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Bless the Chron's heart, they know kvetching about traffic is going to move a lot of papers on the newsstand -- so they go above the fold with their article about the twenty worst bottlenecks on the highway. As you'd've guessed, that horrendous interchange at Emeryville for 80/580/880 where you have to get over five lanes just to go south ranks high on the list.
We did very much enjoy the descriptions of the worst bottlenecks: whether it's the "disappearing lane" by the Gilman Street exit on 80, calling the Bay Bridge "a series of bottlenecks in which 20 lanes merge to five," or describing the problem on 880 at 23rd Avenue as "a bridge that looks lower than it is creates an optical illusion, which scientists say causes trucks to brake and slows traffic for miles," the despairing tone of the article is matched with the fact that almost half of the problems are described as "no fix in sight" or "no fix planned."
Our favorite bottleneck is the one on 101 North in Burlingame where the road suddenly turns west and the setting sun hits you right in the eyes as you make the reverse commute from your Silicon Valley job back to the city. Yours?
Picture of the 80 maze by Telstar Logistics.
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I wouldn't call it my "favorite" bottleneck, as it is completely maddening and makes me grind my teeth and my blood boil, but driving, bicycling, or riding MUNI down Van Ness Avenue is an ghastly ordeal. It's a surface road that carries the same amount of traffic as a freeway. Every two blocks, someone double-parks, which quickly turns into a backup that goes back several blocks. Seeing the 45 or 49 bus marooned in the middle of an intersection, causing even more backup on cross streets, is an everyday event.
And that's about enough out of me.
Darn! I was hoping for news about the Caltrain meltdown yesterday morning--rumor was that a bomb scare at 4th & King prevented northbound trains from reaching the station, and several southbound trains from departing. I even heard the word "robot"! But no reportage anywhere. Sigh.
You're out of your mind to bike on Van Ness. Use Polk instead.
I'll second AJ on riding a bike along Van Ness and I'd like to add how much of a pain left turns can be with oncoming traffic and no dedicated left turn phase in the light cycle.
The Van Ness BRT project will do a lot to clean up traffic with dedicated bus lanes, turn pockets and adding dedicated left turn phases.