Tell that to Minneapolis.

That’s why I’ve had this random fruit box for 6 years.

lol Good job imagining smoothly flowing traffic. You must not live near a major city, because lane closures on highways always devolve into the exact scenario you’re attempting to ignore.

Buddy, I live in fucking Boston. They shut down a lane going into the Sumner every morning, and yeah, it’s slow, but it doesn’t get backed up unless some dipshit decides he doesn’t want to let anyone in.

I’ve been stop-and-go traffic probably literally hundreds of times and that’s EXACTLY how people merge: by blazing past the already stopped traffic and cram in right at the last second.

If someone is trying to merge into another lane while traveling 20 mph faster than the lane they’re merging into, sure, that’s unsafe. But doing that a mile before the lane ends is also unsafe. The problem you’re describing is just speeding.

The assholes rushing up to the end of a closed lane when traffic is already slow ARE NOT ZIPPER MERGING. They’re cutting in line.

This is what you fundamentally don’t understand about the situation; you two are not in the same line. You are in line to move forward. They are in line to enter your line. When traffic in the lane that’s closing is light, it might feel unfair they go in front of you, but that’s just how it works. The fastest way to resolve the situation is for everyone in the open lane to let one car from the closing lane go in front of them when the lane ends.

They’re further increasing traffic density,

No they aren’t. Traffic density is increasing because the number of cars is remaining the same while the volume of road is reducing. Density is going to increase no matter what, but if you handle that increased density in an organized manner, like having all the cars merge at the same time (AKA a fucking zipper merge), you can reduce the slowdowns the increased density causes.

That is why rolling stops happen

Traffic waves (I assume thats what you mean, since rolling stops make no sense in this context) happen when someone experiences an unexpected traffic pattern and has to stop short, causing the person behind them to stop short, and so on. If you want to reduce traffic waves, the best thing you can do is behave as predictably as possible. Having everyone merge at a predictable time, (like, for example, at the end of a lane) is one of the best things you can do to prevent traffic waves.

people WILL slow down once density reaches a certain point, and cramming a closed lane full is INCREASING DENSITY.

Literally the opposite is true; the same number of cars spread over two lanes have a lower density than those cars spread over one lane. That’s what density means; a rock has a higher density than air because it has more matter crammed into the same volume. The density of the traffic will eventually increase no matter what when the second lane ends, you’re just advocating for that to happen sooner and in a more chaotic manner because you feel like you’re getting cut in line.

This isn’t rocket science, yet a lot of you fuckwits are clearly still playing with crayons.

Let ye who understands the concept of density cast the first stone.

I don’t know what to tell you, I’d literally never heard of," blocking the box," until you said it. Meanwhile, Gridlock is so ubiquitous and well understood that, as your quote points out, it’s a universal metaphor for a blockage or impass.

Also, if we just accept this vague use of gridlock, (I’ve never heard anyone is it for anything other than actual gridlock, but whatever) you realize that this quote explicitly states that some people use, “gridlock,” and, “traffic congestion,” interchangeably, meaning your claim thar, “gridlock,” means “stop and go traffic,” not, “contested traffic,” is flat out wrong, right?

No, that’s definitely gridlock, blocking the box is just another name for it.

If you’re talking about someone exiting their lane to enter a lane that’s about to close in order to get ahead, sure,.that’s kinda a dick move, but if you’re saying that someone should leave their lane early because the lane that’s ending isn’t very busy, no, that’s wrong. Even if the closing lane is going much faster, when that lane ends, the driver will have to slow down to match the speed of the other lane and wait to be let in. The driver behind him will catch up, and a zipper merge will develop. They’re not doing anything wrong, you just mad that they’re passing you.

Also, a lane can never be, “full,” just busy. You think they’re at fault because they’re trying to get into a lane that’ doesn’t have room for them, but actually you’re at fault because you’re not making room for them.

Depends. If traffic is light, they’re not going significantly faster than the speed of traffic in the other lane, or they’re going significantly slower than the car in front of them, yes, they’re an asshole. If traffic is relatively dense, they’re passing the right lane at a good speed, and they’re matching the speed of the car in front of them, no, everyone shouldn’t change lanes just because you think, “passing,” lane means, “drive as fast as I want regardless of traffic patterns,” lane.

Making everyone in front of you change lanes because you’ve decided the passing lane isn’t passing as fast as you’d like is just going to create slowdowns behind you as you continually cause other cars to change lanes. Also, no matter what, if you’re following someone that closely at highway speeds, you’re an asshole. Flash your high beams if you wanna pass.

I think you mean congestion. Gridlock is when cars attempt to cross an intersection during a green light even though there is too much traffic to pass completely, leaving them stranded mid-intersection when the light turns red, thereby blocking the perpendicular traffic from crossing the intersection when their light turns green (literally locking the grid).

Not really. The traffic has to squeeze through the same number of lanes at some point.

Yeah, and the most efficient way to do that is for everyone to zipper merge at the same point. You can’t just have everyone decide over the course of two miles when they think it’s appropriate to start a zipper merge; that’s not a zipper merge, that’s just changing lanes, and it creates unpredictable traffic patterns that lead to congestion. The end of the lane is obviously the best fixed point for everyone to merge because A) you utilize both lanes as long as possible for optimal efficiency and B) even the most oblivious dumb-ass knows they need to change lanes when they run out of lane.

LOL, I didn’t even notice I got downvoted. I’m surprised, “Biden downplaying inflation cost him/Harris support,” ie still controversial with anyone in 2026. Even the establishment Dem cheerleader pundits seem to have accepted that it was a blunder.

So, Biden’s 2024 strategy. Looking forward to seeing that play out in the midterms.

Yeah, they learned that capitulation isn’t profitable when they fired Jimmy Kimmel and everyone canceled their Disney+ subscription. From then on, they decided to stand up for free speech until their dying breath (or until the cost/benefit shifts and the harassment from the FCC costs them more than the blowback from collaborating with the regime).

I don’t think I could eat a whole house.

Roaches infest your home and spread diseases. Butterflies live outside and spread pollen.

“Here’s a graph that shows that, on average, real wages have gone up more than inflation!”

“Well my wages haven’t gone up, and now I can’t afford groceries.”

“Did you even look at the graph?”

We’ll see. The only cure foe scapegoating, far-right populism is genuine economic populism. I’m optimistic that, if we excise enough of the third-way rot from the party, the remaining Democratic hacks will see which way the wind is blowing and fall in line behind an actual progressive vision.

A) This person is very clearly not saying they are the same, and even provided you a visual guide explaining the difference.

B) “Fixing the economy,” always means stabilizing the stock market and lowering the deficit, but never improving the material conditions of the working class. Obama stabilized the stock market by bailing out the banks who created the financial crisis, not the homeowners facing foreclosure. Biden curbed inflation with supply-side measures instead of price control. Even Clinton responded to the H.W. Bush recession by gutting welfare and deregulating Wall Street (hell, repealing Glass-Steagall is one of the main reasons we got the financial crisis in the first place).

The Democratic Socialists are fielding a lot of viable challenges against Democrats this year, both in open seats and against incumbents. Mamdani is the very famous example, but there were a lot of DSA victories in city council races across the country, and there’s also a primary challenge for Rep. Richie Torres.

He’s not DSA affiliated, but Graham Platner just pushed centrist Janet Mills out of the Democratic primary race, allowing him to challenge Republican Susan Collins. Progressive Analilia Mejia also defeated AIPAC centrist Tom Malinowski in her primary and went on to win the special election to represent New Jersey’s 11th district. It’s still early, but this is could be a real reckoning for the centrist liberals that have ruled the party for the last 3 decades.

The best solution would be for Charlie Brown to kick Lucy and run the ball himself. (This is a metaphor for primarying sitting Democrats.)