Squirrel Hill Tunnel making headlines (Penn Hills, Swissvale: money, Swiss, drive)

[groar]

i used to work a midnight to 6am shift out in east pittsburgh, and i went through the outbound squirrel hill tunnel on my way to work.

one night there was a MASSIVE traffic jam, traffic backed up to bates st and beyond. like your basic rush hour traffic, only it was 11:30pm on a wednesday or whatever.

we finally get through the tunnel and the INBOUND tunnel is closed, and there are a bunch of flashing lights and cop cars and construction vehicles etc on the westbound parkway.

the only thing that caused that traffic jam was people looking to see what was going on on the other side of the highway. facepalm.

[gg]

Originally Posted by ML North

Here's a good report on the subject: The Benefits of Reducing Congestion

You're head is in the right place, but traffic accidents highly correlate with the level of congestion. Of course once a traffic jam has formed, the cars in it may be less likely to be involved in a fatal crash, but that's not true for the cars approaching, avoiding, and departing from the traffic jam.

This concept is captured in the following paragraph from page 5:


There's a great figure on page 6. The subtext reads:

Crowded highways and traffic jams aren't the same thing. If cars are crawling, there is no chance of death. Just common sense. Best hope the traffic jams get worse and it gets even slower.

[ML North]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

If cars are crawling, there is no chance of death.

Possibly, but only for the cars currently in the jam. For the cars approaching or being diverted to different routes, the risk is much higher. And since the cars currently in the the jam were previously the cars approaching the jam, the risk fatal accidents goes way up with increased congestion, increased traffic jams. That is consistent with the data.

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Just common sense.

You're missing half of the problem -- the cars that are not yet crawling at 5 mph.

EDIT: I should note that the effect which you are suggesting, that fatal accidents are less likely a low speeds, is captured in the graphic on Page 6. Note that the crashes per million miles traveled eventually levels off as the volume-to-capacity ratio increases. This is due to the fact that high volume-to-capacity ratios eventually result in lower speeds and traffic jams. You may also note, however, that the curve never completely levels off and begins to decrease. So any arbitrary reduction in congestion is likely to result in fewer fatalities, and conversely an increase in congestion is likely to result in a higher number of fatalities.

[TechieTransplant]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

Best hope the traffic jams get worse and it gets even slower.

LOL if things get any slower I'll end up in jail LOL

[Scott2187]

Originally Posted by h_curtis

I think the traffic jams are a godsend for safety sake. This year I really can't believe the driving I am seeing on the roads. There are wrecks everywhere and so many not paying attention. Not sure if it will make the news, but I just saw a Jeep rolled over on 28 around Aspinwall. Might be a death involved, but not sure since I was traveling the other way. The traffic jams slow people down to a snails pace. That is actually comforting considering how poor drivers are in the US. It really is shocking the amount of deaths on the road and these traffic jams no doubt save lots of lives. If people weave in and out in the jams they are still going slow enough to not cause a death. The problems occur when the traffic dies down enough to get the flow going. Hope things don't improve for statistical reasons. Just too many deaths on the road.

So theres a wreck on 28? Inbound or outbound?

[eccotecc]

Has the traffic gotten any better going through the Squirrel Tunnels?

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by eccotecc

Has the traffic gotten any better going through the Squirrel Tunnels?

No. There's really not much outside the city that way, so it didn't matter.

[szug-bot]

Originally Posted by Moby Hick

No. There's really not much outside the city that way, so it didn't matter.

hundreds of people who live out that direction?

shopping and services?

[Moby Hick]

Originally Posted by szug-bot

hundreds of people who live out that direction?

Somebody told me there was a place called "Plum" with thousand of people, but you have to do better than that to fool me.

[youngabe]

Originally Posted by eccotecc

Has the traffic gotten any better going through the Squirrel Tunnels?

It's the same. It will remain the same even with this little "construction" project on the tunnels. At peak hours, the problem isn't the tunnel, it's the short on and off ramps which dump traffic onto the mainline versus having adequate ramps for properly merging. Anyone who has driven the inbound Parkway East between the hours of 6 and 10 AM on a weekday knows that the traffic speed picks up considerably once you're past the last on-ramp from Edgewood/Swissvale. I used to get up to 40mph or so heading for the tunnel. On the weekends, the tunnel is indeed the problem because people who don't usually drive through the tunnel do slow down for no reason at all.

I've heard on the traffic reports in the morning, it's generally been backed up to Churchill and becoming more common--Penn Hills. You're looking at about 7ish miles of solid congestion at that point.