Traffic (42 page)

Prologue: Why I Became a Late Merger

in a business magazine: Matt Asay, “How Team Works.”
Connect,
November 2003. Retrieved from
http://www.connect-utah.com/article.asp?r=189&iid=17&sid=4
.

mingle so freely: There are exceptions to this, of course, as in the case of the ban on women drivers in Saudi Arabia (which extends even to golf carts) or the segregated highways in Israel for Palestinians and Israelis. See Brian Whitaker, “Saudi Driving Ban on Women Extends to Golf Carts,”
Guardian,
March 3, 2006, and Steven Erlanger, “A Segregated Road in an Already Driving Land,”
New York Times,
August 11, 2007.

people and things became interchangeable: Sean Dockray, Steve Rowell, and Fiona Whitton point out that while terms like
computer
and
typewriter
used to refer to people (e.g., the profession of a typewriter), they now refer exclusively to the technologies themselves. We have become traffic, they argue, but we do not like to admit that in our language. See “Blocking All Lanes,”
Cabinet,
no. 17 (Spring 2005).

on certain streets altogether: See Eric Poehler, “The Circulation of Traffic in Pompeii’s Regio VI,”
Journal of Roman Archaeology,
vol. 19 (2005), pp. 53–74.

no traffic or street signs: Poehler argues that given the level of preservation at Pompeii, had these signs existed there would likely be archeological evidence today. Drivers, he suggests, relied instead upon the cues of other drivers or design cues in the streetscape, while people looking for addresses relied more upon relative cues (e.g., turn left at the butcher shop or right at the shrine). Correspondence with Eric Poehler.

Vico di Mercurio: Poehler suggests that these changes must have been overseen by some kind of Department of Traffic Engineering. “The inescapable implication is that the traffic system was carefully managed by a central, executive individual or group at the municipal level.” See Eric Poehler, “A Reexamination of Traffic in Pompeii’s Regio VI: The Casa del Fauno, the Central Baths, and the Reversal of Vico di Mercurio,”
Archaeological Institute of America
(2005).

In ancient Rome: The Roman traffic history comes from
The Roads of the Romans,
by Romolo August Staccioli (Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2003), in particular pp. 21–23.

“a devil-fish from sleeping”: quoted in ibid, p. 23.

“of the Mayor”: The English traffic history comes from the wonderful book
Street Life in Medieval England,
by G. T. Salusbury Jones (Oxford: Pen-in-Hand, 1939).

“contesting for the way”: The information on traffic fatalities and the accounts of London drivers are taken from Emily Cockayne’s exemplary study
Hubbub: Filth, Noise and Stench in England
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), pp. 157–80.

“reckless drivers”: The 1867 pedestrian fatality figure comes from
Ways of the World: A History of the World’s Roads and of the Vehicles That Used Them
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1992), p. 132.

“wish to pass over”:
New York Times,
April 9, 1888.

“to show illumination at night”: “Our Unwary Pedestrians,”
New York Times,
December 24, 1879.

right-of-way to women?: For a delightful account of the impact of the bicycle on American culture, see Sidney H. Aronson, “The Sociology of the Bicycle,”
Social Forces,
vol. 30, no. 3 (March 1952), pp. 305–12. Aronson noted, “Thus it can be concluded that the bicycle provided a preview on a miniature scale of much of the social phenomena which the automobile enlarged upon.”

“good roads”: For more on the history on the bicycle, including the Good Roads Movement, see David Herlihy’s comprehensive
Bicycle: The History
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 5. Bicycle manufacturing, Herlihy notes, was the forerunner of the mass assembling of automobiles, and many bicycle-repair shops were converted into gas stations.

“social or business prominence”:
New York Times,
September 15, 1903.

“right way to turn a corner”: “Proposed Street Traffic Reforms,”
New York Times Magazine
supplement, February 23, 1902.

“special indications meant”: from Gordon M. Sessions,
Traffic Devices: Historical Aspects Thereof
(Washington, D.C.: Institute of Traffic Engineers, 1971), p. 63.

“red” time remained: The Wilshire and Western traffic light information comes from Sessions,
Traffic Devices,
ibid., p. 45.

learned red and green?: The story about color blindness and traffic signals comes from Clay McShane, “The Origins and Globalization of Traffic Control Signals,”
Journal of Urban History,
March 1999. p. 396.

roles of city streets: Jeffrey Brown, “From Traffic Regulation to Limited Ways: The Effort to Build a Science of Transportation Planning,”
Journal of Planning History,
vol. 5, no. 1 (February 2006), pp. 3–34.

collapse of the Berlin Wall: For a fascinating discussion of how German Democratic Republic traffic engineering was affected by the reunification of Germany, and the cultural underpinnings and consequences of those decisions, see Mark Duckenfield and Noel Calhoun, “Invasion of the Western
Ampelmännchen,
”
German Politics,
vol. 6, no. 3 (December 1997), pp. 54–69.

offers no improvement at all: As I was succinctly told by Michael Primeggia, deputy director of operations at New York City’s Department of Transportation, “People have argued that the countdown signal gives more information to peds to make intelligent choices. Why would I think more info would be better, when right now I provide them good information and they choose to ignore it?” Some studies have found that pedestrians were
less
compliant with countdown signals; see, for example, H. Huang and C. Zegeer, “The Effects of Pedestrian Countdown Signals in Lake Buena Vista,” University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center for Florida Department of Transportation, November 2000. Accessible via
www.dot.state.fl.us/safety/ped_bike/handbooks_and_research/research/CNT-REPT.pdf
. This could be an artifact, of course, of pedestrians rationally analyzing the situation and deciding that they have plenty of time to cross the street before their signal has expired. While they are technically “violating” the signal, they are also using the information smartly.

gradually rolled back: For a discussion of differential speed limits and their effects on safety, see “Safety Effects of Differential Speed Limits on Rural Interstate Highways,” Federal Highway Administration, Washington, D.C., October 2005, FHWA-HRT-05-042.

“become more surrealistic”: Henry Barnes,
The Man with the Red and Green Eyes
(New York: Dutton, 1965), p. 218.

“things you can do”: Ralph Vartabadian, “Your Wheels,”
Los Angeles Times,
May 14, 2003.

“explicit argument”: The quote about convex mirrors comes from a telephone interview with Michael Flannagan.

insurance company surveys: A 2002 survey by Progressive Insurance, for example, which queried more than eleven thousand drivers who had filed a claim for a crash in 2001, found that 52 percent of the accidents occurred within five miles of the driver’s home, and 77 percent occurred within fifteen miles of the home. Retrieved on October 3, 2007, from
http://newsroom.progressive.com/2002/May/fivemiles.aspx
.

A study by: See, for example, Tova Rosenbloom, Amotz Perlmana, and Amit Shahara, “Women Drivers’ Behavior in Well-known Versus Less Familiar Locations,”
Journal of Safety Research,
vol. 38, issue 3, 2007, pp. 283–88. Studies have also shown drivers are less likely to wear seat belts on shorter trips, which would seem to indicate a feeling of greater safety close to home. See, for one, David W. Eby, Lisa J. Molnar, Lidia P. Kostyniuk, Jean T. Shope, and Linda L. Miller, “Developing an Optimal In-Vehicle Safety Belt Promotion System” (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, 2004).

food or health care:
Driven to Spend
(Surface Transportation Policy Project, 2001).

more own three than own one: Alan Pisarski,
Commuting in America III
(Washington, D.C.,: Transportation Research Board, 2006), p. 38.

has a three-car garage: Amy Orndorff, “Garages Go Gigantic: Car Buffs Opt for Bigger Spaces,”
Washington Post,
September 13, 2006.

thirty-eight hours annually: See Tim Lomax and David Schrank,
2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report,
compiled for the Texas Transportation Institute (College Station: Texas A&M University, 2007).

by nearly half: Surface Transportation Policy Partnership,
Mean Streets 2002,
chapter 2. Retrieved at
http://www.transact.org/report.asp?id=159
.

“food and beverage venue”: This phrase comes from
Food and Drug Packaging,
March 2002.

there were 504:
Frozen Food Age,
vol. 54, no. 1 (August 2005), p. 38.

84.4 billion in 2008: On-the-go eating figures come from the market research firm Datamonitor.

gentler, slower age: Drive-through sales figure comes from the
Wall Street Journal,
May 21, 2000.

through a car window:
Chicago Sun-Times,
October 7, 2005.

at least once per week: According to a survey commissioned by the Food Strategy Implementation Partnership (FSIP), Bord Bia, and Intertrade Ireland, and carried out by Invest NI, as quoted in
Checkout,
February 2006.

in order to speed traffic: Julie Jargon, “McD’s Aims for the Fast Lane.”
Crain’s Chicago Business,
June 27, 2005, p. 3. The article does note that the two ordering lanes must merge into one paying lane; there is no word of any reported merging difficulties.

burgeoning drive-through customers: Geoffrey Fowler, “Drive-Through Tips for China,”
Wall Street Journal,
June 20, 2006.

company-owned stores: Elizabeth M. Gillespie, “Starbucks Bows to Customer Demand,”
Toronto Star,
December 27, 2005.

“handle well in the car”: This quote comes from a press release accessed through Business Wire, retrieved at
http://www.hispanicprwire.com/news.php?l=in&id=4394&cha=4
. The dashboard-dining test was performed by Kelton Research; it was the firm’s CEO, Tom Bernthal, whom I met with to discuss the test.

drive-through window: Carole Paquette, “Drive-Throughs Move Beyond Banks and Fast Food,”
New York Times,
April 8, 2001.

Audio Publishers Association: Information on audiobooks comes from documents provided by the Audio Publishers Association.

to bear in L.A. traffic: Idan Ivri, “Gridlock: How Traffic Has Rerouted Jewish Life,”
Jewish Journal,
July 9, 2004. The political scientist Robert Putnam suggests that every ten minutes of commute time
“cuts involvement in community affairs by 10 percent”
(Putnam’s italics); from Putnam,
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), p. 213.

on their left sides: Based on research by Scott Fosko, Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Article retrieved from:
http://www.aad.org/aad/Newsroom/Driving+An+Automobile.htm
.

“toward the same horizon”: From Alexis de Tocqueville,
Democracy in America
(repr.; London: Penguin, 2003), p. 328.

double since 1990: Elizabeth Rosenthal, “Car Boom Puts Europe on Road to a Smoggy Future,”
New York Times,
January 7, 2007.

underground parking garages: “Car Ownership Boom Means Traffic Jams in Once-Tranquil Tibet,”
International Herald Tribune,
November 7, 2007.

Caracas: Rory Carroll, “Carbon Leaves Caracas in One Big Jam,”
Guardian,
November 23, 2006. The “seven cents” gas figure comes from Simon Romero, “Venezuela Hands Narrow Defeat to Chavez Plans,”
New York Times,
October 30, 2007.

the legendary traffic: In a 2004 estimate, São Paulo was said to have just under four miles of freeways to accommodate more than five million vehicles. Los Angeles, by contrast, had nine hundred miles to handle about seven million vehicles. See Henry Chu, “São Paulo Seeks Road Map to Life Without Traffic Jams,”
Los Angeles Times,
November 9, 2004. In 2007, a rising number of fatal helicopter crashes was prompting calls to limit the growing airborne traffic. See Cristina Christiano, “SP quer limitar tráfego de helicópteros,”
O Globo,
September 24, 2007.

faster car-pool lanes: Matthew Moore, “Car Jockeys Often in for Rough Ride from Traffic Police,”
Sydney Morning Herald,
December 26, 2002.

human “nav system”: This information came via an e-mail correspondence with Jian Shou Wang.

cause of death: World Health Organization. Retrived from:
http://www.who.int/world-health-day/2004/infomaterials/en/brochure_jan04_en.pdf
.

Chapter One: Why Does the Other Lane Always Seem Faster?

“modal bias”: This term was suggested to me in a conversation with Aaron Naparstek.