Here is another Road Trip idea. This may be a bit difficult to organize, but would really make a point. If we could get the entire RT community to drive East on a designated Sunday, and then in shifts, turn around to "go to the fairgrounds", we could perform a real test of the traffic situation going to Green Pond Road. We would have to divide it up into five groups (simulating 5 shows) and insert about a 1 hour delay between the triggering of each of the 5 groups descending upon and then exiting RT. After they arrived, each group would delay about 1.25 hours and then they would be instructed to go back from whence they came so that the traffic effects in both directions could be measured. When these groups arrived at the RT site, we could either get the Agilent property to be opened up for our test and/or use the business property across the street as our staging area for this simulation. I would recommend that we use video cameras and still photography to document the results of the test. Also, perhaps we could rent traffic logging equipment to monitor specific numerical data.
If we could actually pull this off, the testimony of all the experts could be completely nullified by our "real test." Their testimony will be based strictly on "conjecture" where our testimoney will be based on real data. It's hard to argue with the results of a real test.
What do you think? Would this be possible to pull off? Even if we could not get the entire town to participate, we might be able to get part of the town to do so with their relatives helping out who live out of town.
I though about something like this a while ago.....you may want to sleep on it again, but please don't let me discourage you from thinking out of the box. It will be a logistical nightmare for you to coordinate, unless you're up for the challenge.
People (especially those with kids) are busy, and may have good intentions to participate, but in end most won't show. Same sentiment they have towards the planning board meetings (they won't miss me, other people will show in my place). Half the people think that way and we end up with 400 instead of 800.
If you can remember back to when Rt 80 was closed for a month or so. People were taking back roads to go west at rush hour. The traffic to make a left off of Meridan onto Green Pond was backed up for almost a mile on Meridan and Old Beach Glenn Road. This should give you some indication of what 1800 cars coming and going at the same time will look like.
I remember that nightmare when Rt 80 was closed. Meriden road became a main highway here in town. As for the logistics, I understand what you are saying. It is not a piece of cake to pull it off. I wonder if there is a way to "scale" the experiment (reduce the intensity and interpolate from those results). I will sleep on it. Any other ideas would be great.
The more that I think about it, this is probably not practical. The reasons are the following:
1. We would have to get permission to use the Agilent property as our destination. I doubt that they would allow that.
2. We would have to get police permission to lay down traffic monitors.
3. We would have to co-ordinate too many people to perform an accurate experiment. I am not sure how to "scale" it down. I do not understand traffic science and do not know if there are "higher order" effects when the numbers are reduced making linear predictions possibly misleading.
Any other ideas about it? Any traffic experts here in town to help with this perhaps in an advisory capacity?
