Slogans I'd like to see

"Nobody Drives in New York;  There's too much traffic"  - Phillip J Fry


Hate Traffic?  

Drive Less.
Carpool.
Don't Drive at all.
Take the Bus.
Ride a Bike.
Walk.



While I love to search for design solutions to traffic problems, the biggest cause of traffic is:  Driving a car.  I took the bus across the causeway the other day, and just for fun, in the last two minutes of the drive, I started counting the cars I saw with only one occupant.  I counted twenty five- in literally two minutes.

A series of five carpools could drop that count by 80%.  One bus could drop it by 96%.  One bus can take 24 cars off the road, if each is carrying only one passenger, which it likely is.  This is just rough number-play, of course.  Chances are one bus doesn't go everywhere these people need to go, and they certainly don't have the capacity to carry 25 bicycles to help bridge that gap.  But still, with a little planning, the bus can work for anyone, which leads me to another slogan:



Hate Traffic?

Practice Patience.


This suggestion works on multiple levels.  If you are stuck in traffic, practicing patience can help you cope with it, since there's very little you can do to change things once you are stuck in gridlock.  Another way patience works is that it allows you to pursue alternate transportation options.  If you are patient, you can get where you're going without having to drive.  It may take a while longer, it may require you to be in a room with strangers, it may require you to pedal for twenty minutes in the hot sun, but it will get you there.  A little patience goes a long way.  All the tools to save money and avoid traffic are available, if you choose to use them.

And frankly, we could use major boosts in public transportation funding and bicycle friendly road design.  But you have to work with what you have.