Traffic Rant, Part Two

Okay, this is part two of my traffic rant, and this will hopefully be shorter than the other part of my previous rant on driving around in Tampa. Alas, stupid drivers is not one of my complaints, because there is nothing traffic engineers can do about it. Ditto for drivers who break down or get into accidents in front of me while I'm in the fast lane trying to get to work/lunch/home. No, these complaints can only be something that something can actually be done about. The next two problems are somewhat related. They are traffic flow and connectivity, and it is time to turn to them.

Traffic Flow:

Traffic flow is somewhat related to connectivity, but since connectivity is a little easier to describe (at least how it's lacking in Tampa), we will begin with traffic flow. Traffic flow can be expressed as the ease of travel between one part of town and another--both in speed as well as the avoidance of stops, starts, detours, etc. Ideally, freeways should be better at promoting traffic flow than surface streets, though surface streets can be made to conform to good traffic flow as well. Since both of these are separate issues with separate problems, the traffic flow of both freeways (i.e. limited access highways) and surface streets should be discussed differently.

The traffic flow on the freeways in Tampa are pretty bad, especially considering that Tampa is not exactly the largest city in the world. In fact, it's the third largest city in the state. The Tampa-St. Pete metro area is the second largest in the state, after Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. That said, the metro area extends over three counties, some of which (Pinellas) have worse traffic problems than Tampa, and some of which (Pasco) don't have many people, but still have traffic problems due to the paucity of through roads. Construction, poor traffic planning, and poor connectivity (see below) as well as the lack of an east-west freeway north of I-4, have made travel less than pleasant. It's too late now to do more than cosmetic repairs, as the area has grown well beyond the transportation planning abilities of West Central Florida.

The surface streets are worse. The red-lights are poorly timed in many areas of Tampa Bay, leading to many delays trying to get anywhere. Some areas of town have reasonably well timed lights, but the system is dependent on timing, which means that the buisier the road, the worse the light system works, which means that the traffic flow is hampered where it is the most critical. For this reason, one needs to avoid the busier surface streets, as well as most of the backstreets (though they are useful to avoid lights if you know the right ones). I have a coworker who has a shift that starts at 7AM so he can avoid the worst of the traffic (though that's not always good enough). Traffic here isn't LA bad or even Atlanta bad, but it's still bad.

Connectivity:

Remember my rant about the river and 275 blocking off traffic? Where it hurts the most is when it comes to connectivity. Tampa has a really werid way of handling roads. There are often multiple iterations of a single road that are not continuous with each other, especially on east-west streets and numerical north-south streets. For example, North Blvd is an important street near downtown Tampa, then breaks off at the river, and another North Blvd starts north of the river and goes all the way to Bearass. Another example: Limbaugh Avenue breaks off after Dale Mabry (going eastbound) but there are a few other Limbaugh Avenues sprinkled throughout. The same is true for 50th Street, 46th Street, 30th Street, 22nd Street, 15th Street, Sligh Avenue, Hanna, and a host of smaller, less important roads. To make a long story short, you can't get there from here, and if you can, it's going to be a hassle. In addition, the lack of middle turning lanes for most streets makes the fast lane the "loser lane" many times, while the slow lane is still slow. This leads to frequent lane changes and increased danger while driving. The truth is, though, is that it doesn't have to be this way. If only there were some more through roads, and some better traffic management systems, the snarl that is Tampa traffic could be better managed. Is it ever going to be good? No, but that's the price of living where other people want to live too.