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Yesterday, I had to drive from my home to Secaucus, New Jersey. Mapquest estimated the total transit time as 35 minutes.

Mapquest is a filthy, lying whore.

Transit time going westbound was an hour and 45 minutes. That wasn't too bad.

Return time? Three hours. Two of them in midtown Manhattan. Traversing this:

My Trek through Midtown Manhattan on the one day where Duhbya was in town, there was a UN conference and Dave Matthews Band was in Central Park.

Anyone else got some horror stories?

Nothing that bad. At least the wreckers are pretty good about moving the fenderbenders out of the way down here...


Which happens every damn day!

Massive accident near the 4th Street / I275 junction caused backups all the way to the I4/I275 junction. What's worse, there are three major ways to get from Pinellas County to Hillsborough County - and all of them virtually required using I275 at some point. Bypassing the interstate would have taken far too long, and by that point other motorists were clogging up the alternate routes too.

I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to drive on Highway 401 in Toronto without running into a traffic jam or slowdown. I've been on the 401 at 2am on a weeknight(day?) and still run into heavy traffic which was moving along at half the speed limit. Rush hour? Forget about it, it gets pretty insane and the drivers are all idiots or psychos, I've lost track of the number of near death experiences I've had on that highway.

Have any of you masturbated while driving?

Ocean City traffic. And getting to school every morning; takes 15 min to go a half mile.

Uhhh....no

Hamel wrote:Have any of you masturbated while driving?

No, I just scratch my nuts, but I've had sex with my GF while the car was safely parked in a quiet dark place.

Havent we all?

aerius wrote:I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to drive on Highway 401 in Toronto without running into a traffic jam or slowdown. I've been on the 401 at 2am on a weeknight(day?) and still run into heavy traffic which was moving along at half the speed limit. Rush hour? Forget about it, it gets pretty insane and the drivers are all idiots or psychos, I've lost track of the number of near death experiences I've had on that highway.

I actually managed to get through Toronto without slowing or stopping once when making the trip to Ottawa. It was about 9 am a couple days before Christmas.

But moving slow on the 401 isn't nearly as bad as moving slow on the 407. Nothing like paying to sit in traffic.

The trick during rush hour is to find major streets which are less congested than the 401, since the 401 is basically used as a commuter road during rush hour anyway.

For example, Dundas St. moves pretty well during rush hour, and I can get to Mississauga or Oakville much faster using Dundas St. than I can with the 401 or 403 (never mind the QEW; that's just a fucking parking lot).

Back home, that trip would take ~1 minute, depending on the driver.


However, the 5 mile trip down I-40 through Knoxville during rush hour, well, you average 5 mph...

My commute used to take me from northeast Baltimore down to the Laurel area and back: that meant a trip around 695 to 95. If you checked mapquest, it would probably claim that was a 50 minute drive... with traffic, however, an hour and a half to two hours was entirely possible. That's not counting the possibility of an accident, in which case the traffic would really back up. You could avoid that by taking 95 through the city and paying the toll at the harbor tunnel, but that could back up just as badly (and I seemed to have a knack for guessing wrong and putting myself right in the thick of the backup.)

This is why it's so important to listen to the radio for traffic reports before you leave.

Just curious, Mike, does Canada have a large 4 lane access restricted highway system like our Interstates?

Haven't been in Canada enough to know, actually...

Nathan F wrote:Just curious, Mike, does Canada have a large 4 lane access restricted highway system like our Interstates?

Haven't been in Canada enough to know, actually...

As you pass through Toronto, there are spots where the 401 actually expands to eight lanes, by splitting into 2 parallel 4-lane highways. And there's also the 407 toll road, which runs parallel to that. The problem is simply the sheer volume of traffic.

Darth Wong wrote:This is why it's so important to listen to the radio for traffic reports before you leave.

Very true, but there really wasn't a good alternative to 695 or 95 and if there was a bad accident on one, the other would back up as people tried to avoid it. Admitted, it didn't help that I'm not much of a morning person, and I'd be waking up 10 minutes before I had to be out the door.

Darth Wong wrote:

Nathan F wrote:Just curious, Mike, does Canada have a large 4 lane access restricted highway system like our Interstates?

Haven't been in Canada enough to know, actually...

As you pass through Toronto, there are spots where the 401 actually expands to eight lanes, by splitting into 2 parallel 4-lane highways. And there's also the 407 toll road, which runs parallel to that. The problem is simply the sheer volume of traffic.

Yes, I figured that much, just curious if Canada has a large restricted access system spread throughout the country instead of just freeways inside major cities. I must say, I am quite ignorant on the various facets of Canadian transportion systems.

aerius wrote:I've come to the conclusion that it's impossible to drive on Highway 401 in Toronto without running into a traffic jam or slowdown. I've been on the 401 at 2am on a weeknight(day?) and still run into heavy traffic which was moving along at half the speed limit. Rush hour? Forget about it, it gets pretty insane and the drivers are all idiots or psychos, I've lost track of the number of near death experiences I've had on that highway.

Tell me about I'm glad I got the fuck out that whole fuck'en area

Dalton wrote:Yesterday, I had to drive from my home to Secaucus, New Jersey. Mapquest estimated the total transit time as 35 minutes.

Mapquest is a filthy, lying whore.

Transit time going westbound was an hour and 45 minutes. That wasn't too bad. Return time? Three hours. Two of them in midtown Manhattan.

I know it's more of a roundabout route, but why didn't you use the Verrazano-Narrows and Goethals Bridges? You could've shot up the NJ Pky to Rt 3 and been there in about an hour. The return would certainly have been much quicker.

When in doubt, always avoid Midtown traffic.

Phil Skayhan wrote:I know it's more of a roundabout route, but why didn't you use the Verrazano-Narrows and Goethals Bridges? You could've shot up the NJ Pky to Rt 3 and been there in about an hour. The return would certainly have been much quicker.

When in doubt, always avoid Midtown traffic.

Phil, bud, I would have if I knew where the hell I was going I can get to the Verrezano easily enough, but the rest of the way is a mystery to me. The Midtown-Lincoln route was the only detailed path I had.

However, I was lucky since I had heard on the radio that there was heavy traffic or something on the Verrezano...

Nathan F wrote:Yes, I figured that much, just curious if Canada has a large restricted access system spread throughout the country instead of just freeways inside major cities. I must say, I am quite ignorant on the various facets of Canadian transportion systems.

The 401 is the longest single freeway in North America, and goes straight from the Michigan border into Quebec. There's also the TransCanada highway.

The 401 was originally meant to serve as an analogue to your interstate highways by bypassing Toronto to the north, but Toronto grew and assimilated part of it.

Darth Wong wrote:As you pass through Toronto, there are spots where the 401 actually expands to eight lanes, by splitting into 2 parallel 4-lane highways.

eight lanes in one direction? wtf

As I don't have a car at the moment I don't get into traffic because I have to use either the bus or the train for greater distances.
Damn I would realy like to have a car but I don't have the money and I don't need one at the moment.

No, four lanes in either direction. In some spots (near Tampa International Airport), SR60 becomes a ten-lane road since it feeds the airport and links I275 with the Courtney Campbell Causeway and the Veteran's Expressway.

Mike - are they considering a new bypass for 401?

Made the mistake of missing the ad for the "gay parade" in montreal one year (or I like to call "don't drive into downtown montreal day"). They blocked off two whole streets (perpendicular to each other) which created a traffic nightmare. I got stuck in traffic (ie. not moving) for about 3 hours. If you saw the Seinfeld episode with Jerry stuck in the Puerto Rican parade... you get the picture.