Link still works for me. It is actually a link to an article published by WaPo back in February.
MTA to release "narrowed down" list of locations for third bridge to eastern shore soon (Who will be the lucky winner?)
- Thread starter zar
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PeoplesElbow
Well-Known Member
I think the area has to be developed beyond the roads capacity for this to hold true.
Think about it, why would they make roads bigger and do the study in the first place?
It is like the GEICO commercials, People who switched to GEICO saved... of course they saved why else would they have switched?
There are sparsely populated areas with nice four lane highways through them, after the highway was built it didn't suddenly bring more people or create more gridlock. These studies were probably done on places that were underserved by roads to begin with.
Does anyone really think that if they decided to make an 8 lane super highway through Death Valley the amount of traffic would suddenly increase? To me it just sounds like a justification from people who don't want more people, more traffic etc.
Goldenhawk
Well-Known Member
Except that it’s not justification, it’s science and statistical analysis from pure researchers with an unbiased interest in factual understanding, often universities and doctoral students. Such studies are often quoted by people in support of their preferred answer, but that doesn’t invalidate the science.
LightRoasted
If I may ...
If I may ...
I've heard, in some other countries, "planners", take into account entire developments before making decisions on road building. Such as an undeveloped 5000 acres of land, even before anything is built, houses, businesses, buildings, any and all infrastructure. They build the roads to accommodate what will be. But here, we do it backwards. Build housing, buildings, infrastructure, then try to increase road capacity, or add new roads.
That's all true. Just as with Route 4. For a long long time it was long long four lane highway running through a very sparsely populated area. But as I said, built for the intention of emergency egress, as well as the Solomons bridge, in case of a nuclear meltdown at the plant. And with Route 4, it took about 40 years or so to reach capacity, kinda, in some spots.
I've heard, in some other countries, "planners", take into account entire developments before making decisions on road building. Such as an undeveloped 5000 acres of land, even before anything is built, houses, businesses, buildings, any and all infrastructure. They build the roads to accommodate what will be. But here, we do it backwards. Build housing, buildings, infrastructure, then try to increase road capacity, or add new roads.
PeoplesElbow
Well-Known Member
So if St Marys county decided to not widen Rt 235, NAVAIR still decided to move down here do you really think traffic would be just the same as it is now with a two lane road?
Common sense has to play a role interpreting these studies. I would wager that in these studies the population far exceeded the road capacity and even after the road capacity was increased the population still exceeded the road capacity and that is why their studies say this. They do the same thing with schools, build a new school and by the time it is built it is still too small so they have to put trailers etc out in front of the school.
If we decided to increase the road capacity again do you think we would suddenly start building 50 story apartment buildings to keep up with the road capacity?
If anyone looks at the topography in that image, the most practical location for the bridge would be north of the Susquehanna River.
The further south your go, the more water ways you have to cross on both the eastern and western shores.
It might help the tourism industry on the eastern shore, but at what cost to the environment on both sides of the bay?
The first question is, where are people that use the current bridge coming from and going to?
They aren't coming to southern Maryland. My guess is the majority of the traffic is the Baltimore-Washington corridor, where the bulk of the population is.
If you read the analysis the peak traffic time is weekends, particularly in the shore weather season. My guess, is most people are heading to the coast, the beach.
The impact to this area (Southern Calvert / St. Mary's) would not be an increase in population, it would be an increase in through traffic.
Each road, 5/235 and 4 doesn't have much room for expansion. Think of places like Charlotte Hall, do you build a bypass like Hughesville?
Dunkirk, Prince Frederick, can you imagine trying to widen Rt 4 through either town center and what those stop lights would do with traffic?
Then I look at the land the highway would have to cross to get to the bridge. A lot of fill, bridges, etc would need to be built.
The further south your go, the more water ways you have to cross on both the eastern and western shores.
It might help the tourism industry on the eastern shore, but at what cost to the environment on both sides of the bay?
The first question is, where are people that use the current bridge coming from and going to?
They aren't coming to southern Maryland. My guess is the majority of the traffic is the Baltimore-Washington corridor, where the bulk of the population is.
If you read the analysis the peak traffic time is weekends, particularly in the shore weather season. My guess, is most people are heading to the coast, the beach.
The impact to this area (Southern Calvert / St. Mary's) would not be an increase in population, it would be an increase in through traffic.
Each road, 5/235 and 4 doesn't have much room for expansion. Think of places like Charlotte Hall, do you build a bypass like Hughesville?
Dunkirk, Prince Frederick, can you imagine trying to widen Rt 4 through either town center and what those stop lights would do with traffic?
Then I look at the land the highway would have to cross to get to the bridge. A lot of fill, bridges, etc would need to be built.
Goldenhawk
Well-Known Member
Your points have some merit, especially about overgeneralizing the studies. But in general, you're not arguing with me, but instead with scientists and statisticians. I'm just repeating their claims that challenge your viewpoint.
For example, to your first sentence, I think the population would not have doubled in size like it has - it would have gone up, but definitely not so much. So there is (in my sense) a definite relationship between roads and size.
They could have left 235 as a one lane cow path and the population would have grown because BRAC and NAVAIR HQ would have still transferred thousands of government jobs plus support contractor positions to Pax River. People would have moved regardless of the road. The county could have denied all building permits, that would have stopped people from moving in, but they still would be traveling down the road.
PeoplesElbow
Well-Known Member
That's fair, where can i find these studies. I think people around here just point at them in an attempt to keep anything new from being built without actually reading them.
If I remember the 90s correctly "unbiased researchers and scientists" said the polar ice cap would be melted by now and that we would have an increasing number of hurricanes every year too.
I deal with engineers and scientists every day that have some agenda and will make data and statistics say anything they want until they are proven otherwise, sometimes not even then.
Back in the 70's, a lot of those same scientists were predicting a new Ice Age.
GWguy
*
nailed it.