This plan is head and shoulders better than the original - which was completely unacceptable. I like that the I-10 EB to I-95 SB ramp is now changing from 1 lane to 2 lanes. That should have never been 1 lane to begin with. Project traffic was clearly botched on that original design. I also like the reconfigured merge were between College and Park. I still think that way too much is going into I-10 WB. While that movement does back up in the PM peak I don't think it is on the same level as the I-10 EB to I-95 SB backup in the AM peak. The shared use path is the bees knees though. Really glad that's been added. I know it wouldn't be popular I really think that the Stockton on-ramp should have been closed in the original project and should still be closed- it creates a crazy weave which adds to the back up. Just my .02.
Oh God, now there's going to be even more traffic on I-10 EB trying to get into the right lanes to go South on 95 instead of staying in the left (correct) lanes. I really wish they would just isolate that ramp somehow to only those getting on 10 at Stockton.
I think the major mistake in that idea was that traffic utilizing that ramp was severely underestimated. I think the designers probably thought that ramp would be rarely used and the majority of traffic would utilize the other I-95 SB ramps. However the opposite occurred. Reason being is that there is a huge amount of traffic coming off of the Roosevelt ramp onto I-10. In the AM peak it is nearly impossible to merge across the necessary lanes to utilize the other ramps within that short distance so the majority of those people coming off Roosevelt stay in the right lanes and take the single lane ramp. Add that to those merging on at the Stockton ramp, the woefully inadequate signage, and those people who don't pay attention and then realize they are not in the correct lane until the last minute to go south and you have cluster that we have now. Ta-da.
I still cannot believe that original design was deemed acceptable when it doesn't take an engineer to tell you that you are going to have tons and tons of traffic coming off of Roosevelt. It is a major artery serving numerous highly dense neighborhoods. The problems we have now are the logical result of this design.
Adding to the issues you mentioned, there are also a
ton of drivers heading East (prior to Roosevelt dumping onto I-10) that move into the right-most lanes at either the first sign of a backup on the left lanes heading to I-95 South, or because they think it's somehow faster all other factors being equal. They end up causing a lot of the traffic from Roosevelt to get stuck in the rightmost lanes before they can merge left.
I would really like to see how traffic would flow for a week if traffic on that ramp was limited to just those getting on at Stockton. FWIW, it looks like the FDOT is going to double-stripe I-10E to separate 95 North and South like they should. I would prefer something with a little more texture/feedback than paint.......
