They just approved an excise tax increase here for "transportation". They want to build a train - $2.6 billion or something like that. $100mil/mile.
Terry - do you think technology is at the point where we could build a system of road sensors and car-mounted computers/displays to monitor and control traffic on major corridors? I'm thinking of a system that tracks and coordinates individual auto speed and spacing as well as routing - I don't mean automatic control of vehicles, but a display showing the driver parameters, like 'stay within the green bars' for speed and spacing, see the tolls for various routes, that sort of thing. Choose to drive the 'bad' direction on a corridor at a 'bad' time and you rack up tolls. Speed or impede traffic, drive in the orange or red zone on your display and you rack up tolls or even fines. Drive off-hours etc. for no tolls or restrictions, maybe even win movie tickets <g>. Surely there's been studies and proposals for systems like this. Somebody hitting the commute hard every day in prime time should pay $hundreds per year for their yearly auto license fee, those who don't use the syste! m much pay some minimum, maybe much lower than the average fee is now. Distributes usage fees fairly. They're going to ram that stupid train down our throats here and we're going to $choke on it, but people aren't going to abandon their cars to go ride it. This is a disaster. Why do we have to resort to 150 year old tech when we might be able to use the new stuff to turn our existing highways into a well orchestrated transportation system that has at least the same if not better effect on congestion than a train, lets people stay in their cars, costs far less to install, and pays for itself or maybe even *makes* money for itself and other programs? - R. >This interactive map: > >http://www.georgia-navigator.com/maps/atlanta > >shows near live traffic if you click on "cameras" at the top. It's a part of >the $1/4 B traffic management system originally built for the '96 Olympics and >expanded upon since. > >I work near the junction of 400 and 85 and live 17 miles NE.
