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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

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Speaker 1: With me is Charles Precious Bryant. How you doing, Precious.

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Speaker 1: This is the podcast based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is absolutely right, word for word. Right, Jerry just

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Speaker 1: got back because you did a spoiler. Yeah, for Precious,

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Speaker 1: I've known for spoilers, aren't it? At least two? It

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Speaker 1: was home? No, there was a there was um six

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Speaker 1: ft under. There was another one I spoiled too, wasn't there? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: There was one you spoiled that was a really old

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Speaker 1: movie and I was like, come on, that movie is

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Speaker 1: like fifteen years old. There's a statue of momentation? Was

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Speaker 1: it Buck Ruband's eye? Yeah? I think that was it? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: me too, Chuck. Yes, have you ever been in traffic?

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Speaker 1: That's the best. I God, how do you set this up? Chuck?

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Speaker 1: Do you like Steve Winwood? Yeah? You know I was

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Speaker 1: gonna make a traffic a band comment. Have you ever

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Speaker 1: seen the low spark of high heeled boys? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's it. I'm seriously I'm like trying to you know,

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Speaker 1: he was like fifteen when he first joined traffic because

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Speaker 1: he's a Lithario. Yeah, and by that I mean in Prodigy. Yeah. Yeah, traffic.

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Speaker 1: I've been in traffic, buddy, you Yes, I have actually

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Speaker 1: been in traffic. Um happens a lot because I don't

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Speaker 1: ride Marta. You ride are fine, fine, crippled public transit

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Speaker 1: system here in Atlanta. I'm never in traffic anymore. It's

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Speaker 1: it's really been a huge difference in my life. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: I don't ride Marta because, um, I I usually I

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Speaker 1: tend to avoid the smell of urine and um, reading

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Speaker 1: while moving makes me sick. So I'm you know, plus,

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Speaker 1: I value I used to value being able to smoke. Yeah, dude,

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Speaker 1: I was just about to say that's why I used

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Speaker 1: to drive. Yeah, and now I'm just like, I just

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Speaker 1: do it out to have it. But I get caught

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Speaker 1: in traffic a lot, and it stinks. I don't see

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Speaker 1: you on a public transport. You're not not You're not

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Speaker 1: that kind of social No. That's the other thing too,

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh, hey, we work together, let's talk the

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Speaker 1: whole time. No, I don't. I wear my sunglasses. It

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Speaker 1: can be dark and raining, and I've told everyone here

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Speaker 1: that if I have my shades on. That means the

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Speaker 1: office is closed. Nice, the story is shut down. That's

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Speaker 1: very nice stories. It looks super cool. Alright, So I'm

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Speaker 1: a jerk that doesn't talk to coworkers. Now, moving on, buddy,

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Speaker 1: It's okay, Chuck. Do you remember when we recorded quicksand yes,

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Speaker 1: do you remember how we said that there's like a

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Speaker 1: finite amount of stuff out there about quick thing, because

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Speaker 1: there's a finite amount to know. There's a finite amount

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Speaker 1: to know about traffic. But there's tons of information out there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: lots of little side things to know for sure. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Because ultimately, traffic happens in two ways. One is there

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Speaker 1: is simply congestion. There's just too many cars on the

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Speaker 1: road to carry to carry the flow of traffic quickly right.

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Speaker 1: The other way is there is some unpredictable event that

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Speaker 1: somebody's pulled over, somebody's broken down, there's a wreck, maybe

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Speaker 1: an event that falls under congestion. Police have pulled over

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Speaker 1: a traffic a speeder. People always slow down for that,

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Speaker 1: and that's it. That's it. Those are pretty much the

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Speaker 1: two broad categories that traffic can be created, right, um,

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Speaker 1: And what happens in each of those events is somebody

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Speaker 1: up front puts on their brakes and that that one

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Speaker 1: press of the brakes travels backward all the way through. Right,

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Speaker 1: when you have a bunch of different cars and different

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Speaker 1: lengthes doing that at the same time, you have traffic

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Speaker 1: You know what, that's called traffic wave. Yes, that's true.

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Speaker 1: It's a domino effect. It's very easy, it is. And

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Speaker 1: I came up with my own idea of describing this.

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Speaker 1: You ready, Okay, So what I came up with is

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Speaker 1: called the traffic bubble, okay, by Josh Clark. So the

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Speaker 1: traffic bubble happens when somebody is driving along and presses

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Speaker 1: their brakes for whatever reason. And just imagine that when

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Speaker 1: they press that break, the big bubble grows over the

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Speaker 1: car and it starts very slowly traveling backwards. And each

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Speaker 1: car behind that car that's that created the traffic bubble

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Speaker 1: isn't allowed to accelerate again until the traffic bubble is

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Speaker 1: passed through them, right. But then the further back the

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Speaker 1: traffic bubble goes, the more it dissipates, until eventually the

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Speaker 1: people far enough back don't have to go through the

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Speaker 1: traffic bubble and they're not affected by it. And does

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Speaker 1: the bubble pass through the front cars to where they

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Speaker 1: can then again accelerate. Is that how you see it

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Speaker 1: as a moving bubble? Yeah? Over the bubble travels backwards

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Speaker 1: over the traffic, and then once it passes over you,

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Speaker 1: you're allowed to accelerate again. I believe you're just going

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Speaker 1: to turn my friends traffic bubble like that or science

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Speaker 1: or no breaking bubble. That's what I called it. Okay,

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Speaker 1: breaking bubble. Yeah, like a piping effect. I hate that

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Speaker 1: guy and he hates you. I don't care so traffic Josh,

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Speaker 1: you want wink, might as well thrown a few stats here. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this one's that heavy. It is this this article by

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Speaker 1: our colleague Jonathan Strickland at tech Stuff. Yeah, the Baldest

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Speaker 1: podcast on staff. Here, Uh, what's a good stat here?

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Speaker 1: The estimated traffic costs if you want to talk about

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Speaker 1: cost of traffic, and about five years ago they estimated

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Speaker 1: about seventy eight billion dollars and that's only fuel and

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Speaker 1: waste of time. They don't take into account like pollution,

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Speaker 1: environmental damage, health costs due to pollution. I mean it

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Speaker 1: would really add up if you got to, you know,

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Speaker 1: include those things. Yeah, and um with extra gas that

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Speaker 1: was bought in two thousand seven, right, isn't that the

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Speaker 1: year that studies connected recovered. Um, we in the US

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Speaker 1: bought two point nine billion bill in extra gallons of

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Speaker 1: oil because of traffic, and the annual cost for each

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Speaker 1: individual motorists in America was like seven bucks just sitting there,

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Speaker 1: just from traffic, not from you know, the gas that

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Speaker 1: you need to actually get from point A to point B,

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Speaker 1: but the extra gas used from idoling. Yeah crazy, yeah,

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Speaker 1: And uh, I believe l A tops it out obviously

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Speaker 1: at about two weeks a year you potentially spend sitting

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Speaker 1: in your car and traffic. Yeah, l A has Um.

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Speaker 1: There's this group called the Texas Transportation Institute, and I

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Speaker 1: think they're out of A and M. Maybe they're awesome.

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Speaker 1: They they they are like the leaders and studying and

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Speaker 1: understanding and trying to mitigate traffic, right um. And they

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Speaker 1: came up with this thing called the travel time index.

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Speaker 1: Right Yeah. So basically you take the amount of time

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Speaker 1: it takes and it's specific to each city, and it's

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Speaker 1: for each city. It's not compared from city to city.

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Speaker 1: It's compared to a certain time in one city to

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Speaker 1: another time in the same city. So in an off

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Speaker 1: peak time, say you can travel the speed limit, it

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Speaker 1: takes you one hour to get from point A to

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Speaker 1: point B. In Los Angeles, it would take one point

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Speaker 1: nine two hours. Doubles your time basically during yeah, during

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Speaker 1: rush hour, So it takes twice as long to get

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Speaker 1: from point A to point B during rush hours compared

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Speaker 1: to off peak. That's the travel time index. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: you know you have to do this anywhere you live

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Speaker 1: where there's heavy traffic. But when I lived in l A.

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Speaker 1: I used to have to always think, all right, well,

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Speaker 1: this would take me forty five minutes normally. So and

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Speaker 1: when you work in the movie business, you you can't

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Speaker 1: be late. That's just not one of the things you do.

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Speaker 1: You've got to be there on time or early. So

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Speaker 1: you're like, well, it's supposed to take me forty five minutes,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna give myself like two hours. I gave myself

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Speaker 1: more than double to get anywhere I needed to go.

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Speaker 1: That's that's very smart. It's awful, is what it is. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: L A's kind of bad, but chuck, we have it

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Speaker 1: pretty bad too. Yeah, Land is really bad. Among like

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Speaker 1: probably I think the top three or four. I heard

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Speaker 1: a year or so ago that Atlanta had toppled l A.

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Speaker 1: But I never saw any citation. Well all those It

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Speaker 1: depends on how they are rating it. Some they rate

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Speaker 1: the differently, like the amount of time you spend in

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Speaker 1: your car commuting or the amount of time you sit idoling,

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Speaker 1: So it kind of depends. But Atlanta's way up there. Boston, Seattle,

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Speaker 1: San Francisco. Actually I think Boston's absent from that. Oh really,

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Speaker 1: I think that they have made some moves that have

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Speaker 1: kind of mitigated traffic and gotten them off some of

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Speaker 1: the I know, the Big Dig was messing everything up.

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Speaker 1: The Big Dig was just killing people. Yeah, and d

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Speaker 1: C is awful. Have you ever driven around there? Uh No,

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Speaker 1: I haven't. You was talking about how especially during the summer,

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Speaker 1: during the travel or the tourist season, it's just mind numbing,

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Speaker 1: is yeah. I mean way out into the suburbs in

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Speaker 1: Virginia and Maryland sitting there. You know what they did

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Speaker 1: in l A that I saw one time that had

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Speaker 1: never seen was I was going down the highway one

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Speaker 1: day and I noticed everyone was slowing down. And I

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Speaker 1: looked up ahead on the express Ay and there were

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Speaker 1: to California Highway patrol cars doing huge slow ses back

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Speaker 1: and forth on the six lanes of expressway, not letting,

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Speaker 1: like keeping everyone back like a nask, like a like

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Speaker 1: a paste. Yeah, like a pace car. But you know

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Speaker 1: they weren't driving straight. They were driving these big s.

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Speaker 1: Is like, don't go by me. I've never seen that

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Speaker 1: before in my life. What would have made it even

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Speaker 1: funnier is if they've been driving those s with their

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Speaker 1: hands out their window and their guns just shooting into

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Speaker 1: the area while they were doing it. That would really say,

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Speaker 1: don't drive past me. Yeah, that would have been great.

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Speaker 1: And apparently that was they do that. It's a I

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Speaker 1: don't know what they call it, but that's too slow

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Speaker 1: everyone down. It's called being a yes. And on that note,

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Speaker 1: my friend Derek has a joke about Atlanta traffic, and

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Speaker 1: he's right, because Atlanta before their traffic, everyone's driving really

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Speaker 1: really what fast. Yeah, that's one of the great characteristics

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Speaker 1: about Atlanta. As far as I'm concerned, you go as

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Speaker 1: fast as you can. I mean, the the average um

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Speaker 1: flow of traffic I would say, is about seventy miles

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Speaker 1: an hour around here. And that's with like a lot

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Speaker 1: of people all around you. Yeah, everybody's bumper, a bumper

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Speaker 1: going at least seventy, and the cops don't pull you

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Speaker 1: over unless you're going over seventy and even then, like

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Speaker 1: it's usually like you're going eighty or ninety when you

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Speaker 1: get pulled over because everybody else is going seventy. Right,

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Speaker 1: And that's my buddy Derek's joke is in Atlanta, and

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Speaker 1: it's really true. It's not a joke. Everyone drives as

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Speaker 1: fast as they can every day until someone and then

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Speaker 1: someone wrecks, right, and then traffic backs up every single day.

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Speaker 1: That's Atlanta traffic. Are we done? So let's just sit

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Speaker 1: here and do traffic stories, just talk about what what

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Speaker 1: angers us? So check there's a lot of smart people

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Speaker 1: who study traffic because, like you said, there's um, what

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Speaker 1: was it, how much money in two seventy eight billion

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Speaker 1: just from fuel and wasted time? Yeah, because think about it,

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Speaker 1: a person's time is money, right, and if you're sitting

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Speaker 1: in traffic and sure one of those jerks like me

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Speaker 1: who has an iPhone that emails while he's driving, then

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Speaker 1: you're wasting money, right. Um. And actually there was this

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Speaker 1: there's a group called the Commute Solutions that are out

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Speaker 1: of Santa Cruz and they calculated the actual cost per

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Speaker 1: mile of driving, not just traffic, but driving to each

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Speaker 1: person is one point nineteen one dollar nineteen cents per mile. Yea,

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Speaker 1: and that includes everything. I don't know how they came

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Speaker 1: up with that number, but check it out. Well, if

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Speaker 1: we're talking about highways and stats, we might as well

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Speaker 1: talk about the same. Texas group did a study and

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Speaker 1: um they found that traffic over the past years has

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Speaker 1: increased a and by they predict it will go up

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Speaker 1: another And here's what's remarkable. One only one of all

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Speaker 1: our roads are highways, yet they shoulder half the traffic,

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Speaker 1: half the car travel. Yeah. Crazy, It is crazy. And

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Speaker 1: you don't usually think about when you think about traffic.

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Speaker 1: I usually think about the highway myself, although I rarely

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Speaker 1: get on the highway anymore. It's all surface streets that

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Speaker 1: I take to and from work. Yeah, what do you go?

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Speaker 1: Druid Hills Piedmont and I go basically up Piedmont r um.

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Speaker 1: But it's it's traffic every day. But I don't think

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Speaker 1: of it as traffic. When I think of traffic, I

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Speaker 1: think of seventy five at rush hour and just like

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Speaker 1: UH exit ramps backed up the the thing is is

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Speaker 1: our surface streets are also intended to handle overflow of

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Speaker 1: highway traffic. Right, not just people who are backed up

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Speaker 1: from the exit ramp back onto the street, but I

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Speaker 1: mean people who are making a conscious decision like me

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Speaker 1: to find a different way that doesn't have anything to

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Speaker 1: do with the highway. Right. And they found that if

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Speaker 1: you want to widen a highway, I think we talked

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Speaker 1: about this in like the urban planning one, um that

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Speaker 1: when you when you widen the highway, Um, there's something

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Speaker 1: called latent demand. It's a theory that if you want

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Speaker 1: in the highway, people like me are going to be like,

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Speaker 1: oh well, now there's a leven lanes instead of five,

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Speaker 1: so I'll just hop on the highway. And so the

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Speaker 1: demand increases in step with the widening of the lanes.

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Speaker 1: So it actually doesn't mitigate anything by adding more lanes

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Speaker 1: to a highway, right. I think they said the only

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Speaker 1: way that will work is if they outpaced demand with lanes,

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Speaker 1: and that just doesn't happen. There's too many cars. But

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Speaker 1: that kind of makes sense to throw that money then

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Speaker 1: instead into upfront costs for a light rail system. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, you hippie, I actually I'm still holding up

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Speaker 1: for personal rapid transit. That was a palette in me podcast,

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Speaker 1: but it was interesting. It's a good one. Uh, ramp metering,

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Speaker 1: if if you're talking about solutions, that's another one. And

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Speaker 1: they had these in l A. And they have them

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Speaker 1: here in Atlanta now. It's where when you go to

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Speaker 1: get on the highway. Now they have stop lights that

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Speaker 1: just allow like one car through every few seconds. So

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Speaker 1: you know, when you get on at Freedom Parkway, I

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Speaker 1: used to fly around that and jump into traffic and

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Speaker 1: squeeze in however I could, and um, that's you know,

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Speaker 1: I was one of those jerks causing traffic. Well, I

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Speaker 1: think anybody entering is that, because again with traffic, especially

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Speaker 1: with just straight up congestion, there's just too many cars

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Speaker 1: in one place, especially when you have a line of

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Speaker 1: traffic and then more people directly adding to that lane. Yeah. Right,

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Speaker 1: But ramp metering really really works. They did a study

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Speaker 1: in Minnesota. They have four d and thirty rant meters

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Speaker 1: and in two thousand they shut them all down for

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Speaker 1: seven weeks and during that time traffic accidents increased. And

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Speaker 1: then afterward they re reinstituted it and they saw the

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Speaker 1: capacity increased by fourteen, and they walked away from that

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Speaker 1: project going like with their hands in their pockets. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: like we should probably not tell anybody about that. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I was trying to do a Minnesota accent, but that

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Speaker 1: was pretty good. I couldn't do it. I said it

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Speaker 1: was Oh, I know, it wasn't bad though, that's how

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Speaker 1: they say it. H O V lanes is another thing

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Speaker 1: that they've done pretty much countrywide, carpool lanes as help.

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Speaker 1: I always forget when I have another person in the car, though,

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Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I'll get like halfway where I'm going and say,

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Speaker 1: oh man, let's get in the carpoal lane. Yeah. I

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Speaker 1: have to say though. The h O V lane, to me,

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Speaker 1: it's it's an extension of the fast lane. So you

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Speaker 1: get the fast ling and then you have the h

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Speaker 1: O V lane, And I hate it when it's the

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Speaker 1: fast lane is just the fast ling. The HOV lan

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Speaker 1: is like, I drive as slow as I want, but

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Speaker 1: I have, you know, four people in my car, agreed,

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Speaker 1: it makes it difficult. It's it's kind of like the

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Speaker 1: h O V lane to me is you have two

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Speaker 1: or more people and you're willing to drive ten miles

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Speaker 1: faster than anybody else on the highway agreed. And since

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Speaker 1: we talked about pet peeves in our last podcast. My

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Speaker 1: one of my largest pet peeves is when I'm sitting

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Speaker 1: in traffic and I'll see people speeding by me in

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Speaker 1: the H O V lane by themselves. Nothing bothers me

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Speaker 1: more than people that think the rules don't apply to them.

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Speaker 1: I hate that time. I hate those people or people

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Speaker 1: who um use the shoulder and just drive along in

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Speaker 1: traffic as far as they can to get like fifty

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Speaker 1: cars ahead. Yeah. I almost got plowed over in l

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Speaker 1: A one time. I was getting out to get in

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Speaker 1: the regular exit lane and almost got creamed by a

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Speaker 1: truck that was on the shoulder. And I screamed at

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Speaker 1: him that he almost killed me, and he says, what

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Speaker 1: are you a cop? That's l A for you? It

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Speaker 1: was like, he literally almost killed me. What are you

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Speaker 1: a cop? If you were a cop, you'd be making

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Speaker 1: lazy s's in front of trying firing my gun into

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Speaker 1: the air. Exactly what else, Josh, Uh, there's lanes. We

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Speaker 1: already talked about that. Whether there's that one, then there's

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Speaker 1: um probably the most uh contentious idea congestion pricing, which

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Speaker 1: is basically taxing people to drive. And there's a guy

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Speaker 1: named Alistair Darling. I don't know if he's still the

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Speaker 1: Transportation secretary baby something. You have a rock star in

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Speaker 1: the transportation world, because he was a huge proponent of this,

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Speaker 1: and he said in England. In England, yeah, he was

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Speaker 1: the British Transportation in secretary. He basically said, you know,

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Speaker 1: cars exact a toll on the environment and on the road, um,

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Speaker 1: just by driving on him, So we should charge people

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Speaker 1: to drive on the roads. What he failed to mention

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Speaker 1: is that we already do. There are things called taxes

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Speaker 1: and those are meant to pay for the roads. Right,

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Speaker 1: he's forgetting about, you know, all the other misused money. Um.

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Speaker 1: But they did actually have one in Great Britain. Do

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Speaker 1: they still chuck, No, I don't think they ever instituted.

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Speaker 1: They had a pilot program from two thousand three to

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Speaker 1: seven and it worked like a champ for him in

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Speaker 1: London at least. Yeah, there was a thirty percent dropping congestion,

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Speaker 1: decrease in in fossil fuel consumption, decrease in CEO two emissions,

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Speaker 1: So like in London, Singapore, Stockholm, San Francisco, San Francisco,

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Speaker 1: did they institute one No, San Francisco is studying a

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Speaker 1: New York Bloomberg has proposed it and they've studied it.

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Speaker 1: And I just pulled this from this week. Actually, Lord

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Speaker 1: Adonis is actually he's the Transport Secretary. Unless it's a

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Speaker 1: new guy. What was your guy? His name is Lord Adonis.

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Speaker 1: Lord Adonis, the Transport Secretary came up with a new

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Speaker 1: hotel student. Yeah, that's where Joshuly staying in New York

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Speaker 1: under Lord uh he It says it's ruled out the

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Speaker 1: introduction of a national road pricing for the next parliament.

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Speaker 1: But they uncovered that civil servants are still involved with

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Speaker 1: the project and spending money on research even though they

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Speaker 1: supposedly took it off the table. It was kind of

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Speaker 1: a secret that they were still like tinkering with ou.

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Speaker 1: I thought you were like saying this, these people were

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Speaker 1: paying for this research on their own paychecks. No, but

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Speaker 1: they've sunk seven point two million pounds that I guess

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Speaker 1: the public didn't know. They thought it was off the table.

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Speaker 1: So they're kind of under some hot water, in some

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Speaker 1: hot water. They're they're in some deep quicksand yeah, they

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Speaker 1: said Golden Brown and Alista Dawling had been caught red

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Speaker 1: handed planning a spy in the sky sis him nice. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because I guess we should probably explain congestion pricing. Basically

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Speaker 1: every car on the road. I guess when you would

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Speaker 1: go get your vehicle tag or something, you also get

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Speaker 1: a radio frequency identifier, right, and as you're driving, some

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Speaker 1: satellite is tracking you, or you pass through some sector

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Speaker 1: or something like that, and all of a sudden you're

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Speaker 1: being you're in a toll area and much like say, uh,

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Speaker 1: one of those toll passes UM, you are sent a

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Speaker 1: bill or there's like you have to set up like

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Speaker 1: a credit card or a bank account, attach that to

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Speaker 1: your to your tag, and it just draws money from

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Speaker 1: it based on however much you drive in there. In Singapore,

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Speaker 1: when they first instituted, there's an actually in UM they

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Speaker 1: had a flat rate for downtown, which is the most

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Speaker 1: congested during peak hours. You had to pay three bucks

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Speaker 1: to just drive around downtown. You could drive around all wanted. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And as they as as they've gotten better at it,

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Speaker 1: they're they're getting a little fancy schmancy with it, you know, like, um, well,

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Speaker 1: if you want to drive here, it's a dollar seventy

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Speaker 1: d for twenty minutes, but you can back, you know,

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Speaker 1: two blocks over and it's just fifty cents and so on. Well,

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Speaker 1: that's one of the rubs that um, one of the

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Speaker 1: big things is is in England at least in other

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Speaker 1: places too. I think they've suggested paying more for peak

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Speaker 1: hour so be flexible in your work schedule. But then

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Speaker 1: of course people that are a friend of the poor

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Speaker 1: say that's progressive taxation because white collar dudes can be

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Speaker 1: all flexible and work from home, but the poor have

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Speaker 1: to get up and go to work during peak hours.

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Speaker 1: So you're they're basically paying for the road that the

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Speaker 1: rich man drives on. Exactly, That's exactly right, and that's

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Speaker 1: the big problem. I mean, aside from having to pay

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Speaker 1: to drive with with a with a congestion tax. Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: what else can you do? Chuck? And also remember we

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Speaker 1: were talking it's this isn't just highways surface streets to everybody,

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Speaker 1: don't get all anxious, we're talking about surface streets as well. Yes, uh,

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Speaker 1: surface streets you get a lot of suburban sprawl, you know,

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Speaker 1: like here in Atlanta, you've got like out in Roswell

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Speaker 1: twenty years ago, it was it was kind of desolate

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Speaker 1: cow patties and now it's all uh, you know, young

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Speaker 1: families moving out there who don't want to be around

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Speaker 1: urban types. Yeah, and you have a lot of a

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Speaker 1: lot more cars. Um you have again that that one

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Speaker 1: of two ways that you can cause traffic. Just put

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Speaker 1: more cars on a road than it than it's designed

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Speaker 1: to hand. And then out in the boonies like that.

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Speaker 1: They weren't built for you know, they were built for farmland.

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Speaker 1: All of a sudden they got these suburban people moving

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Speaker 1: out there, and so traffic lights is something they can do. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: this one disturbed me. Um that even the so you

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Speaker 1: have a traffic light that is on a timer, right, yeah,

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Speaker 1: which is so much, especially when they're poorly timed. Decator

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Speaker 1: is awful. Yes, yeah, decator is awful. There's another one

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Speaker 1: for the Piedmont Park parking deck and it just does

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Speaker 1: whatever it wants, no matter what time and day, and

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Speaker 1: if there's a car, they're not and people are just

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Speaker 1: stopped in either direction, right, And um, that's a time

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Speaker 1: light and time lights are awful. They're awful. Right. Then

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Speaker 1: you have um sensored lights, which are awesome, right because

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Speaker 1: you just come up in the way to your car

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Speaker 1: triggers it, yeah, those are good. Yeah. Or you have

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Speaker 1: a mixed system that uses time timing and sensors and

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Speaker 1: it changes depending on the kind of day where it is.

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Speaker 1: It's like you can set up a citywide comprehensive traffic

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Speaker 1: light plan. Some cities have this. Even the best mixed

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Speaker 1: citywide comprehensive traffic light plan reduces congestion by one percent.

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Speaker 1: Really yeah, yeah, Atlanta is bad about that, at least

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Speaker 1: in my area. There's and Jerry can confirm this, she

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Speaker 1: kind of lives over near me. But there's all these

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Speaker 1: scenarios where you'll you'll stop at a light that's timed

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Speaker 1: to not Part of the smart light system is that

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Speaker 1: they're all time to work together. So like if you

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Speaker 1: sit here at this corner and you take a ride

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Speaker 1: on red, there's not another red light waiting on you,

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Speaker 1: and then that turns green, and then thirty more feet

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Speaker 1: there's another red light. They should be timed out to

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Speaker 1: where they were green. In l A. It's like, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's the one thing I will say. There's a lot

424
00:23:15,880 --> 00:23:17,639
Speaker 1: of traffic. It's just because the people they do the

425
00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:21,280
Speaker 1: best they can. You look down, they have these long, long, long,

426
00:23:21,359 --> 00:23:25,639
Speaker 1: straight streets in Hollywood, and late at night you'll be sitting,

427
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:28,000
Speaker 1: like on Hollywood Boulevard at a red light and you'll

428
00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 1: see wink wink, You'll see like eight lights turn green,

429
00:23:32,119 --> 00:23:36,159
Speaker 1: all that new Balance commercial. Yeah, with that woman running

430
00:23:36,160 --> 00:23:39,240
Speaker 1: and she pushes herself to make all the lights doomed.

431
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:41,680
Speaker 1: A failure, but still it was a nice effort. I

432
00:23:41,680 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 1: would I would go longer in l A just to

433
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,119
Speaker 1: get off the highway, even if it took me longer,

434
00:23:46,200 --> 00:23:49,440
Speaker 1: just to feel like I was moving. And chuck, I'm

435
00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:54,880
Speaker 1: about to spoil it for all of our British, UK, English, Welsh, Irish,

436
00:23:55,119 --> 00:23:59,680
Speaker 1: Scottish friends who are typing an angry corrective email about

437
00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:03,399
Speaker 1: al Stir Darling. He is not a Transportation secretary. He

438
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: was the British Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

439
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:10,400
Speaker 1: Lord Adonis is the Transport secretary. That and me name

440
00:24:10,680 --> 00:24:13,480
Speaker 1: We were talking about people um studying this kind of thing.

441
00:24:13,600 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of really cool quantifications for traffic. My

442
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:24,639
Speaker 1: favorite is the passenger car equivalent. Okay, so you have

443
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:27,600
Speaker 1: a passenger car is say a sitting at an averagity

444
00:24:27,600 --> 00:24:34,360
Speaker 1: and Toyota camera, all right? Or to be fair, Honda accord. Right, Um,

445
00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: that is like just an average car that you can

446
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: fit four people into and it drives down the road

447
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:43,439
Speaker 1: and it's pretty responsive. And um an suv or a

448
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:48,720
Speaker 1: bus or a van is not as responsive because they're

449
00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: larger and because they take up more space, they're slower

450
00:24:52,359 --> 00:24:56,439
Speaker 1: to accelerate, and so they they exact a heavier burden

451
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:02,000
Speaker 1: on a highway during congest right, So what they've come

452
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:06,399
Speaker 1: up with our passenger car equivalent. So an suv is

453
00:25:06,520 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 1: one point four pc, right, and then a a city

454
00:25:10,720 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 1: bus is like four point four pc. It's like four cars, right, Yeah,

455
00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:18,160
Speaker 1: it has the same as far as like accelerating after

456
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,399
Speaker 1: breaking and just the space that's taking up. That's the

457
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:25,159
Speaker 1: equivalent of a passenger car. So one good solution to

458
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:34,400
Speaker 1: traffic is everybody driving smaller car, no kidding, and virtual slots, right, yeah,

459
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:36,200
Speaker 1: what's the deal there. Each car has a certain amount

460
00:25:36,200 --> 00:25:38,360
Speaker 1: of space it takes up, and don't try and fit

461
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: into a slot that's a bit smaller than your car.

462
00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 1: Is that how you know? That's pretty much firstual slots

463
00:25:43,840 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 1: like tetris. Yeah, if you just amagement that there is

464
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:52,320
Speaker 1: a basically a rectangle around your car like bubble a bubble,

465
00:25:52,359 --> 00:25:54,439
Speaker 1: but not a break bubble. Okay, you want to avoid

466
00:25:54,440 --> 00:25:57,399
Speaker 1: the brake bubble um, but this is more of a

467
00:25:57,400 --> 00:26:00,440
Speaker 1: rectangle and it kind of hugs the sides your cars,

468
00:26:00,440 --> 00:26:02,760
Speaker 1: but it's longer on the front and back. And if

469
00:26:02,800 --> 00:26:07,000
Speaker 1: every everybody's car stays in these slots that are on

470
00:26:07,040 --> 00:26:08,879
Speaker 1: the highway, you just kind of pull into them as

471
00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:11,359
Speaker 1: you're driving, and the slots are going like all the

472
00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:14,440
Speaker 1: same rate, then as long as there's not too many

473
00:26:14,480 --> 00:26:17,199
Speaker 1: cars on the road, were more more cars than there

474
00:26:17,240 --> 00:26:20,400
Speaker 1: are slots, there should be no traffic. Yeah, but that

475
00:26:20,480 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: never happens because all this is pie in the sky still.

476
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,960
Speaker 1: Well yeah, because when invariably you're sitting in the lane

477
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:27,920
Speaker 1: and you're like that lanes moving now, and then you

478
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: get over in that lane you're like, well, now that

479
00:26:29,359 --> 00:26:31,160
Speaker 1: lanes moving, and you keep going back and forth where

480
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:33,720
Speaker 1: if you stayed where you are, if everyone stayed where

481
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:35,479
Speaker 1: they were, you would all get there quicker. Or if

482
00:26:35,480 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: everybody just stayed at home. Yeah, yes, good point, but

483
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:41,600
Speaker 1: your jobs stay at home. Right, So that's uh, that's

484
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: our two cents, and uh, if you want to learn

485
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:47,840
Speaker 1: more about traffic, we we've been killing the articles with

486
00:26:47,920 --> 00:26:51,680
Speaker 1: cool flash animations, haven't we one? It has a flash

487
00:26:51,720 --> 00:26:55,719
Speaker 1: animation about a traffic wave. Cool, no break bubble. I'm

488
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:57,840
Speaker 1: going to see about having somebody add one of those

489
00:26:58,320 --> 00:27:00,760
Speaker 1: the term my friend. You can type in traffic I

490
00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: think it'll bring up a bunch of stuff in the

491
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 1: handy search part how stuff works dot Com, which means

492
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: it's time for listener questions. It's time for Facebook questions. Yes,

493
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,040
Speaker 1: as we said in that other podcast on quicksand we took,

494
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:18,880
Speaker 1: we post on Facebook. Hey, give us some questions. We'll

495
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,359
Speaker 1: answer like ten of them really quickly. We got in

496
00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,720
Speaker 1: an hour. This comes from Chelsea. What's the most unusual

497
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 1: thing you've ever eaten? Uh? Tripe for me, which is intestines.

498
00:27:32,720 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 1: Go ahead, what's yours? Um. I've had fried chicken hearts,

499
00:27:38,080 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: I've had beef tongue, tongue. My favorite is um bone

500
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:47,800
Speaker 1: marrow really highly highly recommend anywhere you can find bone

501
00:27:47,800 --> 00:27:50,960
Speaker 1: marrow it, just eat it. The only place down here

502
00:27:51,080 --> 00:27:54,960
Speaker 1: is rathbutons and it's okay, yeah you good wrath buns.

503
00:27:54,960 --> 00:27:58,119
Speaker 1: You gotta get one of those steaks. No, not not rathbunds, steaks,

504
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 1: regular wrath buns. Yeah. Strangely, he doesn't have bone marrow there,

505
00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:06,000
Speaker 1: but yes, uh, those weird stuff all right, I got

506
00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: you questions right there. You want to read one? Yeah,

507
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 1: I guess this one's from Jacob. If a tree falls

508
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: in the forest and no one is around to here,

509
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 1: and Jacob hyphenates no one, which frankly I find like flourish. Nice. Yes,

510
00:28:20,359 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: except for a tape recorder which absorbs the radiant vibrations

511
00:28:23,520 --> 00:28:25,760
Speaker 1: and can later play them back as audible waves. Did

512
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:29,720
Speaker 1: the tree really make a sound? The answer is yes, yes. Uh.

513
00:28:29,840 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: Kristen says, where christ and Candice now? And who does

514
00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:37,119
Speaker 1: the intro for the podcast? Chris Palette is um co

515
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:39,960
Speaker 1: host of Tech Stuff Now and has been for quite

516
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,840
Speaker 1: a while. He's made it hometown boy made Good. Candice

517
00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: Gibson Keener has gotten married and she stepped out of

518
00:28:45,680 --> 00:28:48,720
Speaker 1: the limelight to concentrate on just being an editor. But

519
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: she's still here. Sits right next to Josh and Roxanne

520
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: does the intros for the podcast. She's our head of video.

521
00:28:56,640 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: There you go, that is not Jerry. A lot of

522
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,680
Speaker 1: people think it's Jerry. There was some comprehensive answers right there.

523
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: Rachel says she currently lives in Athens g a dog.

524
00:29:06,160 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear more about your experience living here,

525
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: where you hung out your favorite bands to see whatever

526
00:29:10,600 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 1: fond or not so fond memories you might have of Athens.

527
00:29:14,040 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: She says. We have quite a following there. Did you

528
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: know that I didn't either. My bar was Roadhouse. I

529
00:29:19,160 --> 00:29:21,080
Speaker 1: hung out of Roadhouse all the time. I was a

530
00:29:21,080 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 1: Georgia bar guy, did you Yes? And we should point

531
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:26,120
Speaker 1: out that the Georgia Bar, the Globe, and the Roadhouse

532
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:29,120
Speaker 1: made up the bar Muda Triangle and you could access

533
00:29:29,160 --> 00:29:31,480
Speaker 1: them all through the alley to get to the next

534
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 1: so most decided they could. Quite often you would hop

535
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: around into State at Roadhouse. I hope Roadhouse still there.

536
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: It's gotten to be, Yeah, it is. And then of course, um,

537
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:43,920
Speaker 1: I always liked Wilson Soul Food and Guthrie's, which in

538
00:29:43,960 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: my opinion is superior to Zaxpiece, even though it's the

539
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: same thing. Yeah, I was automatic for the people, were you? Yeah?

540
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 1: I lived right around the corner from there, so remember

541
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:54,640
Speaker 1: what was the name of that restaurant? I went to

542
00:29:54,640 --> 00:29:57,280
Speaker 1: Weaverdece Automatic for the people. Yes, that was good too.

543
00:29:57,440 --> 00:29:59,760
Speaker 1: I liked Wilson's because the owner walked around and he's

544
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 1: like four ft tall and he shook hands with everybody. Right,

545
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,280
Speaker 1: nice guy? Um, and of course Harry Bassett's I never

546
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: went there. Oh my god, that was a frat bar.

547
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,400
Speaker 1: You went there, I could go. It wasn't just the bar,

548
00:30:10,560 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 1: like the food was amazing. It was I put the

549
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:16,200
Speaker 1: food up against any in Atlanta. Ero wrap nna eat

550
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 1: a lot of e rose in college. Alright? Uh, Kristen, No, Randy,

551
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: who's the cat who won't cop out when there's danger

552
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:29,080
Speaker 1: all about? I think we both know shaft nice who's

553
00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: the cat that won't cop out? That's one of the

554
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,840
Speaker 1: lesser quoted lines from that song. Yeah, I've got one

555
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:38,680
Speaker 1: from chavon. How do your significant others feel about your

556
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 1: legion of man crushes and equally strong lady crushes? Chuck,

557
00:30:42,720 --> 00:30:45,040
Speaker 1: I wasn't aware that anyone had to crush on us,

558
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 1: were you? I didn't know that. I've seen them before.

559
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,600
Speaker 1: But Emily thinks it's funny. Sure, yeah, it is funny.

560
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 1: She's now I'm not going it is. I mean, if

561
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 1: you if only people can see our stomachs so much

562
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,720
Speaker 1: hair and Laura, how many emails do you it? Per podcast?

563
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: We get about three hundred a week. Laura Alan, who

564
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: put the bomb in the bomb shabamp shabamp um. The

565
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: only reason I read that it's because he stressed his

566
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:13,720
Speaker 1: mill house in his picture. Nice. And who is your

567
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,720
Speaker 1: most surprising celebrity fan. We've only got a few that

568
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: we know of, and they're all surprised. One is more

569
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:22,480
Speaker 1: surprising than last. I've got one. Um Oh, I can't

570
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:26,600
Speaker 1: remember her name. There's a girl who stars in Secret

571
00:31:26,680 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: Life of the American Teenager. She's a fan of the show.

572
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,440
Speaker 1: She tweeted that she was on set like in between

573
00:31:33,880 --> 00:31:37,320
Speaker 1: um shooting and listening to stuff you should know. Yeah.

574
00:31:37,680 --> 00:31:39,640
Speaker 1: John Hodgman, I was pretty knocked out by that. That's

575
00:31:39,640 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: pretty cool. Bradley Cooper Yeah, Will Wheaton, Yeah, Renee's l Wager,

576
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:48,280
Speaker 1: Aisha Tyler Yes. And the couple of The Daily Show guys,

577
00:31:48,280 --> 00:31:51,080
Speaker 1: why at Senec Yeah. Joe Randazzo, the editor in chief

578
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: of The Onion. If you are a celebrity that we

579
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: did not mention, we would love to know that you

580
00:31:56,280 --> 00:31:58,800
Speaker 1: listened to us, because we're just kind of thrilling. We're like,

581
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 1: we're nobody, So when you hear that, I think it's cool. Yeah,

582
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I got one more pirates, Shelley says, pirates

583
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:11,720
Speaker 1: are ninjas. Ninjas clearly definitely that's it. Okay, Chuck's given

584
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 1: the He's out. Isn't it called Vegas? Yeah, it's like

585
00:32:15,640 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 1: when the dealer finishes, they're around or whatever. There's gotta

586
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:19,360
Speaker 1: be a name for it. If you know the name

587
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: for that, we want to know. Send it in an

588
00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.

589
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is

590
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: that how stuff works dot com. Want more how stuff works,

591
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:39,200
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot

592
00:32:39,200 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 1: com home page