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You've got that straight. Though there are several infrastructure project to fix the Fredericksburg corridor. http://www.virginiadot.org/pro... I live off of Route 17 so I understand your pain.

Sorry dude, the most efficient way for cars to handle a closing lane is to use all the available space and zipper with the next adjacent lane as near to the closure as possible. Those people are doing it right, and you are doing it wrong by merging a mile early and leaving that lane unused. See all the the guidance given or this study [PDF] or this one.

This might also be a good time to consider civility and not calling people 'dickheads'. Consider that even if you were right and they were wrong about the proper way to merge, that would just mean they were mistaken, nothing more.

Who would have thought having trees, shrubs and other natural barriers between an airport and the people would reduce noise levels?

It's as if clear cutting was found not to work.

Who thinks that? People that have never studied noise abatement and think their cleverness is enough to allow them to intuit the science.

Trees and shrubs do very little. A thorough study from the state of Virginia showed

No matter how the sites were examined, there was no measurable difference in road noise. All differences at the more distant measurement locations were due simply to the distance effect rather than to any additional mitigating effects of trees, whether measured by planting density, age, height, or average tree diameter.

Try these guys. Yeah, I know they explicitly mention Henrico on there, but my uncle who used to work for VDOT (and amusingly lives in Chesterfield co) told me you can contact them for anything of this nature, and they are supposed to see it gets routed to the right place. It's worth a shot...

The National Bridge Inventory has data on Deficient, Structurally-deficient (SD), and Functionally-Obsolete (FO) bridges. The numbers are very disturbing.

I once found a listing of bridge 'health' numbers as a percentage from 0-100% - a bridge I go over every day is at 10%.

Here it is. Search for 0009500 in the "Fed Struc Id" column. 10.5% sufficiency rating.
Ugh.

Here's a timing algorithm used in virginia source

yellow change interval = t + V/(2a +/- 64.4g)
where:
- yellow change interval = the length of the yellow phase and is expressed in seconds. -
- t = the perception reaction time expressed in seconds. This is 1 second unless the engineer responsible
determines that the situation warrants increasing it to 1.5 seconds.
- V = the posted speed expressed in feet/second.
- a = the deceleration rate expressed in feet/second2. This should be 10 ft/sec2 under typical conditions. Engineers
may decrease this to 8 or 9 feet/second2 if conditions warrant such as heavy truck traffic or increase to 11 or 12
feet/second2 if warranted.
- g= the grade of approach (percent/100); use + for a positive grade and – for a negative grade
- minimum yellow time should be 3 seconds and the maximum should be 6 seconds.
all red interval = (w+l)/V
where:
- all red interval = the length of the all red phase expressed in seconds, and follows the yellow change interval.
- w = width of intersection, curb to curb expressed in feet.
- l = vehicle length, taken as 20 feet.
- V = posted speed in feet/second. - minimum all red interval should be 1 second and the maximum should be 3 seconds. Longer all reds can be used at the engineer’s discretion where extreme conditions warrant.

In virginia, a hybrid with only one passenger can use an HOV lane (more details) -- that means a hybrid suv can use the lane even when my car is more fuel efficient. We'll see what happens in two years when the rule comes up for renewal and its folly will look a little worse when hybrid != execellent gas milage.

There were no private efforts to build an interstate highway system. That had to be left up to the federal government.

There is some infrastructure that private companies cannot provide, because it is very hard (some might claim impossible) to get a business model that produces a profit. This is very true in the case of the "last mile." Why would a private company want to provide service to only a few individuals if they lose money doing so? They answer they won't, which is why they have not.

The area that I live in is a prime example. Internet access is very available right around Virginia Tech's campus, but the further from campus that you get (mainly on the outskirts of Blacksburg), the harder it becomes to secure a high speed connection.

A friend of mine lives in a housing development on Brush Mountain (within the Blacksburg limits). His entire neighborhood does not have any method of securing high speed internet access other 1-way and 2-way satelite services. The physical lines (fiber to the telephone distribution node, and copper to all the houses) exists for DSL, but no service provider is willing to service such a small area, especially if they are only going to get a few subscribers at first.

Government is not a profit making venture. It should, and has in the past, facilitate the development of infrastructure. I understand that there are some inherit inefficiencies with building and maintaining infrastructure in this way, but at least this way, it gets built and maintained.

When was the last time traffic / bandwidth increased on the roads near you?

Do note that in order to use your hybrid in Virginia's HOV lanes, you're going to need Virginia Alternative Fuel plates which you can only get by living in Virginia.

On the other hand, Virginia notes that once Maryland and Virginia reach a reciprocity agreement, you'll be able to use Maryland alternative fuel plates in Virginia's HOV lanes, and Virginia alternative fuel plates in Maryland's HOV lanes.

First, you must also purchase a Virginia "Clean Fuel" plate (i.e. MD/DC registered hybrids can't use VA HOV lanes).

Second, there is reason to believe that this is not permanent. The Federal Government never authorized VA to do this, and has been threatening to take VA to court. See VDOT's HOV FAQ for more, including the following:

However, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) could step in and nullify the state law by declaring it is in conflict with federal requirements. We have reason to believe that FHWA will not act until after Congress has acted on the Reauthorization Bill for federal transportation funds sometime this fall. If that Congressional legislation does not address this issue, then the FHWA would most likely be compelled to act. They are willing to give us until July 1, 2004 to continue allowing hybrid vehicles to use the HOV lanes in a "pilot" status.

It is hitchhiking technically and that too is illegal in VA. Slugging is looked upon much differently though. The commuter lots built on the side of I95 (many of them) by the seperate localities are designed with slugging in mind complete with signs and staging areas. It is not uncommon for local politicians to show up around election time to talk to people and give the impression that they care about transportation issues. Same with some local businesses that occasionally hand out coffee and donuts to the people waiting. During the DC sniper scare last year there was always police or VDOT crew trucks watching the action in the lots during the slugging times as many thought these would be obvious targets. On the DC end they have signed areas to accomodate the waiting cars to allow them adequate room for the system to function. The system is expanding, one of the lots in my county just expanded to over 2400 parking spaces and it is filled before 8:00am every day with people going mainly to the Pentagon but also various stops in DC. It is defineatly a unique solution to car pooling.