Worst Traffic

[Spanky]

http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/traffic_1.html
By the Texas Transportation Institute's reckoning, the cities having the worst traffic problems are:

1. Los Angeles, Long Beach, Santa Ana, Calif.
2. San Francisco, Oakland, Calif.
3. Washington, D.C.
4. Atlanta
5. Houston
6. Dallas, Fort Worth, Arlington, Tex.
7. Chicago.
8. Detroit
9. Riverside, San Bernardino, Calif.
9. Orlando, Fla.
11. San Jose, Calif.
12. San Diego

[cute fuzzy bunny]

It'll be Yuba City where I live before long.

The county is taking everyones building permit money and pocketing it, and thousands of homes are going in. No new roads going in anytime soon, and I dont know where the hell the water is going to come from or what they're going to do with waste as everyones on septic around here. Traffic already gridlocks at rush hour.

Seems to be the latest gig in california to override prop 13's limits on property taxes. Let growth go nuts, spend the permit money and other funds that should be going to infrastructure on other crap, then when people build 3000 homes in a flood plain, the traffic is out of hand, and there are 50 kids per classroom, go to the voters to float a bond to pay for a levy, a road, or a new school. Bonds are extra on top of your prop 13 tax bill. I've got a couple of hundred a year; my dad has about five hundred.

[Outtahere]

Dh and I just returned from driving to and from FL, our observation is there is traffic every where. The further north we drove on the way home the worse it became, Washington area is just misrable and we avoid that like the plague, Richmond comes in second with the Jackonsville area third. He also drives to SD every summer and the Chicago area is also avoided by way of Canada.

On the other link in that article about most dangerous interchanges, I drive the I-93 into Boston every day, needless to say the traffic is horrible and was made even worse by the "Big Dig" project. That's now finished, the only thing it did was move the congestion to different areas, now instead of the gridlock being right in the heart of Boston moved it just to the north and to the south. This has made my ride home even more trying, one of the main reasons for joining this board and working on an ER.

[jacambece]

i HATE traffic...NY traffic is the worst i have delt with

Cambece

[grumpy]

In Virginia we just elected a Democrat as governor (in a traditionally Republican state) who campaigned on a platform of fixing the transportation problems. The Northern Virginia suburbs of D.C. have some of the worst traffic in the country. We live one mile from Interstate 95. Since we are retired we don't have to deal with rush hour traffic, but the traffic at other times can also be horrendous. There is a web site with live traffic cameras along I-95 that I always check before venturing toward D.C. Unfortunately there are not many alternate routes. If I had to do a daily communte in this area I would surely commit unspeakable acts of road rage

Grumpy

[cube_rat]

I just wrapped up a week of training at Oracle in Pleasanton. Let's just say 880/238/580 just sucks big time. It was either endure being sandwiched on all four sides by big rigs (love the mac trucks right on my butt, that's a nice feeling ) or being on BART going under the bay and worrying about the big quake occurring at any moment.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I used to take the bart from el cerrito into SF every day. Heard the bart tube was the safest place to be in the event of an earth quake in SF. All in all, I think i'd prefer to be in arizona when that happens.

[justin]

I believe my job as a traffic engineer in the USA is pretty secure.

What I find bizarre is the fact that people aren't deterred from living in a city with horrible traffic problems. Supposedly, behavioral research studies have shown that people don't value their time spent stuck in traffic very highly. Anecdotally, that seems to be a correct conclusion. The per hour perceived cost of commuting is relatively constant for low- and high-income earners.

Overpopulation.

[Spanky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cube_rat I just wrapped up a week of training at Oracle in Pleasanton.

It used to be PeopleSoft?

[cube_rat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanky It used to be PeopleSoft?

Yep. Oracle frantically changed signs like "PeopleSoft Pkwy" to "Oracle Pkwy". Great on-site cafeteria. Fully stocked with chefs,etc

[Jay_Gatsby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cube_rat Yep.* Oracle frantically changed signs like "PeopleSoft Pkwy" to "Oracle Pkwy".* Great on-site cafeteria.* Fully stocked with chefs,etc...

I guess some of the spending/perks of tech companies survived the dot-bomb crash...

[cube_rat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jay_Gatsby I guess some of the spending/perks of tech companies survived the dot-bomb crash...

Google serves breakfast, lunch and dinner in the hopes of keeping their engineers forever chained to their desks. No thank. :P

[Spanky]

"Along with free dining, Google workers at the Silicon Valley headquarters have an onsite doctor, car wash and oil change, and a gym staffed with personal trainers, according to the company..."

I wonder if they provide rooms for sleeping.

[free4now]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanky "Along with free dining, Google workers at the Silicon Valley headquarters have an onsite doctor, car wash and oil change, and a gym staffed with personal trainers, according to the company..." I wonder if they provide rooms for sleeping.

Well no doctor but my bay area tech company has an onsite dentist, car wash, oil change, and gym with personal trainers. Of course employees have to pay to use these things.

I do remember clearly that during the dotcom boom one of the most requested benefits was a "nap room". They never obliged, but they did make rooms with nice comfy recliners and locks on the doors as "nursing stations" for new mothers. Those became the defacto nap rooms.

[Brat]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spanky "Along with free dining, Google workers at the Silicon Valley headquarters have an onsite doctor, car wash and oil change, and a gym staffed with personal trainers, according to the company..." I wonder if they provide rooms for sleeping.

I think that one of the reasons MicroSoft provides offices for programmers is to give them a place to nap during development marathons.* I have a nephew who, before he married, lived in his office.* He and his bride were able to save enough for a down payment on a house- no rent or utilities, no commute costs.* He took his college frugrality to the next level.

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fireme Those became the defacto nap rooms.

Wotta buncha wimps. I used to sleep sitting up in the CO's chair on the conn... er... never mind.

Speaking of wimps, during the research for "The Nudist on the Late Shift", Po Bronson ran across a picture taken by Meri Simon that ran in the San Jose Mercury News as "Sleepless in Silicon Valley". It showed one of Yahoo!'s founders, David Filo, wrapped in a blanket & sound asleep under his desk.

At the time he was worth $500 million. But maybe he's invested wisely since then and can afford a bed now.