HOT Lanes

I’ve been measured for a bobble head. It’s probably going to attract a few thousand fans. That’s the point of a bobble head: attract fans. What kind of fans? Basically people who collect bobble heads.

One reason is because of my vast experience with HOV lanes and HOT lanes. Washington uses transponders on the Tacoma Narrows bridges to lets people cross without having to stop at the toll booth. This is a big fad around the nation. Many of your bigger cities collect tolls this way.

The transponder goes in the windshield behind the rear view mirror. Yes, that’s right; that mirror in the middle of your windshield is for looking behind you, not for putting on makeup at 70 mph. The toll authority, Dubai or somebody, has a device that can read the ID of your transponder and send a message to the accounting department. It deducts another $12.50 from your bank account. The whole process is electronic so don’t even try to argue.

HOV lanes are set up so that car pools, busses, and dog sleds can use them to get past all the single occupant vehicles. Now individual drivers can buy a transponder and drive in the HOV lane if they’re willing to pay. They call it HOT lanes. However, in order to enforce the rules we’ll need to have somebody watching. The state Patrol will watch for single drivers using the HOT lanes without a transponder. What you do is buy one of my fake transponder decals. Paste it in your windshield and anybody looking will think it’s real. If the state patrol catches you then you may find it would have been a LOT cheaper to get a real one. And, since the state makes a whole lot of money when they catch a fake they slip me a little rebate – so everyone wins.

Washington has spent millions installing HOT lanes on the Valley Freeway. This is a daily jam up road from Auburn to Renton that’s been under construction for decades. Now you can drive from Renton to Auburn in the HOV lane and pay HOT money to avoid the slow lanes or use my fake decal and it’s free. The radio stations tell you how many minutes you can save by using that lane. “The Valley Freeway HOT Lane will save you three minutes today, but you’ll lose that when you get to I-405 because it’s stopped.” Public service.

That means there are several decisions to make each time you hit the road. How many minutes will I save? Is there anyone in the car with me? Can I afford the current HOT price? Will I be able to send my text message before I finish my breakfast burrito? Why in the world am I going to Renton anyway? How can I paint the screen door and power wash the deck if it’s raining? So many decisions you really need my fake transponder decal. Only $89.95.

This multi year study will determine if the state will install this kind of system on other freeways with HOV lanes. In essence they want to know if it relieves traffic congestion. NO. Traffic congestion is based on one simple issue: outlet. Aside from roadside mayhem that causes people to stop and gawk the main reason for congestion is you have to stop at the end points.

I-405 backs up every day because people leaving the freeway have to slow way down and dodge trucks trying to merge onto the freeway. Or dodge HOT lane drivers who have to cross from the far left lane to the right side exit in about 100 feet. Everyone has to stop. So the freeway backs up for miles. Every day. The DOT wants to make it wider. Just means more lanes to stop.

The Renton end of the Valley Freeway is a serious design flaw. If you can’t get onto the I-405 ramp there’s a traffic light on Grady Way that stops all lanes. They need to extend the HOV/HOT lane into the middle of Renton over the top of Grady Way. Then it would be worth the HOT lane fee. And even cheaper if you have a fake transponder.

My fake $89.95 transponder decal comes with a free Bobble Head Al; only $29.95 additional for shipping and potential legal fees. I’ll throw in a little bag so you’ll have a place to keep those annoying tickets.

Al

Rabid Transit Update

First, there was a note in the Newcastle News that a City Councilman is leading the charge to preserve the 42 miles of BNSF track from Renton to Snohomish. He’s actually serious. As I mentioned before, the most compelling reason BNSF wanted to sell the track is the cost of mitigating the grade crossings. It’s got to be enormous.

The second reason, of course, is the lack of business. The corridor no longer serves bulk customers. For railroads to make money they need to haul bulk cargo. Things like cars, coal, 737 bodies, and passengers. But the eastside cities have gone to office intensive businesses and bedrooms. The other big railroad cargo category is containers. We don’t have any container facilities over here in Bellevue. While I’m advocating using the railroads to carry as many of those annoying big truck trailers as possible I don’t see them being delivered to places between Renton and Snohomish.

There’s a third reason BNSF wants to sell the track: the State DOT is destroying part of it. The I-405 project will remove a section of track that goes over the Wilburton Tunnel right now. They had planned to use chance to do the job. What they were hoping for was a big accident in the tunnel that would require emergency demolition, but they finally gave up on that. The emergency demolition would have been required since major accidents attract about 200 emergency vehicles and they figured demolishing the tunnel would be the only way to find room to park them. But no such luck. They even changed the lane markings at random hoping to trigger a big wreck, but it just made people more alert. This is pretty much typical of DOT ideas – THEY DON’T WORK!

But the point is BNSF wanted to get rid of that 42 miles of right of way because it was no longer an asset. And the Port of Seattle was the designated buyer. The plan was that the Port would trade it to King County for the Boeing Field Airport. This was almost a good solution except that the Port Commission got in trouble with auditors due to some over charging of tax payers for hauling dirt. Hauling dirt is one of our main industries and spending a few minutes along the Maple Valley Highway will confirm that. Dump trucks loaded with dirt are bumper to bumper. Both ways. You’d think a couple of phone calls could cut that in half but what do I know?

Anyway, King County would eventually acquire the 42 mile corridor and they planned to designate it a park and install a bike path. That’s right, a bike path to Renton. Go figure!

But the Light Rail nut farmers, including the Newcastle councilman, want to run commuter trains on that track. And, if you don’t have a practical mind, it seems logical. Here’s an existing rail line relatively parallel to I-405 that could be used to get hundreds of drivers off the freeway every day. It would only cost $200 million to build stations, buy trains, and hire sign wavers to stand of street corners and yell at cars. Except the grade crossing mitigation would cost billions, but we don’t mention that. Sure, building a light rail from scratch costs billions but it’s designed as a light rail and includes flyovers and tunnels. Trying to retrofit this line would cost lots more.

Have I tipped my opinion?

Also, I’m apparently being recalled to active military duty. I got a letter from the Army today with all kind of stuff about what a great bunch of guys the Army is. There’s even a metal pin. I suppose it’s supposed to go on my uniform someplace when I report in. But where do I report?
I’ve decided: I’m going to report to the Newcastle City Council. I’ll tell them I’ve been recalled to active duty and that my first assignment is to clear a corridor for commuter rail between Renton and Snohomish. Poof! I’m done. “Just use the existing rail,” is what I’ll say. Then Honorable Discharge follows. The stunned looks will suffice as concurrence and its back to civilian life for me. Boy, the Army is easy.

Worried yet?

Lastly, I’m pronouncing the Renton Saturn dealer is a bunch of pusillanimous prevaricators. These boneheads recently sent my father-in-law off with his newly serviced Saturn and one of the items marked as “done” was “check outside lights” which they didn’t do. He has a brake light out. They didn’t check. For that they get a mention in the Lake Boren Report. If they goof up again, watch out. I might tell them I’m in the Army now and watch them quake.
Has Duvall Avenue closed yet? I need to go check.

Al

Trailer Trains to Save Gas

Most of us are looking at our gas gauges and wondering why it seems to go from F to E so fast. I remember seeing the needle actually move when I pressed the gas pedal on the old V8 Ford. It would accelerate from 20 to 80 in 6.2 seconds and use about an eighth of a tank in the process. Impressive.

We don’t drive cars like that any more. Those old guzzlers had 10 gallon tanks and dual carbs. Maybe more. Today we have 20 gallon tanks and electronic fuel injection. We can’t use leg muscle for acceleration. We’d hit that enormous truck in front of us. And that’s my complaint!

Last month I had the extreme pleasure of visiting Chicago’s 26 lane “expressways.” There are more huge trucks in Chicago than any city I’ve visited in the last ten years. They belong on the nation’s railroads. Really. And, of course, there are problems with that. Sharing the roads with them is worse. In Chicago they want $4.++ for a gallon of gas. Probably more now, as that was two days ago.

In order to get where you need to be you have to negotiate overly narrow lanes filled with overly wide trucks. They aren’t local delivery trucks. License plates show every state and province in North America. So why is a truck with a California plates crowding me in Chicago? Shouldn’t it be on the back of a railroad car? Isn’t that what those big flatbed Trailer Trains are all about?

Well it turns out America’s railroads are choked by their own success. Here’s how it works. Each train can be about a quarter of a mile long. They use an old system of light signals and radio dispatch to control movement. If there’s a train in the section ahead your train gets a red light. You have to wait until that train is out of the section before you can enter. All the trains behind your train have to wait on you to pass through the next section. The result is the railroads are “at capacity” even though there are thousands of miles of empty track.

But wait; don’t we have GPS and computer dispatch systems? Yes, we use them on trucks. But we don’t have that technology on trains yet. See, one very real problem is a train can’t stop within its own sight distance. If a truck comes around a corner and there’s traffic ahead it can slow down or stop pretty quickly. A train can’t. It has steel wheels and steel track. It slides.
That’s why trains have loud horns at grade crossings. Instead of stopping for traffic it just tries to scare it off.

The effect is America’s railroads are generally empty. A quarter mile long train occupies a 50 mile section of track. One train.

Ok, so why don’t we get GPS and computer dispatch systems on the railroads? I don’t know. They’ve never used those kinds of systems except for tracking payloads. Allegedly. It would be easy if the train people would just look around and open their minds.

Also they need to bring all the trains onto the systems at the same time. If a few have it and the rest don’t it might be interesting. But inefficient. And what about the equipment itself? If only one unit failed to function we could have a train wreck in Nebraska that would shut down California. And we need California, even though they don’t need us.

Oh, and if we figured out how to convert the railroads to 100% high tech dispatch can you think of other problems?

The answer is yes. Send me answers about what you think might be the other problems. Meanwhile, lobby your legislators about it. If we have fewer trucks on the road we could have smoother traffic and save gas.

Al