 1: I would I would go longer in l A just
25:02
Speaker 1: to get off the highway, even if it took me longer,
25:04
Speaker 1: just to feel like I was moving. And Chuck, I'm
25:08
Speaker 1: about to spoil it for all of our British, UK, English, Welsh, Irish,
25:13
Speaker 1: Scottish friends who are typing an angry corrective email about
25:18
Speaker 1: Alistair Darling. He is not the Transportation Secretary. He was
25:22
Speaker 1: the British Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Lord
25:25
Speaker 1: Adonis is the Transport Secretary, that is, and me and
25:28
Speaker 1: your hotel names. We were talking about people um studying
25:48
Speaker 1: this kind of thing. There's all sorts of really cool
25:51
Speaker 1: quantifications for traffic. My favorite is the passenger car equivalent.
25:57
Speaker 1: Let's hear it. Okay, So you have a passenger car
26:01
Speaker 1: is say a city at an averag city Anda Toyota
26:03
Speaker 1: camera all right, or to be fair, Honda court right. Um.
26:09
Speaker 1: That is like just an average car that you can
26:11
Speaker 1: fit four people into and it drives down the road
26:13
Speaker 1: and it's pretty responsive. And um, an suv or a
26:18
Speaker 1: bus or a van is not as responsive because they're
26:24
Speaker 1: larger and because they take up more space, they're slower
26:27
Speaker 1: to accelerate, and so they they exact a heavier burden
26:32
Speaker 1: on a highway during congestion. Right, So what they've come
26:37
Speaker 1: up with our passenger car equivalent. So an suv is
26:41
Speaker 1: one point four pc, right, and then a city bus
26:46
Speaker 1: is like four point four pc. It's like four cars, right. Yeah,
26:50
Speaker 1: it has the same as far as like accelerating after
26:53
Speaker 1: breaking and just the space that's taking up. That's the
26:56
Speaker 1: equivalent of a passenger car. So one good solution to
27:01
Speaker 1: traffic is everybody driving smaller car, no kidding, and virtual slots, right, yeah,
27:09
Speaker 1: what's the deal there. Each car has a certain amount
27:11
Speaker 1: of space it takes up, and don't try and fit
27:13
Speaker 1: into a slot that's a bit smaller than your car.
27:15
Speaker 1: What is that? How you know? That's pretty much virtual
27:18
Speaker 1: slots like tetris. Yeah, if you just amagement that there
27:22
Speaker 1: is a basically a rectangle around your car bubble, a bubble,
27:27
Speaker 1: but not a break bubble. You want to avoid the
27:29
Speaker 1: brake bubble um, but this is more of a rectangle
27:33
Speaker 1: and it kind of hugs the sides of your cars,
27:35
Speaker 1: but it is longer on the front and back. And
27:37
Speaker 1: if every everybody's car stays in these slots that are
27:42
Speaker 1: on the highway, you just kind of pull into them
27:43
Speaker 1: as you're driving, and the slots are going like all
27:46
Speaker 1: the same rate. Then as long as there's not too
27:49
Speaker 1: many cars on the road or more more cars than
27:52
Speaker 1: there are slots, there should be no traffic. Yeah, but
27:55
Speaker 1: that never happens because all this is pie in the
27:58
Speaker 1: sky stuff. Well yeah, because when in areably you're sitting
28:00
Speaker 1: in the lane and you're like that lanes moving now,
28:02
Speaker 1: and then you get over in that lane you're like, well,
28:04
Speaker 1: now that lanes moving and you keep going back and
28:05
Speaker 1: forth where if you stayed where you are, if everyone
28:08
Speaker 1: stay where they were, you would all get there quicker.
28:10
Speaker 1: Or if everybody just stayed at home. Yeah, yes, good point.
28:14
Speaker 1: Put your jobs stay at home. Right. So that's uh,
28:16
Speaker 1: that's our two cents, And uh, if you want to
28:19
Speaker 1: learn more about traffic, we we've been killing the articles
28:22
Speaker 1: with cool flash animations, haven't we did? The one it
28:26
Speaker 1: has a flash animation about a traffic wave. Cool no
28:30
Speaker 1: break bubble. I'm going to see about having somebody add
28:32
Speaker 1: one of those. Coined the term my friend, you can
28:34
Speaker 1: type in traffic. I think it'll bring up a bunch
28:37
Speaker 1: of stuff in the handy search bar how stuff works
28:38
Speaker 1: dot com, which means it's time for listener questions. It's
28:42
Speaker 1: time for Facebook questions. Yes, as we said in that
28:49
Speaker 1: other podcast on quicksand we took, we post on Facebook. Hey,
28:52
Speaker 1: give us some questions. We'll answer like ten of them
28:55
Speaker 1: really quickly. We got them in an hour. This comes
29:00
Speaker 1: from Chelsea. What's the most unusual thing you've ever eaten? Uh?
29:04
Speaker 1: Tripe for me, which is intestines? Go ahead, what's yours? Um?
29:11
Speaker 1: I've had fried chicken hearts, I've had beef tongue. My
29:16
Speaker 1: favorite is um bone marrow really highly highly recommend. Anywhere
29:22
Speaker 1: you can find bone marrow, just eat it. The only
29:25
Speaker 1: place down here is rathbuts and it's okay, yeah, yeah,
29:29
Speaker 1: you gotta wrath buns. You gotta get one of the steaks. No,
29:31
Speaker 1: not not rathbunds, steaks, regular wrath buns. Yeah. Strangely he
29:35
Speaker 1: doesn't have bone marrow there, but yes, those weird stuff.
29:39
Speaker 1: All right, what I got you questions right there? You
29:42
Speaker 1: want to read one? Yeah, I guess this one's from Jacob.
29:45
Speaker 1: If a tree falls in the forest and no one
29:48
Speaker 1: is around here, and Jacob hyphenates no one, which frankly
29:52
Speaker 1: I find like flourish nice. Yes, except for a tape
29:56
Speaker 1: recorder which absorbs the radiant vibrations and can later play
29:59
Speaker 1: them back because audible waves. Did the tree really make
30:01
Speaker 1: a sound? The answer is yes, yes. Uh. Kristen says,
30:06
Speaker 1: where are christ and Candice now? And who does the
30:08
Speaker 1: intro for the podcast? Chris Palette is um co host
30:12
Speaker 1: of Tech Stuff Now and has been for quite a while.
30:15
Speaker 1: He's made it hometown boy made Good. Candice Gibson Keener
30:18
Speaker 1: has gotten married and she stepped out of the limelight
30:21
Speaker 1: to concentrate on just being an editor, but she's still here.
30:24
Speaker 1: Sits right next to Josh and uh. Roxanne does the
30:29
Speaker 1: intros for the podcast. She's our head of video. There
30:32
Speaker 1: you go. That is not Jerry. A lot of people
30:33
Speaker 1: think it's Jerry. There's some comprehensive answers right there. Rachel
30:36
Speaker 1: says she currently lives in Athens, g A. I'd love
30:41
Speaker 1: to hear more about your experience living here, where you
30:43
Speaker 1: hung out your favorite bands, to see what other fond
30:46
Speaker 1: or not so fond memories you might have of Athens
30:49
Speaker 1: she says, we have quite a following there. Did you
30:50
Speaker 1: know that? I didn't either. My bar was Roadhouse. I
30:54
Speaker 1: hung out of Roadhouse all the time. I was a
30:56
Speaker 1: Georgia bar guy, did you Yes? And we should point
30:59
Speaker 1: out though the Georgia Bar, the Globe, and the Roadhouse
31:01
Speaker 1: made up the bar Muda triangle, and you could access
31:04
Speaker 1: them all through the alley to get to the next
31:06
Speaker 1: so most decidedly could. Quite often you would hop around,
31:09
Speaker 1: depending on just stayed at Roadhouse. I hope Roadhouse still there.
31:12
Speaker 1: It's gotten to be, Yeah, it is. And then of course, um,
31:15
Speaker 1: I always liked wilson Soul Food and Guthrie's, which in
31:19
Speaker 1: my opinion is superior to Zaxepiece, even though it's the
31:22
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, I was Automatic for the people. Well, yeah,
31:25
Speaker 1: I lived right around the corner from there. So remember
31:27
Speaker 1: what was the name of that restaurant. I went to
31:29
Speaker 1: Weaverde's Automatic for the people. Yes, that was good too.
31:32
Speaker 1: I liked Wilson's because the owner walked around and he's
31:35
Speaker 1: like four ft tall and he shook hands with everybody, right,
31:38
Speaker 1: nice guy. Um, And of course Harry Bassett's. I never
31:41
Speaker 1: went there. Oh my god, that was a frat bar.
31:43
Speaker 1: You went there, I could go. It wasn't just the bar,
31:45
Speaker 1: like the food was amazing, wasn't I put the food
31:48
Speaker 1: up against any in Atlanta? Euro wrap? Nanna a lot
31:51
Speaker 1: of e rose in college. That's good alright? Uh? Kristen, No, Randy,
31:57
Speaker 1: who's the cat who won't cop out when there's danger
31:59
Speaker 1: all about out? I think we both know shaft nice
32:04
Speaker 1: who's the cat that won't cup out? That's one of
32:06
Speaker 1: the lesser quoted lines from that song. Yeah, I've got
32:10
Speaker 1: one from chavon. How do your significant others feel about
32:13
Speaker 1: your legion of man crushes and equally strong lady crushes? Chuck,
32:17
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware that anyone had to crush on us
32:20
Speaker 1: where you I didn't know that I've seen that before.
32:23
Speaker 1: But Emily thinks it's funny. Sure, yeah it is funny.
32:27
Speaker 1: She's now I'm not going it is. I mean, if
32:28
Speaker 1: you if only people can see our stomachs so much hair?
32:33
Speaker 1: And Laura, how many emails do you get per podcast?
32:36
Speaker 1: We get about three d a week. Laura, Alan who
32:39
Speaker 1: put the bomb in the bomb? Sha bomp shabomp um.
32:42
Speaker 1: The only reason I read that it's because he stressed
32:44
Speaker 1: his mill house and his picture nice And who is
32:48
Speaker 1: your most surprising celebrity fan. We've only got a few
32:51
Speaker 1: that we know of, and they're all surprised. This one
32:53
Speaker 1: is more surprising than I've got one. Um oh, I
32:57
Speaker 1: can't remember her name. There's a girl who stars in
33:01
Speaker 1: Secret Life of the American Teenager Is. She's a fan
33:05
Speaker 1: of the show. She tweeted that she was on set
33:07
Speaker 1: like in between um, shooting and listening to stuff you
33:11
Speaker 1: should know. Yeah, John Hodgman, I was pretty knocked out
33:14
Speaker 1: by that. That's pretty cool. Bradley Cooper, Yeah, Will Wheaton, Yeah,
33:17
Speaker 1: Rene's l Wager, Aisha Tyler Yes. And the couple of
33:22
Speaker 1: The Daily Show guys why Senec Yeah. Joe Randazzo, the
33:25
Speaker 1: editor in chief of The Onion. If you are a
33:28
Speaker 1: celebrity that we did not mention, we would love to
33:31
Speaker 1: know that you listened to us, because we're just kind
33:33
Speaker 1: of thrilling. We're like, we're nobody, So when we hear that,
33:35
Speaker 1: I think it's cool. Yeah, uh yeah, I got one more.
33:39
Speaker 1: Pirates Shelley says pirates are Ninja's Ninja's clearly definitely that's it. Okay,
33:46
Speaker 1: Chuck's given the He's out isn't that called Vegas. Yeah,
33:50
Speaker 1: it's like when the dealer finishes there around or whatever.
33:53
Speaker 1: There's gotta be a name for it. If you know
33:54
Speaker 1: the name for that, we want to know. Send it
33:56
Speaker 1: in an email to stuff podcast at house stuff works
34:00
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
34:08
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,
34:12
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the how stuff works dot
34:14
Speaker 1: com home page.