No Merge Area

[Buffaboy]

Can be very dangerous if you accelerate too fast too late. I was on the SB I-190 on ramp in Buffalo at the Niagara St exit when I encountered this sign. Previously I was able to handle this ramp very well. There was a high volume of cars coming in the adjacent lane however, and this threw me off as I looked behind my shoulder instead of in the mirror. I had to almost come to a complete stop and was accosted by a symphony of horns.

How do you handle these "no-merge areas?"

[Brandon]

Can be very dangerous if you accelerate too fast too soon. I was on the SB I-190 on ramp in Buffalo at the Niagara St exit when I encountered this sign. Previously I was able to handle this ramp very well. There was a high volume of cars coming in the adjacent lane however, and this threw me off as I looked behind my shoulder instead of in the mirror. I had to almost come to a complete stop and was accosted by a symphony of horns.

How do you handle these "no-merge areas?"

Get your ass up to speed and merge in as quickly as possible.  The ramp IS the acceleration lane.  You should already be looking for your gap in traffic well before the merge point.  If you're looking at the merge point, you're too late.

[DrSmith]

That's what I do too. There are places on the Merritt and Wilbur Cross Parkways where there is no merge area. Many of them have stop signs at the end of the ramp. But I think the best approach is to look while on the ramp and treat the stop sign as a yield and go throttle to the firewall as you get on the highway.

[jeffandnicole]

Even with a merge lane, many motorists blindly just start going at whatever speed they want to go, then cut in. They need to speed up to a point where they can find a gap, which means they need to keep an eye on approaching traffic.  It's a game of skills and doing multiple things at one time...there's no one specific speed that works.  If someone is the type that needs to do things step by step, they're going to have trouble, especially in a no-merge situation.

[tdindy88]

If I recall, some of the entrance ramps onto the 110 parkway near Pasadena are governed by stop signs. It is among the oldest freeways in the country of course.

[hbelkins]

How do you handle these "no-merge areas?"

Contact the DOT and tell them to modernize the intersection. 

[wanderer2575]

Even with a merge lane, many motorists blindly just start going at whatever speed they want to go, then cut in. They need to speed up to a point where they can find a gap, which means they need to keep an eye on approaching traffic.

Which also affects everyone behind them on the ramp.  Just a couple hours ago, I was behind some jackass doing a leisurely 35mph on an entrance ramp merging into a 70+mph freeway.  Not having the ability to reconfigure my molecular structure to pass through him, that meant *I* was forced to merge at 35mph.  I, not the jackass, would have been the one rear-ended if the driver already in the lane didn't slow down to avoid me.

[paulthemapguy]

If you're in front of me on an entrance ramp, and you aren't already at 45mph or greater by the time the ramp pavement meets the mainline pavement, I WILL be honking at you unless you're some kind of big rig truck.

[Tom958]

If I was driving that ramp, I'd edge left onto the white line even though it's likely frowned upon or even illegal, to let the highway traffic know that I'm comin' in. And if I was on the highway, I'd drive friendly-- and be on brake slammer watch!

That's a short taper, but "no merge area" is an overstatement. Check this out, on a high-volume ramp opened just a few weeks ago near my house. Hey, isn't that kinda... short?



SHIIIIIIIT! 

[vdeane]

If I was driving that ramp, I'd edge left onto the white line even though it's likely frowned upon or even illegal, to let the highway traffic know that I'm comin' in. And if I was on the highway, I'd drive friendly-- and be on brake slammer watch!

That's a short taper, but "no merge area" is an overstatement. Check this out, on a high-volume ramp opened just a few weeks ago near my house. Hey, isn't that kinda... short?



SHIIIIIIIT! 

That's a special kind of ramp where the acceleration lane is built-in to the ramp.  You're supposed to look for the gap and accelerate up to speed while on the ramp and do a zipper merge.  Probably a good design for areas with heavy ramp traffic and an early merging culture (which results in people cutting into the freeway at 35 mph despite there being an acceleration lane, creating backups and a few opportunists who use the acceleration lane to cut in line).

[Tom958]

That's a special kind of ramp where the acceleration lane is built-in to the ramp.  You're supposed to look for the gap and accelerate up to speed while on the ramp and do a zipper merge.  Probably a good design for areas with heavy ramp traffic and an early merging culture (which results in people cutting into the freeway at 35 mph despite there being an acceleration lane, creating backups and a few opportunists who use the acceleration lane to cut in line).

I didn't post the location since Google Maps hasn't been updated since construction has been completed, but... here it is. We're looking west, and the little creek shown on the map is what's under the bridges in the photos. The roadway I'm on is an overlong onramp which somewhat resembles a CD road. It's quite straight and two lanes wide, and over half a mile from the last signalized intersection. It's unimaginable that anybody would be doing 35 mph by the time they reached the merging area. Also, the ramp serves two interchanges, which suggests that it requires a full-sized standard taper at the very least, not the truncated version they painted instead. Worse, since the approach to the taper is level rather than on a downward grade like the example in the OP, there's little opportunity to see in advance how short the taper is, and, since it's at odds with normal practice, no reason to expect it.

The saving grace compared with the OP example is that there's a shoulder to escape into, though it was obstructed by barrels when I took this photo.

This is a pointless and unexpected deviation from custom and practice in Georgia and, for that matter, any states which use taper merge lanes. I suspect that it's the result of lack of attention to detail, which is something that plagues GDOT these days.

[hbelkins]

Traffic on the mainline has the right of way. Period. If there is no gap, traffic on the ramp is supposed to stop if necessary to yield the ROW to traffic on the mainline.

[UCFKnights]

Ramp meters, IMHO, are worthless things and should be removed.

Unfortunately, I believe all the studies beg to differ.

[jakeroot]

Ramp meters, IMHO, are worthless things and should be removed.

Unfortunately, I believe all the studies beg to differ.

I definitely don't agree with removing ramp meters. Having grown up in the Seattle area (where ramp-meters are used at almost all freeway entrances), I've really come to appreciate them, despite the sometimes lengthy delay for entering traffic. They're exceptionally helpful when you have a heavy merge right before a heavy exit (in other words, a heavy weave). If there's fewer vehicles merging at the same time, the cars exiting are able to think less about merging with those entering the freeway, and more about getting to their exit and getting on with their fucking day.

Brandon, just out of curiosity: do you understand the physics behind ramp meters, and why they're becoming more and more common? Not sure how often you see them around Chicago, but basically all first-world countries use ramp meters: Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, Japan, South Africa, Holland, Italy, Germany, etc. While I usually avoid the "lemming" rule, I don't think everyone would be using them if they weren't proven to be a valuable traffic-control asset.

[ET21]

Ramp meters are all over I-290, I-90 and I-94 in Chicago and parts of the suburbs

[paulthemapguy]

I echo the sentiment that ramp meters are indeed useful, and my opinion on this is based on going to Washington State and seeing how effective they are there.  The ones on Chicago freeways seem to just delay the inevitable jamming, but that's probably a statement about Chicago's ineffectual freeway system, more than it is a statement about the ramp meters themselves.

[Tom958]

Did I miss something? Around here ramp meters are placed far enough back that vehicles can get up to merging speed (well, LOS D merging speed) after stopping, making them irrelevant to the matter at hand.

...said Tom958, after posting something that was at best tangential to the topic himself. 

[JREwing78]

This might be a better illustration of "No Merge Area". This stretch of I-94 has hardly been altered from its early 1950's (US-12) configuration. You have barely 1/4 mile to accelerate (uphill) from a dead stop to merge with 70+ mph traffic. The only thing that saves your bacon here is the paved shoulder.

MDOT could easily resolve the issue with about 1000 feet of merge lane, and in fact has with the next exit eastbound (including the necessary wider bridge). It's kinda astounding they didn't put a few thousand bucks into doing so during the last round of pavement work.

Welcome to Parma, MI.

Overhead:
https://goo.gl/maps/PZi96PSPDgu

Street view at the ramp entrance:
https://goo.gl/maps/tvVCDQtD8Yw

At the merge point:
https://goo.gl/maps/kSAx54UZpd42

[vdeane]

I wouldn't be surprised if it was designed that way to try to avoid a situation where everyone tries to merge way too soon well below the speed of traffic (thereby causing a backup).  There's another one on I-390 north at exit 13.  Personally, I think there's a case to be made that some ramps on the Northway should probably be like that.

[mariethefoxy]

theres a ton of these on Long Island, many of them are missing Yield signs. Some people drive right to the end of the ramp and wait there to move over, which is wicked dangerous.

Best way is to wait just before the ramp meets the highway, look for a gap in traffic then floor it. If theres a shoulder lane use that for extra space to get up to speed. Thats what I ended up having to do on the Merrit Parkway. The onramps from the rest stops have yield signs and no merging area.

[bzakharin]

This isn't a freeway, but it *is* a divided highway with a posted 45 MPH speed limit. This is what I have to deal with every day twice a day (exiting NJ 70 in the morning and on entering at night):
https://www.google.com/maps/@39.9089685,-74.9834108,3a,75y,250.08h,71.26t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sm1ouUbSD2EWN-fqAiMcdPw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
Not only does the entrance lane become an exit lane after barely touching the mainline, it merges with the right lane which is exit only. During morning rush, the whole setup is jammed with entering traffic trying to merge with the exiting traffic. During evening rush, traffic in the through lanes zooms by at speed. Finding a gap isn't a guarantee at all. It's still faster than any other way on or off I-295 South in my area.

[jay8g]

Something tells me it's a problem here...

[MASTERNC]

This one is particularly awful - not only is there a backup at rush hour but I have seen fender benders and have almost been rear-ended by a truck at highway speeds.  Traffic trying to merge onto I-95 NB in Wilmington, DE from the central business district not only has no acceleration lane but a weaving area with the right hand lane exiting about 3/4 mile up the road.  The third lane is added from an on-ramp from a parallel service road about 1/4 mile back.  It should be possible to make this ramp the third lane and make the earlier on-ramp merge with a decent acceleration lane, but DelDOT claims there's nothing they can do.

https://goo.gl/maps/ydCAfnPFVZR2

[paulthemapguy]

re:  the above and the Seattle examples--maybe we should stop constructing onramps that merge onto the freeway just before it enters an overpass or underpass!  It looks like bridge projects tend not to consider the need for an acceleration or deceleration lane for a ramp outside the project limits.

[jeffandnicole]

re:  the above and the Seattle examples--maybe we should stop constructing onramps that merge onto the freeway just before it enters an overpass or underpass!  It looks like bridge projects tend not to consider the need for an acceleration or deceleration lane for a ramp outside the project limits.

The Delaware example was a product of highway building in the 1960's.  I'm pretty sure bridge projects today consider those needs.