Screw light rail, never gonna happen in the Puget Sound. Â Gotta improve the highways, gotta improve the flow.
But how? Â Money is tight, and there is little room to expand.
Never fret, I have a cheap solution that will relieve some traffic pressure!
See, I drive 30 miles to work every day, and then 30 miles home, all on the interstate. Â One thing I have noticed is that the drivers I share the road with are a bunch of morbid freaks. Â What I mean is, if I am in the southbound lanes, and there is a wreck that is blocking a lane or two, or even on the shoulder, of the southbound lanes; and there are cops and ambulances and tow trucks around, slowing down is a good idea, and I only curse the idiot who caused the accident.
But if that accident is in the northbound lanes, then there is only one reason for the southbound lanes to slow down, and that is because people want to look at all the blood!
See, morbid freaks.
My solution, however, is simple. Â Visual barriers down the center of the highway. Â SB drivers got no need to see the NB lanes, and vice versa, and if you can’t see the accident, and don’t know it’s there, you got no reason to slow down.
Seriously, every time I pass an accident on the other side of the highway, and the slow down disappears right there, I want to mount the .30-cal and open up. Â Or maybe an EMP gun.
This idea was proposed for the DC metropolitian area in the 80s. It was shot down because – wait for it – traffic congestion is good because it encourages people to use alternative transportation. Congestion is also good because people will buy homes closer to work, raising home prices in the high-tax/high-corruption areas (like DC, PG and Montgomery counties) rather than living in further-away more rural areas.
The EMP gun would shut down every vehicle on the highway in both directions. This is only appealing if you tell me it would also vaporize them.
My favorite accessory is a microwave horn extending out the back of my vehicle like a hitch receiver that would scramble the electronics in the car tailgating behind me, preferably before he gets to turning on those annoying red and blue lights.
Billll, I was thinking of something directional and limited, not area effect.
This cloaking-thing is routinely done on the Autobahn in Germany.
I suppose the thinking on this would depend on how fed up you are. Also, after a nice beer and some consideration, the area effect device loses some of its charm when you consider that the user would be in the middle of the affected area.
Still, the directed microwave could also be used to facilitate lane changes by forcing the boob in the next lane to slow down and let you over. Bonus points if he forgets that his starter will work in both neutral and park, and tries to shift to park to restart before he stops rolling.