have you ever traveled and been in 3 hours of traffic in a big city while passing through?

thats what happened to us in atlanta , georgia!

yes , and I have heard its not the worst of all cities!

so , what really causes traffic jams among big highways in big cities?

my opinion is , well , traffic merges , like when one highway merges into another...

well , think about it this way...

all highways have a maximum capacity...
you can never go above this capacity , this is exactly the problem!

when you have 100 cars per minute coming from a secondary highway , and 500 on the main one , but no extra lanes are added(just to give you a picture  , it only takes about 150 cars per minute to clog a highway with 4 lanes per direction here in hartford , ct)
all the cars must slow down to allow the traffic to get in.

basically , you really can't pack a highway too much , cars can only get so close , but traffic always tries to squeeze in , and everyone slows down as a result , and thus reduces the capacity of the highway , furthermore clogging traffic.

and when traffic slows down on busy city highways , traffic backs up for miles , and miles.


if cities found a proper way to merge traffic , there wouldn't be any problem , except if there was an accident.

and by that , I mean the exits aswell , traffic must "merge into the street" here too.

the only other cause can be regular accidents(another problem here in hartford) mainly in congested areas.

if the city decides to widen the highways to like 7 lanes per direction , that encourages more growth , and before you know it , your back where you started.


I hope this was interesting.

blakesterville.