Originally Posted by Kestrel
It seems intuitive that doubling the lanes doubles the throughput, but it doesn't because your bottleneck is farther north where everyone is going. Eventually, the converted southbound lane has to resume southbound service (esp as you approach cities like Dallas where people use the southbound lane) so, guess what, your northbound evacuation traffic has to merge back into the northbound lane. Which means taht there will be massive stoppage as eight lanes of highway try to merge back into 4.
So say you want to avoid that entirely and have people exit before a major metropolitan area (like Dallas). How many surface streets can handle several million cars? Probably not very many. Again, there will be major stoppages as several million cars try to exit on two or three lane exit ramps onto 3 or 4 lane roads.
Basically, all that doubling the lanes does is open up a parking lot on the other side of the highway.
Obviously. But what I'm saying is this: Maybe, somewhere, there is a guy who understands the highway dynamics much better than us, and could formulate a plan so people aren't stuck riding out a freaking Cat4 hurricane in their cars. So, at this point, unless an act of god occurs to stop this storm altogether, things are going to go from bad to worse for these people. I'm just saying it's something we should ponder, because of little other possible alternatives.
And to the people protecting FEMA: Goddamnit it's FEMA's job to direct the local gov'ts. They're the central player in managing the event both before and after the disaster (If you don't believe me, read their charter), and while we have yet to really see how the local governments are preparing for the event and it's aftermath, this hurricane will really be the litmus test for this organization's ability.