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Originally Posted by someone123
The idea of optimizing for car speed is interesting. There are a lot of counterintuitive aspects to traffic, and one is that increasing car speeds does not increase the throughput of vehicles much. This is because the real bottleneck is human reflexes. Cars need to be spaced out by a couple of seconds to allow the drivers to avoid accidents. This implies that the cars have to be spaced out more at higher speeds. The throughput on a fast highway or slow surface street will both max out at a vehicle every couple of seconds. Modifying city streets to allow cars to drive really fast is not as useful as it seems.
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Yes, I believe it works like the slinky effect - if you slow one car down the effect of all the cars behind it, maintaining braking distance will eventually cause a stoppage in traffic. I believe the optimal speed is one where traffic can remain constant with no slow-downs. It's really part of the reason why well-designed roundabouts can work so well as they can flow with minimal stoppages.
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As far as commuter rail, the timing seems good and the plan seems realistic (the arguments about viability are really flawed arguments about economic returns; they are not compelling reasons to cancel the project). My only worry is that maybe there is some better alternative transit plan like light rail that was never really considered because everybody has been so fixated on the rail cut. On the other hand, if the city takes a step back maybe momentum will be lost and nothing will happen for years. The transportation planning process needs to be fixed so that this doesn't happen in the future. There should be a transportation authority that is always evaluating all of the plausible options from a regional rather than parochial perspective.
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I think this is the time to strike commuter rail as there is some momentum and public support. Of course, it should be part of a larger, long-term plan including other forms of transit designed to work as 1 big efficient unit, but we have to start somewhere.
I feel if it's not done now we might lose our chance.