A truck with a high load underestimated the height of his load by 2 inches and found himself wedged into the entrance of a tunnel. Unable to back out, experts were called to come and see what could be done to get the truck removed.
All of the engineers crowded around scratching their heads and making drastic suggestions.
Finally a little boy walked up, looked at the engineers and suggested “Why don’t you just let the air out of the tires.
State Bridge and 141 is a major headache for commuters in the mornings when you are headed southbound. So much that the headache often spreads to other intersections north, creating aggravating and dangerous situations.
We have seen lots of suggestions made, some costing millions and millions and to the best of my knowledge and research, never been implemented at such a busy intersection(Think Michigan Thru Turn).
I have been suggesting for more than two years that the right turn lane southbound be made a through lane as well.
With the existing asphalt today, and removing and or relocating two concrete islands they could have this done and working. Let’s look at how these minor improvements could yield major improvements.
Southbound traffic has a green light for 45% of the time and a red light for 55% of the time. ( I’ll let you decide if that is appropriate at all). There are approximately 21 light cycles during the hour(I measured during the 7:00 am hour on 2/16/2017).
On average 70 vehicles were able to proceed on a green light. That works out to 1570 vehicles per hour for the two lanes southbound.
A third lane would allow up to an additional 735 vehicles an hour proceed through the light.
By allowing this to happen, we can safely assume that our queue, or traffic backup, at the end of that hour would be shorter by 735 vehicles. Because that would be spread over the two existing lanes, that works out to 367 fewer vehicles in each lane that are not there.
Using an average length of 17 feet for a vehicle(we are not even giving any length for the space between vehicles), that equals 6,239 feet (more than 1 mile).
Think about that. More than 1 mile of backed up vehicles in each lane no longer there. All by implementing a third lane southbound. (Wilson Road to State Bridge Road is 1.1 miles)
( What are those delays costing us? Read http://1c4.f98.myftpupload.com/2015/06/05/the-high-cost-of-traffic-dollar-and-sense/ )
How long would this new lane need to be? Certainly not the distance the City of Johns Creek wants to choose. By my calculations it would need to be 600 feet or so.(Note: I’d add three hundred feet more to accommodate the space between vehicles)
Fortunately, the distance between Crossing Way and State Bridge Road is 681 feet.
Would your commute be better if this was implemented? I certainly think so.
Why haven’t we already done this? Maybe we just haven’t been listening to the right ideas.
More importantly than that, what are we waiting for?
