From the New Zealand Herald:
On Saturday, a single crash near the Central Motorway Junction in Auckland left much of the city’s motorway network gridlocked for the afternoon. Many Aucklanders are askng why the impact was so large and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. The unfortunate reality is that crashes and gridlock are an inevitable part of car-based transport systems. We can’t fix that by building wider motorways – all that will do is encourage more driving and thus increase the number of people sitting frustratedly in traffic. What we can do is build a transport system that minimises the number of people affected by giving them the option to travel congestion-free by bus, train, ferry, or bicycle.
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UPDATE:
SINGAPORE: A technical fault which resulted in a power outage caused the service disruption of the Sentosa Express, the island’s monorail system, on Thursday night (Dec 4). Sixty-one guests and staff were on board, and the last passenger was only safely brought down from the train at 2am the next morning, according to Sentosa Leisure Management.
We regularly have system failures on our roads and highways, but they only make the traffic reports, not the news. 3 car pile up blocking bridge X for 4 hours, ho hum. There’s no cry for reform of the system or executive pay cuts. It’s just the way it is.
1 hour delay in your car = meh, traffic was bad today.
1 hour delay on skytrain = the system is broken, translink is just a bunch of fat cats, hell no I’m not voting for more money for these idiots, etc etc
It’s absolute lunacy.
What I enjoy about this brand of lunacy is that much of this self-righteous anger over Skytrain delays comes from motorists.
Really? Like me, I doubt most motorists cared one way or the other, other than to help stranded coworkers. All I felt was bemusement.
The morning news is largely comprised of traffic reports.
I suppose the two realms of anger and delay could / will coalesce in Surrey when the LRT is built.
Also on the news this morning – the internet being abuzz about a video showing an Edmonton (?) woman who couldn’t reverse out of a parking space without backing into other cars – and was eventually tracked down by police and ticketed.
And the 4 hour delay to get rescued from a Singapore Monorail:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/61-rescued-from-stalled/1511638.html
Bus is not an alternative if it is stuck in traffic. Perhaps Auckland should invest in tow trucks in stand by to clear accidents faster. Of course the coming wave of self driving cars will help eliminate driver error.