Do Car Drivers Seem Crankier Nowadays? They May Have One More Reason To Feel That Way

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on August 14, 2015 at 9:15am

Cars go stop-start-stop-start and it's hard to calculate average speed.

Bike go smoothly.  The average speed is slow, but it's continuous and keeps moving. And keep passing cars.

This is the main reason car drivers resent bikes.

Permalink Reply by Maurice on August 14, 2015 at 4:45pm

Indeed.  They gun the engine to pass me and get to the red light faster, while I time the light and gingerly pass them all only seconds before the light turns green.  Must feel like they're being pursued by Pepe Le Pew.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on August 14, 2015 at 9:20am

I think construction has a lot more to do with it. With gas line and sewer line replacement projects all over the city, plus some big road projects, that seems a more likely cause.

Permalink Reply by Fran Kondorf on August 14, 2015 at 12:03pm

A friend of mine is in town for the week. He told me that he sat in his car yesterday afternoon for about two hours just to get from Roscoe Village to O'hare and back. Yeah, I'd be pretty cranky, too.

Permalink Reply by Joe Guzzardo on August 14, 2015 at 10:39am

Hmmm, thanks for word of warning. On the brighter side, along the LFP this morning I saw 2 cute little dogs leashed together running at a good clip, given their size. About 6 feet behind them, holding the leash was a guy on a skateboard, making no effort whatsoever to propel himself. Made my day.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on August 14, 2015 at 1:00pm

Funny image. Thanks for the laugh!

Permalink Reply by Jim Reho on August 14, 2015 at 1:38pm

It's hard to put together precise information, but from what I've seen there are about 100,000,000 million more vehicles on the road in America than when I moved to Chicago in 1979.  The amount of vehicles has risen from about 152,000,000 to 253,000,000.  This includes commercial vehicles.  That's a 60% increase, pretty much traveling on the same roads and streets there were in 1979.  Flat-out, a major reason for driver crankiness is that the roads are measurably way, way more congested than they were.  It's simply harder to get around in cars.  Look at the Kennedy.  Even not including construction, it's congested almost all the time now.  Way more than in '79, that's for sure.  

The answer is less cars.  Another answer is reducing the size of commercial vehicles and limiting the streets on which they can travel.  In my opinion, 18-wheelers don't belong on the side streets of Chicago.  They are a menace because their drivers can't see anyone on the right side of the trailer.  At least it seems that way.

When I was a kid, families had a car.  Usually just one.  Now, every single family member wants to have their own car.  The number of multi-vehicle households has increased dramatically over the years.

Also, we have the blight of exurbia.  Americans just have to have that big house, even if it's in the middle of nowhere.  People will drive 50 miles each way to work to have a nice pool.  Because of the sprawl and unavailability of bike routes (or even sidewalks), everybody drives everywhere out there.  In most of exurbia, public transportation is minimal to non-existent.  

Cars have their place.  But in America they have always been a fetish, and that isn't really improving.  I hear that the youngest generations aren't as attached to them.  We will see how that plays out.  Maybe that's where the greater numbers of bicyclists is coming from.  

Don't get me wrong.  I have a car and I drive.  But for my local trips, say under 8 miles or so, I ride my bike the great majority of the time.  I drive when it's not practical for me to ride.  I avail myself of public transportation a lot, too, often putting my bike on CTA bus racks for part of a trip.  I keep my car off the road as best I can.  

So, in short, the main reason drivers are crankier is because there are too many of them and too little available space on the roads and streets. 

I don't see that changing any time soon.

 

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on August 14, 2015 at 3:08pm

Amen! With increased density and gentrification, many areas of the city are much more congested than in years past. Urban sprawl adds to the misery.

Permalink Reply by David P. on August 14, 2015 at 8:45pm

Actually, despite gentrification, most or possibly even all neighborhoods in the city are *less* dense than they were, say, 40 years ago. Certainly compared to 50 years ago.

Permalink Reply by Joe Guzzardo on August 14, 2015 at 9:00pm

Yeah, everybody who could afford to back then moved out to the burbs, and candidly, race was most certainly a motivating factor.

Permalink Reply by Joe Guzzardo on August 14, 2015 at 9:16pm

Well said, but as you pointed out, the trend may be shifting. Both old and young people are moving back into the cities and cars are expensive. I think the rise of smart phones and social media plays a role here, too. For better or worse, people stay connected virtually, lessening the need for travel. Amazon is coming on strong with their delivery services and every day you read another article about Uber or Lyft. 

I grew up in an age where your vehicle pretty much defined who you were. That sentiment is shifting. But gas is getting cheaper again, so there are a number of forces at work here.

What galls me is that of all the money we spend on road transportation, it seems very little of it goes toward the interests of the bicycling community. Yet that sort of investment yields significant improvement toward both the quality of life (for the individual) and economic vitality (for the community) in urban areas. Building another high speed road across a stretch of the city doesn't do much of either for that portion of the city where said road is constructed. As an example, consider the now razed Robert Taylor housing project. Clearly, the Dan Ryan expressway hastened the demise of that area. The return on investment is orders of magnitude higher for bicycling infrastructure versus vehicular infrastructure in a city like Chicago.

Hizzoner the mayor wants to make Chicago the bike friendliest city in the nation. Let's hold him to his word.

Permalink Reply by Lisa Curcio on August 14, 2015 at 9:02pm

I'm sorry, but this is driving me crazy.  "More crankier"?  Crankier or more cranky.  Please fix it.

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