How We Drive: Traffic and Algorithms in Seattle
Bill Beaty, Seattle resident and traffic scientist quoted in Tom Vanderbilt’s “Traffic”, on Seattle’s new Active Traffic Management system at work:
From what I can see, they’re trying to limit the inflow to the daily northbound jam at I-5 and I-90 interchange. The result is a large slowdown far south of the city, with an empty region right at the location of the daily jam. Very odd to encounter a major slowdown near my own home, where there never was congestion before …but then at the usual location of the giant I-5 snarl, the traffic flows free at 50mph. Presumably there no longer exists any continuously-growing daily jam. Merging at city exits has suddenly become easy. Probably the old jam has been converted into shockwaves moving slowly backwards, rather than the previously huge region of 20mph driving.
Tom’s soliciting Seattle-driver responses for those free from the east-west commute.
