Every time I travel to Albuquerque I marvel at how efficiently you can drive around town. How is it that traffic moves twice as efficiently in a city twice Lincoln's size? I'm not talking about traveling on the freeway, either. I'm talking about driving through town on regular ol' arterials.
One of their secrets isn't so secret: many of their major roads are six lanes wide. That certainly helps keep things moving. But that doesn't explain it all.
I have always wondered how Albuquerque keeps traffic moving when so many of their arterials are lined, mile after mile, by driveways for businesses. Unlike Lincoln, which tries to minimize direct access to businesses as much as possible, Albuquerque seems to tolerate it with very few problems. Granted, it makes for an ugly roadside, but it doesn't seem to have hurt traffic flow one bit. If anything, it seems to have contributed to the city's superior vehicle movement. Fewer collector roads means fewer stop lights. Fewer stop lights means less traffic interruption. Less traffic interruption means you get where you're going sooner. We managed to drive 10 miles through the heart of the city in 15 minutes at 5:30pm. I can hardly imagine doing that in Lincoln except at 3 in the morning.
I have no doubt there are dozens of factors at play that help make driving easier in Albuquerque than in Lincoln. For example, Albuquerque is less dense than Lincoln (~2,500/square mile versus ~3,000/square mile). I suspect that at least some of the contributing factors could be emulated here. I sure wouldn't mind giving it a try.
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“How is it that traffic moves twice as efficiently in a city twice Lincoln
Word.
If the roads are so great in Albuquerque why was Bugs Bunny always taking wrong turns there?
I was thinking about this a little myself last weekend when I was in Phoenix. The arterials, both north/south and east/west, were great for getting around in a hurry. Fewer lights and fewer bottlenecks were the key, it seemed. Why? is my question.
I tend to think it is because those desert cities didn’t experience huge growth until the second half of the 20th century and city leaders were better able to plan for the growth they knew was coming.
It’s definitely the lights. I don’t know what the process is for getting a set installed at an intersection, but I can’t count the numbers of times I or someone I know have said “They’re putting stoplights there?”.
One particular area that has been botched is 70th and Pioneers. About a block south, you have a light at Stacy. I can’t think of any reason for this light except for 4:45-5:15 when people are leaving work in that area. To the east, there’s a light by the Phillips 66 and Lenox Village apartments. I can’t think of any reason for that light. If you ask a city engineer, they’ll probably have you look at the intersection and say ‘Look at all those cars, we need a light’, when the reality is that they’re all there sitting at the light and would be long gone without it. I could go into detail about several other intersections that have pointless lights.
I think the policy may be to put a light wherever there may be rush hour traffic (and leave the light on all day, and even at night), or where there was a fatal accident. Traffic lights seem to make city engineers feel better about fatalities.
We need to get the green freaks involved here. If someone were to quantify the amount of ‘global warming’ happening because cars have to stop and start so much here, maybe it will drive a policy change (pun intended). If light removal isn’t an option, then how about making the ones such as 70th and Stacy flashing yellows and reds after 9pm? I’ve seen that before, maybe it was KC, and it was wonderful.
Dave, I think that light at Stacy was put in just for you.
Oh yeah, and Lincoln drivers are awful. Sometimes it seems like people actually drive like they tell you to in STOP class. If everyone drove like that it would take 4 hours to get from 70th and O to 27th and South.
Coddington and West A to 77th and A. 40 minutes.
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