what was with traffic this morning???

Seems like everyone is moving to NC.

:'}

We are moving down to Ft. Benning, located just outside Columbus, GA. More than 600 houses costing less than $150,000 currently available, taxes about half as much as Virginia and Atlanta is only 90 minutes away (for when you have a big city craving). Plenty of good colleges (Auburn is less than 40 miles away) and lots of lakes and rivers around to play on. The Gulf is about 4 hours away, the mountains about the same. The house we are looking at is $127,900, 3 beds and 2 baths, greatroom, fireplace, deck in the back and on 1.5 acres (my house payment will be less than I currently pay for rent). About 15 minutes from the Ft. Benning gate. Taking nothing away from the Washington, DC metropolis for excitement, great jobs and nice people, this hombre is heading south!

Doug

This subject is moot for me as I have decided that an hour plus of commuting each way is too much, which includes the savings of using the HOV lane as a slug and bus rider. NoSUV believes that allowing more people would be a good thing because the single occupants don't like watching the HOV line go faster. At the same time, many people want to exclude clean air vehicles due to present crowding in those HOV lanes. Having lived for 10 plus years in So Cal, I saw what the HOT lanes did, along with the Sentri lanes at the San Ysidro border crossing. Pay for use can work, but it sure does not lessen the volume, it eventually becomes just as conjested at the lanes it was supposed to bypass.

HOV lanes were created for the purpose of encouraging single riders to carpool and to allow public transportation to work more efficiently, which also encourages ridership in multiple rider vehicles. To allow single rider vehicles is a pretty shady move, it basically says that all of us will no longer will get what we originally wanted and agreed to. It will become something the politicians or a special interest group have decided that they can subvert to their own profit. If it get changed, get used to both the HOV and regular lanes looking exactly the same, only the those in the HOV lanes will be paying for the priviledge of being separated from us unwashed masses.

In any case, the only 100% guaranteed solution to this problem is to find a better, less expensive, and less crowded place to live. I am doing so, and this is my last week of facing this traffic monstrosity. Even So Cal was better than this, and that was pretty bad! No, I have decided that living well is more than a matter of money, it is how much you can do with the money you get and how much time you have to do it. By leaving, I give up about $12,000 in pay, but I gain the ability to buy a house for less than $150,000, a commute that takes about 15 minutes and waaaaay less stress than I have in my current daily trip to work and back.

Incidentally, NoSUV called me a socialist in my earlier post, to which my wife is still giggling over. I have been a conservative for a long time (decades even), and have supported politicians and policies that fit that description during that time. I also believe that if we as voters bought something for a specific purpose, it should be used for that purpose until we as voters agree that another purpose is better. If we vote for that, cool. If it happens because some political group makes a decision, then it is an evil kind of reverse Robin Hood scenario. It takes from all of us normal folks (who have enough sense to share a ride) to give to the wealthy. Which will be a requirement in order to pay the $$$ for each inbound and outbound trip on a daily basis, presumably maintaining their single rider mentality. That would be particulary true in this case, since a ton of money is sure to change hands should it be changed to the HOT system.

Doug

Who's "everybody"? Are you saying that the people in the regular lanes are nobody?

quote:

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Originally posted by Baz
[br]I just dont understand how you can use these random numbers in your thinking. What happens to these numbers when in one or two years, Woodbridge completes the building of 2,000 more homes and these new people are now on I95 or Route 1 - now theyre included in your numbers, basically throwing everything off. I mean, its nice to do the math NOW - like all the home developers and council members like to do and think they have a grasp on the problem, but its all relative when the influx of homes and new immigrants are swamping the area faster than we can deal with getting the tranportation problem fixed. I say give it up! Im just glad we all have a finite number of years to live on this planet.

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Where were you and your crystal ball when land use restrictions were eased? Random numbers? Maybe. But still the numbers have 25% growth in the reversible lanes. Increase HOV on the reversible lanes to 4.

Growth on the regular lanes is about 35%. Go from 1.6 per car to 4 per car. At some point the anti-jitney laws are rescinded. Then expect to see "mom and pop" operation of 10 passengers in a 15 passenger van as a way to pay for the kid's college.

Then there is always the concept of alternate capital. Move the Nation's capital around like they do the Olympics. I nominate Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge as the location of the first alternate capital. The site would move on a four year cycle. The state that loses the lottery gets to host the federal government for four years. And they get to pay for it too. The idea is to get people to committing to infrastructure investment.

Yes, you are correct. The problem is getting passengers. Parking? fuggettaboutit. That land is more valuable to build houses on. OK, so the expenditure for services is more than the taxes collected. I won't be there when the bill comes due. Another legacy for our children.

If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

dickboyd@aol.com